NM mom gave sippy cup full of beer to kiddo, age 1, police say

To be fair, there's no way someone with hands that little could hold a longneck.

Olathe PD will start putting boots on cars

Cars that belong to folks with $100 or more of outstanding tickets, Finn Bullers reports at Prime Buzz.

Not remotely crime-related

I think we've reached unprecedented levels of wrongness with this one.

Hello, Kitty

Wyoming cop gets sent to a house to deal with a cat. Dispatcher described it as a "house cat." The caller, however, said "BIG CAT" as in a mountain lion. Hilarity ensues. (And I'm guessing there was probably a beatdown back at dispatch, after the officer got his stitches ...)

Criminal charges for boy accused of pulling knife at school

From Joe Lambe:

A 12-year-old boy accused of threatening people at Holy Trinity School is charged as a juvenile with three counts of aggravated assault, authorities said.

The eighth-grade student displayed a large the knife Monday in a way that threatened teachers and students at the school at 13600 W. 92nd St., Lenexa police said. Teachers disarmed the boy and held him for police. No one was injured.

Guilty plea in bicyclist's murder

From Kevin Hoffmann:

A Kansas City man today pleaded guilty to killing a bicyclist as he rode through an east Kansas City neighborhood.

Fabian D. Brown Jr., 23, is the second codefendant to plead to the killing of 43-year-old Robert W. Osborn in November 2005. Brown pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and armed criminal action, the same charges that Rapheal L. Willis admitted to in August.

Brown told Jackson County Circuit Judge Jay A. Daugherty that Willis and he were looking to rob someone during the early morning hours. He admitted that they planned to rob and shoot a woman and then decided against it. Brown told the judge that when they saw Osborn on his bike that he fired a rifle twice but missed on purpose. He said Willis then fired a shotgun and killed Osborn.

Osborn had just left his job at the Hy-Vee Food & Drug Store at U.S. 40 and Noland Road and was riding his bike home, as he often did. He was shot along 47th Street near Blue Ridge Boulevard.

The photo is of Osborn, who's the focus of a memorial site here. After his death, his family has been very outspoken about crime prevention. (They're the folks responsible for the Safe Streets, Safe City proposal.)

Here's an earlier post on Osborn -- his obituary.
An older post about the case from local blogger Eddie B.

Mayra Lizbeth Rosales

From The AP: This file photo originally released by the Hidalgo County Sheriff's Office shows Mayra Lizbeth Rosales who is facing a murder charge in the death of her 2-year-old nephew. Her trial will have to be held in a building separate from the courthouse because of the defendant's weight, her lawyer said.

Rosales, whose weight has been estimated between 800 pounds and 1,000 pounds, was arrested in March and charged at home because the Hidalgo County sheriff's department did not have a large enough cell or a way to transport her to jail. (AP Photo/Hidalgo County Sheriff's Office, File)

Were the P&L and Westport shootings underplayed?

That's what Capt. Spaulding, another local blogger, argues. Snip:

First- the 2:20am Sunday morning shooting in a 13th Street & Grand parking garage near the city's blessed "Power & Light" entertainment district.

No news accounts anywhere in this town told of the "chaos" of hundreds of people trying to get to their cars to go home- only to find that parking garage and the street around it sealed off with yellow police crime-scene tape.

Channel 41's videographer Al Miller told me of this several times as I spoke with him from the scene. You could even HEAR the people in the background as Mr. Miller described people "disregarding the crime-scene tape and going under it" to get to their cars and go home.

Oh, H.R. isn't going to like this at all ...

Dear Employers: If you do catch an employee stealing from you, it would probably be very tempting to wrestle him to the ground and then force him to march down a busy street while wearing an "I AM A THIEF" sign, but be careful ... the police might arrest YOU, too.

(There's an excellent photo after the jump ...)

Hat Tip: Many thanks, You're A Mean Drunk R2D2!

Open Thread ... Tuesday

Welcome back to the Open Thread, our blog's space for off-topic comments and discussion. This is also a good place to share links, if you've seen an interesting story somewhere else.

Please sign your comments, and please avoid profanity, as well as racially and sexually abusive language. And when you sign your comments, please use only one nickname. I read the OT, but if you need to contact me directly, my email is jhart@kcstar.com. Thanks, and have a great day!

