Category Archives: Crime

Hollyweed? No, Hollywood

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Los Angeles residents must have thought they’d been smoking something when they woke up to a new year to find their famous Hollywood sign had been changed to read ‘Hollyweed’.

Security cameras caught a vandal, dressed in black, scaling the sign in the middle of the night, covering the Os in huge tarpaulins so they looked like Es.

The Hollywood Sign Trust, which maintains the world-famous, 50-foot-tall landmark, is to look at boosting security on the back of the incident, which is being investigated by police.

It’s thought the prank could be a knowing reference to voters in California approving a law which means the recreational use of marijuana will become legal from 2018.

However, it’s not the first time the sign has been changed to read Hollyweed. A college student first did it on January 1 1976, exactly 41 years to the day.

The original sign was first put up in 1923 and read Hollywoodland to promote a housing development. However, the last four letters deteriorated and were removed in the 1940s.

Angry Dwarf Jailed for Pretending to be a Dalek and Threatening to ‘Exterminate’ Carers

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Ian Salter-Bromley is quickly making himself known as the missing eighth dwarf: Angry. He was probably ostracised by Snow White and her vertically challenged septet because of his rather serious anger management issues.

Indeed, the 55-year-old dwarf makes Disney’s Grumpy seem like a bowl full of rainbows – his latest misdemeanour involves impersonating a Dalek from Doctor Who (by sticking a sucker dart to his head, obviously) and then threatening to “exterminate” two carers. The incident ended with the British man being tasered by police… twice.

Salter-Bromley, who stands at just four feet tall, had to appear in Hull Crown Court for a hearing about his anger issues. The judge heard that while the dwarf had been friendly when the carers first visited his sheltered housing complex, things soon soured, with the man aggressively threatening to kill the carers before then barricading the door to his flat and having a stand off with police.

When police did break into his home the he was found standing with a 20-centimetre knife and was apparently so angry that the “veins were sticking out of his neck”.

But this is just one of the many things Salter-Bromley has done. His escapades have been such that they have eventually landed him a nine-month jail term. He is also reported to have carried out a dirty protest – smearing poo and urine into his local council’s offices – because he was angry that the kitchen surfaces in his apartment were too high for him to reach, for which he received an ASBO.

Another time he was found guilty of possession of a knife after he threatened a woman when her children had been making fun of his height on a bus.

Recorder David Gordon told the dwarf when issuing his prison sentence: “Individually, these aren’t the most serious offences, but together they take on a different complexion.

“You would have been jailed for longer if it hadn’t been for your disabilities.

“I appreciate you are isolated and have an extremely lonely life, which makes you frustrated. But now you have time behind bars to reflect and try to keep your temper under control.”

Man Charged after Having Sex with Wife’s Attention-Stealing Dog

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A man in the United States has been charged with animal cruelty after he had sex with his wife’s dog because he was jealous of the amount of attention it was getting from his significant other.

Jonathan Edward Medley of Geneva, Alabama was suspected by his wife of having an affair with another woman when the romance dissipated from their relationship. She hid a recording device in the house and it was then that she made the startling discovery.

The recordings uncovered that Medley was actually committing an act of bestiality by having sex with Buster, his wife’s Shih Tzu.

Geneva police captain Ricky Morgan said that the 39-year-old was “mad at his wife because she paid more attention to the dog than him so he had sex with the dog”.

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Morgan explained: “She actually thought he was having an affair with another woman and hid a recording device,” Geneva Police Capt. Ricky Morgan told the Eagle.

“She learned he was in fact molesting the dog.”

Medley was held on $535 after his arrest on Friday 12 June. However, he only faces a misdemeanour charge, which is all bestiality carries under Alabama law.

Woman Jailed for Overdue ‘Monster-in-Law’ VHS

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Let’s face it, we’ve all had a slap on the wrist and a nominal fine for not taking back a rental video on time… unless you are one of those annoyingly organised people, or were born in the noughties, of course.

But little did you know that this minor misdemeanour could have landed you in far more serious trouble.

That’s exactly what happened to a woman in America, who’s had a run-in with the law all because of an overdue VHS. Yes, a VHS, you know, those fuzzy tape cassette things they used to have (see picture above).

In the defence of the police, watching the film Monster-In-Law ought to be classified as a criminal act in itself, but it’s safe to say that Kayla Michelle Finley had no idea her decision to check the movie out of Dalton Videos would land her behind bars.

MPW-13854Ms Finley rented the Jennifer Lopez rom-com back in 2005 but never returned it to the store, which, like virtually all other video rental firms, has since gone out of business. So when the 27-year-old-with-questionable-film-taste attended her local South Carolina police station for other matters, officers soon uncovered this decade-old warrant for her arrest.

