600-pound man accused of stealing food

Story is from Sanford, Fla. Basically, the guy would go to restaurants or food stores and say that he'd been sold damaged food, then ask for compensation. He's pleaded no-contest in a deal that will keep him out of jail. He couldn't come to the courthouse because he's too heavy and too sick, the Orlando Sentinel reports. He's 38.

Never mind the militias?

Despite the Hutaree case, where the feds have accused nine people in a plot to kill police, the FBI does NOT think we're poised to see a wave of militia-related violence. The AP has gotten its hand on a bulletin that the bureau sent to police departments. And while they say it's possible that lone wolves might do something stupid, the possibility of another Waco is less likely.

The one that got away

In Orangeburg, S.C., a thief tried to steal money bags from a bank's night deposit by fishing for them with hooks and fishing line. He didn't get anything because it's, well, sort of impossible, thanks to how the deposit box is built. Clerks only realized that shenanigans were afoot because they found the hooks in the box.

Shooter used Facebook to lure victim, cops say

Lincoln police are working an unusual shooting: They say a man created a fake Fakebook ID -- "John Smith" -- to get close to his ex-girlfriend, whom he made plans to meet. And then shoot, they say.

Hey, kid, wanna buy a goldfish?

A British woman has been convicted of selling a goldfish to a 14-year-old boy and ordered to wear a monitoring device on her ankle. She was actually caught during a police sting. U.K. law says it's illegal to sell live fish to anyone under 16.

Hat Tip: Many thanks, Tim P!

Life without parole in Emily Sander case

Israel Mireles -- the man convicted of murdering college student Emily Sander -- has been sentenced to life without parole, the Eagle reports. Mireles was captured in Mexico, but their government wouldn't send him back to the U.S. unless authorities promised not to execute him, a standard demand.

Open Thread ... Wednesday

Welcome back to the Open Thread, our blog's space for off-topic comments and discussion. If you've seen an interesting story somewhere else, feel free to post a link below.

As always, please follow our standard rules: 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. If you need to reach me, just send an email to jhart@kcstar.com. Thanks again, and have a great day!

Welcome back to the Open Thread, our blog's space for off-topic comments and discussion. If you've seen an interesting story somewhere else, feel free to post a link below.

As always, please follow our standard rules: 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. If you need to reach me, just send an email to jhart@kcstar.com. Thanks again, and have a great day!

Welcome back to the Open Thread, our blog's space for off-topic comments and discussion. If you've seen an interesting story somewhere else, feel free to post a link below.

As always, please follow our standard rules: 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. If you need to reach me, just send an email to jhart@kcstar.com. Thanks again, and have a great day!

Welcome back to the Open Thread, our blog's space for off-topic comments and discussion. If you've seen an interesting story somewhere else, feel free to post a link below.

As always, please follow our standard rules: 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. If you need to reach me, just send an email to jhart@kcstar.com. Thanks again, and have a great day!

Welcome back to the Open Thread, our blog's space for off-topic comments and discussion. If you've seen an interesting story somewhere else, feel free to post a link below.

As always, please follow our standard rules: 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. If you need to reach me, just send an email to jhart@kcstar.com. Thanks again, and have a great day!

Welcome back to the Open Thread, our blog's space for off-topic comments and discussion. If you've seen an interesting story somewhere else, feel free to post a link below.

As always, please follow our standard rules: 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. If you need to reach me, just send an email to jhart@kcstar.com. Thanks again, and have a great day!

Welcome back to the Open Thread, our blog's space for off-topic comments and discussion. If you've seen an interesting story somewhere else, feel free to post a link below.

As always, please follow our standard rules: 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. If you need to reach me, just send an email to jhart@kcstar.com. Thanks again, and have a great day!

Welcome back to the Open Thread, our blog's space for off-topic comments and discussion. If you've seen an interesting story somewhere else, feel free to post a link below.

As always, please follow our standard rules: 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. If you need to reach me, just send an email to jhart@kcstar.com. Thanks again, and have a great day!

Welcome back to the Open Thread, our blog's space for off-topic comments and discussion. If you've seen an interesting story somewhere else, feel free to post a link below.

As always, please follow our standard rules: 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. If you need to reach me, just send an email to jhart@kcstar.com. Thanks again, and have a great day!