Portrait of a criminal mastermind

From the Lincoln Journal Star:

Mary E. McDaniel danced near a safe she allegedly helped target and steal, saying she was going to be rich, according to court documents.

She’d allegedly told accomplices before last spring’s theft it could contain upwards of $70,000.

Instead, her one-sixth of the cut amounted to $80, according to court documents.

Precious Doe trial soon to start

From The AP:

Jury selection is set to begin Wednesday in the first-degree murder trial of Harrell Johnson. Testimony is expected to start Monday.

The case gained national attention after the 2001 discovery of the girl’s remains and again in 2005 when she was identified as Erica Green.

Johnson, 29, of Muskogee, Okla., is accused of kicking the child in the head when she wouldn’t go to bed, leaving her to die, decapitating her and dumping her body.

Stabbed in the head!

From The AP: In this undated Metropolitan Police handout, x-ray images show how a teenage boy cheated death when a five inch knife was plunged into his head. The 16-year-old and two other young men were injured when they tried to stop a friend being robbed at a bus stop. He was rushed to hospital with the kitchen knife still stuck in his forehead after the attack in Walworth, south London, last November. (AP Photo/ Metropolitan Police, HO)

More here ...

REMINDER: Ride To Remember

The local chapter of Parents Of Murdered Children will host their annual "Ride To Remember" motorcycle run on Saturday at Knuckleheads Saloon. Registration starts at noon, the last bike is out by 1 and the last bike is in by 4. (Knuckleheads is the ending point, too.) It's a $20 fee per rider and passenger, money which benefits POMC.

For more information, visit the group's site.

Prosecution rests in O.J. Simpson case

The AP thinks we could have closing statements by Thursday.

Fishing for underwear

That's what Japanese police allegedly caught one man doing -- using a fishing pole to steal women's nderwear off a balcony. He must be a pretty successful "fisherman." Police reportedly found 500 pair at his house.

3 years for sex with corpse

This is the case from Cincinnati, where a convicted killer acknowledged that he'd murdered a young woman in 1982, but denied raping her. Turns out, he was right -- a morgue employee had actually had sex with the corpse. That worker is now getting three years in prison.

Hat Tip: Many thanks, JUNGLE JIM!

MI6 terror information allegedly sold on Ebay

Technically, it was an old camera that was on sale, but its memory held information about several Al-Qaeda figures. Police are investigating how this happened ...

Hat Tip: Many thanks, Simone!

MO police partly cleared in Tasering of teenager

This is the case from Ozark, Mo., where a teenager reportedly fell from an overpass and landed on the shoulder of the highway. The two police officers who found him ended up firing their Tasers about 19 times at him, though it's not clear if all of those charges hit him. The police say he was being uncooperative, and they were just trying to stop him from running into the road.

The teen had a broken back and punctured lung -- his folks say the extra Taserings slowed down his recovery. Ozark police have cleared the officers,and the highway patrol is conducting a study, too.

Woman in cow suit urinates on porch, chases children

I am feverishly trying to track down a copy of the mugshot ...

Hat Tip: Saw this via Fark!

Hat Tip: Many thanks, You're A Mean Drunk R2D2 and JUNGLE JIM!

Douglas County looks into string of cat mutilations

The Journal-World has more here.

Federal judge says Ladies Nights are constitutional

A gentleman had argued that promotional events offering free or reduced booze to women is unfair to men. Neither Kool nor The Gang were available for comment.

Hat Tip: Many thanks, JH and JUNGLE JIM!

You know you've had a successful heist if ...

... you can't fit all the money into your getaway car.

8th-grader pulls knife at school, Lenexa police say

It happened at Holy Trinity School, and nobody got hurt. Apparently, it was all prompted because the kid came back to the room wearing some sort of "costume."

Does the First Amendment protect cursing at the police?

The South Dakota Supremes are going to be pondering this very question. The case involves a man who was arrested for yelling profanities at police cruisers as they drove by. (This all happened after the bars closed.) The authorities hauled him in because of disorderly conduct -- they say he was too loud for that time of night. And they argue his speech isn't protected because they were "fighting words" and could have led to violence.

Hat Tip: Many thanks, JUNGLE JIM!