When it transpired that her hearing could not be held until the following day, Ms Finley was forced to spend the night in a cell, CNN reported. She said after the incident: “I’m no criminal, but Pickens County Sheriff’s office sure made me feel like I was.”

Thankfully, the former business owner of Dalton Videos requested the court withdraw the charge so Ms Finley was set loose to roam the streets once again.

Man Jailed for Shooting Himself in the Foot… On Purpose… Twice

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Shooting yourself in the foot: to do something without intending to which spoils a situation for yourself.

We’ve all shot ourselves in the foot at time or another, in the metaphorical sense. But one man has taken the expression a little too literally and quite literally blasted a hole in his foot with a gun.

Why? Because he wanted to know what it would feel like, obviously.

Adam Hirtle is the inquisitive man in question. When investigators quizzed the 30-year-old about where his gunshot wound had come from – as they do when such a patient enters a hospital with an injury like this – he nonchalantly told them he did it because he was curious how it would feel.

Wanting to know what it feels like to be shot ranks right up there alongside ‘I wonder what cyanide tastes like’ and ‘Do you think I could fit my whole head in a tiger’s mouth?’ as a question it’s just best not to know the answer to.

The police were not sure what to do when it turned out that the reported ‘accidental gun discharge’ was anything but an accident. However, 9News.com said that the Colorado resident has been arrested on suspicion of a prohibited use of weapons, reckless endangerment and child abuse, because one or more kids may have been in the vicinity when he fired the gun.

Another news network, Fox News, revealed that Hirtle used a .22 caliber, semi-automatic handgun. He reportedly stood in his garage, took his boot off, shot himself in the foot, put his boot back on, and shot himself in the same foot again. All because of a morbid fascination with how it would feel.

His injuries were not life-threatening but his foot, one would safely assume, is looking a little worse for wear. So there’s your lesson kids – don’t try this at home!

Sometimes Adam, ignorance is bliss. So is the ability to walk and not being in prison. So maybe don’t shoot yourself in the foot, yeah?

Man Calls 911 After Being Evicted by Pet Cat

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Despite the internet’s love affair with cats, there can be no denying that the little felines often have some real attitude problems. In fact, the fur balls usually demonstrate a wanton disregard for human beings and their belonging (see exhibit A, below).

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Well one cat has taken its reign of terror a little further than most by physically evicting its owner from his house. That’s right, a man in Stamford, Connecticut has been forced to flee his home because of his overly aggressive pet kitty.

But far from accepting his fate as a homeless man – which probably would have been the honourable thing to do after be deposed by a small domesticated creature – the cat owner in question called the police for back-up, with a recording of the emergency 911 call quickly going viral. You can listen to it here:

 

In case you couldn’t make that out, the unnamed caller said: “My cat was getting too aggressive, and I was inside, and then he attacked me, he scratched me in my leg and he bite me.”

He continued: “So me and my wife, we come outside, and now we cannot go in the home for like three to four hours.”

In a tone that was more begrudging and bewildered than actually concerned, the dispatcher agreed to send an officer out to deal with the issue. And with the track record of the US police these days, it is safe to say the cat has probably been shot (although as we cannot verify the colour of the cat, we cannot confirm or deny these claims).

The fearsome feline reportedly weighed a little over seven pounds, which, following some thorough investigative journalism, we can tell you is roughly the same as: a four-slice toaster; a newborn baby; or, more adorably, two boxes of wine. The horror, the horror.

Tape, sparrows, fireworks: Chinese children play real-life Angry Birds

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Parents have long scaremongered that video games will have dangerous effects on children and, unfortunately, their fears have been confirmed.
In China a group of children have been found playing a real-life version of Angry Birds, the hit app that has proven so popular around the world that it even has its own film in the offing.

In a rather gruesome twist, school kids in a park in the Shaanxi Province of China strapped small birds such as sparrows onto fireworks and unleashed the rocket-propelled feather balls at nearby objects.

Huang Chu, 45, came across the carnage in the park and reported what was happening to local police. The kids ran away as he approached but left behind one rocket that had not gone off, with a bird still helplessly stuck to the side of the firework.

Chu told Chinese media: “I spoke to an older boy who told me that the others had been playing Angry Birds, shooting the fireworks across the park and pretending to be playing the video game of the same name.

“I didn’t report it to police because it is illegal. However I posted images online because people should be aware of what’s happening and maybe it will increase pressure for animal rights laws to finally be introduced here in China.”

Angry Birds might have been a fictional game but in China right now there are certainly some angry birds because of it.

