Weird

Police pulled a man over on Route 29 in Silver Spring last week because of a problem with his plates. This would not ordinarily make international news, but the car was a black Lamborghini, the license plate was the Batman symbol, and the driver was Batman, dressed head-to-toe in full superhero regalia.

HOLY MOVING VIOLATION!

It didn’t take long before images of the Dark Knight’s encounter with law enforcement began turning up in Facebook news feeds, on CNN and the London tabloids. The episode even made it into Jimmy Fallon’s monologue on NBC earlier this week.

Jokers emerged instantaneously too. Let him do his job, one commenter urged on the Post Web site. Batman has expensive taste, noted another. Meanwhile, questions about Batman’s identity mounted: Did they make him take off his mask? someone asked.

No, they did not. Even Montgomery County police honour a superhero code of conduct, just like the Howard County officers who once helped him with a flat bat tire. Batman told officers his real name was not Bruce Wayne but Lenny B Robinson, and that his real tags were in the car. (He was not ticketed then, but has been before for a heavy bat foot.)

The Caped Crusader is a businessman from Baltimore County who visits sick children in hospitals, handing out Batman paraphernalia to up-and-coming superheros who first need to beat cancer and other wretched diseases.

I actually know Batman. His parents are dear friends of my wife’s family, and I see him at holiday dinners where my 4-year-old son believes he is the real-life Bruce Wayne. Daddy, he’s Batman, too, my son will whisper to me. Though Batman has long been aware that I’m a journalist, he has never suggested I write about him. He does not crave publicity. Like his comic book namesake, he doesn’t seek credit for what he does — via redwolf.newsvine.com

Here’s a tip for all the would-be drug runners out there — don’t move kilos of cocaine in a car with a personalised license plate reading SMUGGLER.

Federal investigators contend a woman was caught in Blaine doing just that late last year — via redwolf.newsvine.com

A Des Moines woman accused of planning to wed a man she relentlessly followed for more than a year has been charged with felony stalking.

King County prosecutors contend Madeline Ann Desmet went so far as to order a wedding ring and reserve a Seattle courtroom for the ceremony before she was arrested in late February. Having been convicted of stalking previously, she’s now again charged with the crime — via redwolf.newsvine.com

Meet Willow Tufano, age 14: Lady Gaga fan, animal lover, landlord.

One day, she went to a house that an investor wanted to flip. It was filled with all kinds of stuff! Willow says. I was like, ‘I can sell this stuff if he’d want to let me have it.’

That was fine with the investor. So Willow sold the furniture and appliances from the house on Craigslist. She did the same thing with a bunch more houses. After a while, she was clearing about $500 a month, and saving a lot of it.

One day, Willow’s mom, Shannon, saw a two-bedroom, concrete-block home on auction for $12,000 — down from $100,000 at the peak of the bubble. Shannon was telling her husband about the house, when Willow piped up.

I was like, ‘What if I bought a house? That would be crazy,’ Willow says.

Willow wound up splitting the house with her mom. Willow plans to buy her mom out in the next few years, and put her name on the title when she turns 18 — via redwolf.newsvine.com

Wow. Did you see the latest figures for the falling crime rate? Pretty good, eh? What’s that, you didn’t see the figures? No one told you, eh.

It’s true. Despite the best efforts of the federal Minister for Justice, Jason Clare, on Sunday, the Australian Institute of Criminology’s latest compilation of statistics got remarkably little attention.

Why? One reason could be that it’s old news. Levels of property crime have been falling for a decade. You’ve long known that, right? If you have, congratulations: you’re much better informed than most.

A survey conducted in NSW in 2007 found that more than 80 per cent of respondents believed property crime had been increasing or had remained stable over the past five years. Only 11 per cent said it had been falling.

So why were the media so uninterested? Because they didn’t think you’d be interested. They presumed you’d prefer to have your existing beliefs reinforced rather than up-ended. But I prefer to write for the minority who want to be informed rather than humoured — via redwolf.newsvine.com

A 24-year-old Sri Lankan paramilitary trooper died while attempting to set what he believed was the world record for the longest time to be buried alive, police said.

The Civil Defence Force soldier, Jaanaka Kumara Basnayake, wanted to be buried underground for seven hours but was dug out half an hour ahead of his target when his mother started panicking, Inspector WM Siriwardena said — via redwolf.newsvine.com

A Midlands man is in jail accused of working with two other people to defraud an insurance company by intentionally cutting a person’s hand off with a pole saw and then filing an insurance claim.

According to the US Attorney’s Office, Gerald B Hardin, 34, of Cayce, was arrested on charges that he and two other people committed mail fraud in May 2008 — via redwolf.newsvine.com

A 39-year-old man was arrested early Thursday after he tried to rob two men in a motel room, dropping his gun and later returning to buy back his own firearm, Bradenton police said.

At about midnight, Cedrick Mitchell barged into a room at the Royal Motel, 1526 14th Street West. He asked the two men inside for pills.

When they said they had none, Mitchell pulled out a black handgun from his waistband and demanded everything you got, said Bradenton police Capt. Warren Merriman.

The men began to fight. During the scuffle, Mitchell dropped his gun and one of the victims pepper-sprayed him in the face.

Mitchell ran away. But moments later, he was back at the motel room and begged the two men to buy his gun back for $40, Merriman said.

Mitchell was pepper-sprayed in the face again and ran away — via redwolf.newsvine.com

When a residential burglar fired a gun at Jay Leone last month, he was initially too angry to realise he had been shot in the head, he testified Friday.

To tell you the truth, I never felt a thing, said Leone, 90, of Greenbrae. I said, ‘Fuck you, you son of a bitch, now it’s my turn.’

Whereupon he shot five bullets at the suspect from his .38-caliber Smith & Wesson snubnose revolver, hitting the burglar three times in the abdomen. A scuffle ensued between the wounded men.

Then he took the gun and put it to my head — click! said Leone, who knew there were no bullets left in the gun. And that was the end of that. He ran away — via redwolf.newsvine.com

An undercover police officer chased himself round the streets for 20 minutes after a CCTV operator mistook him for suspect

John Samuel Maxwell was sentenced to 15 years Tuesday in the Texas Department of Criminal Justice for a charge of burglary of a habitation that occurred in Red River County.The case, with 6th District Judge Eric Clifford presiding, stems from an incident that occurred last February in which the defendant entered a camper trailer that was a habitation for two Red River County residents. The two residents did not know Maxwell or give him permission to enter their home. Once inside the home, Maxwell forced the homeowners from their camper and proceeded to destroy the inside of the residence.

At one point, after tearing off the refrigerator door, Maxwell stripped off his clothes and covered himself in butter. Once law enforcement officials arrived on the scene and secured the area, a standoff ensued that lasted over an hour. Maxwell finally made his escape from the residence wearing no more than a plastic bowl on his head and a single sock on his foot. Members of the Red River County Sheriff’s Office apprehended the defendant some 25 yards from the residence. According to law enforcement personneland the victims, Maxwell appeared to be under the influence of an unknown substance.

Because of the professional response of the Red River County Sheriff’s Office, nobody on scene suffered any injuries, said District Attorney Val Varley. Our office has been in frequent contact with the victims of this matter and they were very satisfied with the 15-year sentence. As always, our primary goal is to see that justice is done. I feel as if that goal was accomplished — via phishhook

Two stuffed animals were stolen from the glass display in front of the Buena Vista Museum Wednesday morning.

Officers said 55-year-old Henry Slivers was found two blocks away at the Jack In The Box with a stuffed dingo.

That’s where he was arrested in connection with the break-in.

I was just bored and decided I wanted to be a cat burglar, Slivers told 23ABC in a jailhouse interview. So I kicked in the window and tried to steal the lion but it was too heavy, so I stole the cat.

I took the leopard to my hotel. I then decided I wanted the dingo so I went back and took it. I took it to Jack In The Box because I wanted to have breakfast with it.

23ABC asked Slivers what he was planning on doing with the dingo and he replied, I was going to take it around town with me — via redwolf.newsvine.com

Hanging the machine guns on the wall was a bad idea, but the burglary wouldn’t have happened if we’d just covered up the little decorative window over the front door. If you stood on your toes in the hallway and looked in through the little window, the guns were in plain sight. Almost everything was in plain sight because most of our third-story apartment was a single large room — a shoddy retrofit of a massive early twentieth-century industrial building on Philadelphia’s north side, in Fishtown, where those kind of buildings are common.

The building owner, a tattoo artist we’ll call Daryl, also lived somewhere on the third floor and ran a printing business on the first floor that employed a half-dozen people, most of whom were heavily tattooed tenants. There was plenty of activity around the building during the day and everyone made sure the main doors were always locked, so we had good reason to believe a burglar wouldn’t be able to break into the building in broad daylight, climb the stairs to the third floor, peek into our apartment, force his way in and carry off our machine guns without being caught. That was naïve. We should have covered up the little window — via redwolf.newsvine.com

Swiss police say thieves took a 100kg safe from a youth hostel in a ski resort and apparently used a stolen snowboard to make off with it.

Police in the Swiss canton of Graubünden said someone broke into the building in Valbella, in the south-east of the country, on Monday night or in the early hours of Tuesday — via redwolf.newsvine.com

Louisville Metro Police apprehended a man the fire department called very strange after he was allegedly caught stuffing cash in a washing machine early Sunday morning.

It happened at an apartment complex at the corner of E Main St and N Brook St. The fire department went to the scene after the fire alarm had been activated. When they arrived, they allegedly found 21-year-old Jose Veras of Radcliff, Kentucky, running around and acting very strange. — via redwolf.newsvine.com

A 40-year-old Melbourne man who told IRS agents he was not subject to man’s laws but instead was an American national who resided in the Kingdom of Heaven, pled not guilty this week to charges he filed false tax returns.

Russell P Gentile also faces one count of obstruction of an IRS agent after a grand jury indicted him — via redwolf.newsvine.com