Welcome back to the Open Thread, our blog's space for off-topic comments and discussion. If you've seen an interesting story somewhere else, feel free to post a link below.

As always, please follow our standard rules: 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. If you need to reach me, just send an email to jhart@kcstar.com. Thanks again, and have a great day!

Welcome back to the Open Thread, our blog's space for off-topic comments and discussion. If you've seen an interesting story somewhere else, feel free to post a link below.

As always, please follow our standard rules: 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. If you need to reach me, just send an email to jhart@kcstar.com. Thanks again, and have a great day!

N.J. teen accused of prostituting sister, 7

Trenton police have accused a 15-year-old girl of taking her little sister, 7, to a party and charging as many as seven people for having sex with the child. Some strangers reportedly walked the 7-year-old, who was crying, home. Police also accused the teen of having sex for money.

(AP Photo/Rich Schultz)

Peeping Tom had 'shopping list,' police say

Wisconsin police say the man kept a list of women that he'd seen before and wanted to look at again, and he apparently had memorized what time they took showers.

Timing is everything

Sikeston police say officers were driving along Saturday when a meth lab exploded in an oncoming car, white smoke started pouring from the windows and the driver ran into a ditch.

Hat Tip: Many thanks, cripjak!

School board member pleads guilty to child porn

David Buie, a former Hickman Mills school board member and a former KCMO parks employee, has pleaded guilty in federal court to possessing child pornography, the U.S. attorney's office reports. He apparently downloaded child porn at his work computer, and police say they found diskettes with hundreds of images in his vehicle.

Police-involved shooting in P.V.

From Prairie Village: At approximately 0659 hours on March 31, 2010, Prairie Village Police Officers were dispatched to the 4300 block of W. 93rd Terrace in the Kenilworth apartment complex on a welfare check of a 47-year-old female. The subject had made suicidal and threatening comments to other law enforcement agencies this morning. Officers contacted the female but she refused to open her doors. The female barricaded the door, and continued to make threatening statements on scene.

At approximately 0945 hours, members of the Prairie Village Police Department Critical Incident Response Team attempted to take the female into custody. The female threatened the officers with a weapon and she was fatally shot. The Johnson County Officer Involved Shooting Team and Crime Lab are currently investigating the scene.

MISSING: Sylvia R. Bell

From KCPD: SYLVIA R. BELL B/F, 48 YOA, 5’4, 110#, BLACK HAIR, BROWN EYES, she was wearing a purple shirt, dark jeans, purple and white striped socks. Her hair is fashioned into two ponytails.

Ms. Bell was last seen 3-30-2010 about 1300 hours at 1822 Spruce where she was let out of a cab. She hasn't been seen or heard from since. Her family is concerned for her safety. Ms. Bell suffers from memory loss and may be disoriented. If contacted have her contact her family and notify missing persons at 234-5136.

More charges in fatal KC wreck

Clayton Dunlap -- the driver whose crash killed a 12-year-old boy this weekend -- is facing more charges, Jackson County prosecutors report. He's accused of resisting a lawful stop, driving while revoked and driving while intoxicated. That's on top of a second-degree murder charge.

Dunlap appeared in court yesterday, KSHB reports, and apparently made a scene:

In court, Dunlap yelled to family and friends in the court, “I was sober”.

Can this relationship be saved?

Things spiral out of control after a Florida woman accidentally sends a photo of her genitals over the Internet.

Suicide by cucumber?

Because it's from the Sun, I'm taking this one with a grain of salt -- the story, that is, not the cucumber. If this actually happened, I don't think he was trying to kill himself.

Hat Tip: Many thanks, cripjak!

Girl brought knives to stop teasing, cops say

In Spring Hill, Fla., an 11-year-old girl -- nicknamed "Godzilla" because of her size -- allegedly brought two of her knives to school so that kids would stop teasing her. (She's 5 feet 1 and 110 pounds, if you were curious.) She was arrested and taken to jail.

Bill would alert prosecutors to teen abortions

The Missouri House has passed a bill that would require abortion providers to tell prosecutors whenever a teenage girl seeks an abortion. Legislators say it's another way to alert law enforcement about possible rapes, the AP reports. There would also be a new crime for coercing a woman to have an abortion. It's not clear how the bill will do in the state Senate.

Brake line cut on local cop's car

KMBC reports that someone apparently cut the brake line of a deputy's private car in Lafayette County. Worse, the brakes failed while that man's son was driving the car. (Luckily, it didn't lead to a severe wreck, and nobody was seriously hurt.) There's now a $1,000 reward in the case.

Some headlines just write themselves

From The Sun, via Fark:

"Sex-change killer to wed lesbian murderess in jail"

Really? This isn't a crime?

In KCK, a company that disposes of medical waste -- which sounds like the best job in the world -- received six human heads and six plastic tubs full of torsos, legs and other body parts. Joe Lambe reports the coroner has taken custody of the body parts, but police aren't treating it as a crime. Snip:

But the coroner, Alan Hancock, is not pleased. Authorities say, however, that it is unclear whether any laws have been broken.

“They were sent though the mail,” Hancock said. “It seems like a crime to me.”

Should pope testify in sex-abuse case?

In Kentucky, three men have filed a lawsuit claiming the Vatican should be held responsible for child molestations that occurred years ago because the church didn't tell police or warn anyone about alleged abusers. They want to depose the pope -- something the Vatican plans to fight. Snip from AP:

Vatican lawyers plan to argue that the pope has immunity as head of state, that American bishops who oversaw abusive priests weren't employees of the Vatican, and that a 1962 document is not the "smoking gun" that provides proof of a cover up, the documents reveal.

UPDATE: I was listening to NPR this morning, and Sylvia Poggioli had a report on the whole matter of having the pope testify.

... Vatican lawyers plan to argue that Pope Benedict has immunity as a head of state. But lawyers of sex abuse victims from Germany to Australia have said they also will cite the Vatican documents in similar court cases in their countries.

The church has faced ugly abuse scandals before, but this one feels different. This is the first time where people have really challenged the Vatican over its knowledge or lack thereof. I had read that a lot of Vatican officials, when the U.S. sex-abuse cases were making news, tried to say it was an American problem, that somehow our culture bred this sort of behavior.

I wonder now if U.S. cases were heard first because either American Catholics have a tendency to challenge the church more, or if -- because America culture isn't tied as closely to the church, the way that Germany or Rome are -- that our institutions were less likely to sweep these things under the rug.

(AP Photo/Pier Paolo Cito)

'Oi! Put that party sausage away'

Hands down, this is the single best thing you can tell a flasher.

Hat Tip: Saw this via the Obscure Store!

Should this cop have been fired?

Danny Holmes, a former KCPD officer, is suing the department for wrongful termination, Tony Rizzo reports from day one of the trial. Officials say that Holmes screwed up a 2003 murder investigation, but he claims that he was punished more severely than his partner. The Star has written extensively about the case, as has the Pitch. The trial is expected to last about a week.

(Sidebar: Nadia Pflaum notes that Holmes says he was treated differently partly because he's African-American -- something that I didn't realize until she pointed that out. I'd seen photos of Holmes before, but he has a very light complexion.)

The case in question involved Guy Coombs, a 25-year-old Cerner sales rep visiting Kansas City for a sales seminar. He went out that first night and was eventually found shot dead in an apartment near 38th and Main, a spot that police knew for drug sales. Holmes, who worked the area, was asked to help by a homicide detective. From Tony's report:

DNA hit leads to charges in 1991 rape

Jackson County prosecutors filed charges yesterday against Nathaniel J. Thompson, a convicted rapist, for an unsolved rape from 1991. It's yet another case that's been resurrected thanks to a DNA match being made in a national database. Christine Vendel had the story this morning:

He is accused of climbing onto a balcony in the 300 block of Bellefontaine Avenue in June 1991 and dragging the teenager into the dining room at knifepoint. He allegedly tied her hands with a cord and sexually assaulted her repeatedly. The commotion awoke the girl’s roommate. Thompson allegedly demanded money from them and threatened to kill the victim if she reported the attack.

Thompson was 15 when the 1991 rape happened. He was convicted of another rape two years later, in California. He did about seven years for that, moved to Springfield and was eventually arrested for dealing drugs. The DNA match was made last month.