 

California community stalked by armed clowns

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Clowns carrying knives, baseball bats and other weapons are reportedly creeping through Californian neighbourhoods, leaving locals a little white in the face.

The phenomenon started with the so-called ‘Wasco Clown’ who worked hard to freak out the residents of Wasco, California and gained himself (or herself?) 40,000 Instagram followers in the process. Since then, there have been in the region of 20 police reports in Wasco and the neighbouring towns of Bakersfield and Delano of copycat clowns.

While the original clown approached things in a frightening but essentially non-violent approach – dressing up and taking spooky shots at local landmarks – the copycats have stepped things up a level and reports indicate that some clowns have even been spotted carrying guns and knives.

Speaking to local television, Sgt Joe Grubbs of the Bakersfield Police Department, said: “There’s a natural phobia of clowns. And clearly if someone is dressed up as a clown and holding a weapon in a threatening manner that’s going to frighten people.”

You don’t say, Sgt Grubbs. Whether or not scaring people out their wits is a crime is a matter for the justice departments to tackle, but one thing is clear, whoever these clowns are, they are likely to make this Halloween one particularly freaky affair.

 

Smuggling attempts: five of the best

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This is not the kind of crocodile bag you want to see on a plane...

This is not the kind of crocodile bag you want to see on a plane…

Christopher Mitchell has shot to internet notoriety over the past few days after the obese 42-year-old American was caught by police trying to smuggle drugs in his rolls of fat.

The man, otherwise known as ‘Biggie’ or ‘Fatboy’, was concealing cocaine and 23 grams of marijuana under his stomach fat and while this was not the criminal highpoint of the century, it did get us thinking about the best smuggling attempts ever reported. Here are five of the finest:

5. Fully aware of the irony of his actions, a man in New York was once arrested while transporting a date rape liquid drug inside a bottle of ‘Holy Water’.

4. Inevitably this technique was always going to surface… Ukrainian Svetlana Ivanyshka was rumbled on the border after customs officers caught her trying to smuggle a bag of hashish inside a vibrator. She had hidden the drug in the sex toy’s battery compartment, which was hidden inside her own compartment, for want of a better term.

3. A truly bizarre story: a man in the Democratic Republic of Congo once tried to get a crocodile on an airplane in his hand luggage. Worryingly, he was successful and was only found out when the reptile crawled free near the end of the flight. At the sight of the croc, passengers and crew rushed to the front of the plane, causing a redistribution of weight which caused the aircraft to nosedive, resulting in 21 people dying. The crocodile survived the crash.

2. Less sinister than some of the stories above but disturbing all the same, a woman and her daughter were found in Liverpool airport trying to get a dead corpse on a plane. The pair put the recently deceased body of the woman’s husband in a hat and sunglasses and pushed the ‘sleeping’ man through customs in a wheelchair before officers cottoned on to what was happening.

1. A few years ago a Chilean man decided to capitalise on the misfortune of breaking his shin by finding an ingenious way of turning things back in his favour. He opted to make his leg cast out of the slightly more expensive material of cocaine and then attempt to travel into Barcelona. Officials caught the man and it eventually transpired that he had broken his leg intentionally so he could get the solidified white powder into the country.

Form an orderly queue ladies: murderer appears on dating show

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Third time's a charm: Sefer Calinak killed two perviously lovers

Third time’s a charm: Sefer Calinak killed two previous lovers

People who choose national television as a suitable dating platform are probably never going to be the exemplification of normality, but a man in Turkey has stunned the world when his past came out on ‘Luck of the Draw’.

Sefer Calinak, 62, dropped a clanger that would even have had the fake tan-clad beauties on Paddy McGuinness’ ITV equivalent turning their lights off. Mr Calinak, it transpired, had previously been in prison… for murdering his first wife… and a subsequent lover.

At the age of 17, Mr Calinak eloped with a woman who was involved in an arranged marriage. The family of her supposed husband-to-be found out about the couple and jealousy and distrust led Mr Calinak to kill his first wife.

He served a shortened sentence before being released and remarrying. He later separated from his new wife and embarked on an affair with a married woman who swore she would leave her husband for him. When his latest lover went back on her word, Mr Calinak says he “accidentally” killed her when he “swung the axe”. Don’t you hate it when that happens?

The misguided Romeo was released early once again under Government amnesties and now says he is a changed man. Appearing on the show on Turkish channel Flash TV, Mr Calinak said it was his destiny and he did all because of jealousy – but that he is now “an honest man”.

He applied to appear on the show in a bid to find a new love but as his story shockingly unravelled, the host asked him to leave and the orderly queue of women waiting to be wooed by the axe-wielding Lothario was promptly dispersed.

Watch the flabbergasting footage from Flash TV below: