Miss Piggy's Grocery Store Checkout Headlines

[Melena]

This was about a mile from my apartment

http://www.contracostatimes.com/top-stories/ci_19483521

A cannonball misfired by the "Mythbusters" TV show crew blasted through an East Dublin home Tuesday afternoon while its occupants were asleep. It then smashed through a window of a minivan parked a few hundred feet away.
No one was injured, and the home's residents did not wake up until the dust was settling on top of them, said an Alameda County Sheriff's Office spokesman.
The cannon was shot at the Sheriff's Office bomb range behind Santa Rita Jail about 4:15 p.m., said the spokesman, J.D. Nelson, who is also a consultant for the Discovery Channel TV show. He had been at the site with show producers all day, he said, though he said he was not by the cannon when it fired.
Producers have used that cannon -- which they built -- at the range more than 50 times without incident, Nelson said.
Tuesday was different.


The cannonball was supposed to go through a few water-filled barrels and a concrete wall. Instead, it passed over the barrels, through the wall, and then took a "very unfortunate bounce that sent the ball skyward," Nelson said.
About 700 feet away, it bounced in front of a home on Cassata Place, then tore upward through the home's front door and out midway up the back wall of the two-story house. Light could be seen shining through a round, cantaloupe-sized hole from inside the house out to Tassajara Road.


The cannonball then bounced at least once more, crossing the four-lane Tassajara Road, before smashing the
window and dashboard of the minivan. It came to rest inside the vehicle, parked in a driveway at Bellevue Circle and Springvale Road."We had some tremendous bad luck and some tremendous good luck" in that no one was hurt, Nelson said.
Jasbir Gill owns the minivan; he and his children had just arrived home.
"It's scary," Gill said. "I was in the van five minutes before this happened." His home is on the east side of Tassajara.
He said he would like the show's producers to fix his car and to apologize for the damage.
"Mythbusters," which is produced for Discovery Channel by Beyond Productions, issued a statement through publicist Katherine Nelson late Tuesday that said the production company "is currently assessing the situation and working with those whose property was affected."


Sheriff's Office spokesman J.D. Nelson said he did not know the exact size, speed or weight of the cannonball. The bomb range has been closed pending an investigation, he said.
It's not the first time a home in the area has been hit by stray fire.
In summer 2007, an errant bullet blasted a baseball-sized hole in a San Ramon home from the nearby Camp Parks firing range, leading to an FBI investigation.
Camp Parks is the home of the U.S. Army's 91st Division, and is a training facility for more than 11,000 reservists. Calls to Camp Parks on Tuesday night went unanswered.

[BWYuko]

Tuba Thieves AT LARGE. Everybody WATCH OUT!
source

Spoiler: show

As Southern California awoke to the wreckage from a recent massive windstorm, music teacher Ruben Gonzalez Jr. was assessing a different sort of devastation in his band room at South Gate High School.

Thieves had pried open a door and torn the room apart while hunting for a specific instrument. "All they took were tubas," Gonzalez said. Losses included an upright concert tuba and a silver sousaphone — or marching-band tuba — worth a combined $13,000.

Several weeks earlier, band members at Centennial High School in Compton experienced a similar shock when they found that eight sousaphones were missing.

And on Tuesday, burglars broke into Huntington Park High School and spirited away the school's last tuba, according to band instructor Fernando Almader. A silver Jupiter tuba had been stolen earlier in the school year.

Those are just the latest in what police and music instructors are describing as a rash of unsolved tuba thefts at high schools in southeast Los Angeles County. The thefts, according to band leaders, were probably spurred by Southern California's banda music craze, as well as the high prices the brass instruments fetch on the black market. A high-quality tuba can cost well more than $5,000, but even an old, dented tuba can sell for as much as $2,000, music teachers say.

Strapped for cash and running low on school spirit, victimized bands were scrambling to replace their instruments before attending Saturday's 38th annual Marching Band and Drill Team Championships at East Los Angeles College.

As he waited to take the field during the competition, Huntington Park High student Ramon Olivares hoisted a King tuba the school had borrowed for the day.

"I got used to playing different tubas," Olivares said. "I was playing one; they stole it. I switched to our second tuba. They stole it. Now I've got this one. I played it for the first time yesterday."

The targeted schools fall within various city and school police jurisdictions, so the total number of missing tubas remains unknown. However, music instructors have reported the theft of scores of instruments over the last year.

Fremont High School in Florence had 13 sousaphones a decade ago; only one remained this year. It was stolen in June.

Jordan High School in Watts had its best tuba stolen last spring. Maywood Academy, just beginning a band program this fall, saw the theft of six instruments, including trumpets, a clarinet and an electric bass — though no tubas.

Some schools have experienced repeated break-ins. Before its most recent burglary, South Gate High School lost three tubas to thieves in September. One was an upright concert tuba, a gift last spring from the Manilow Music Project, run by singer Barry Manilow. In all, South Gate has lost five tubas this semester, worth almost $30,000, Gonzalez said.

No arrests have been made in any of the thefts, so it remains unclear who is stealing the instruments or why.

"I really think there's a black market for tubas," Gonzalez said. "Whether it be in this state or another state, or down south in Mexico."

The targeted schools are in an area with a very large Mexican immigrant population and where banda — dance music played by brass and woodwind instruments and anchored by the tuba — is king. Sierreno groups — with an accordion, guitar and tuba — have also become popular in recent years. Banda musicians say tuba players can earn more than $100 an hour.

Fremont High School band director Akiko Tanaka said the school has lost many brass instruments, not just tubas, and has spent a lot of time tracking them down — often visiting the homes of past and current students. "Some of them have taken them to pawn shops," Tanaka said. "Some are using them in college, some are in bandas. It's a trend that students are working in bandas."

So far, the school thefts appear to be isolated to this pocket of southeast L.A. County. Districts as far-flung as El Monte, Pomona, Lynwood, San Bernardino, Riverside and Long Beach have reported no tuba thefts.

"I've talked to all the band directors and they've never even heard of this issue," said Michael Hook, director of risk management for Chaffey Joint Union High School District in Ontario, whose 11 schools include some of the largest marching bands in Southern California.

For music programs already diminished by layoffs and budget cutbacks, the loss of tubas has been catastrophic.

"Some people are lucky if they get a $500 budget for the year," said Ligia Chaves-Rasas, band instructor at Bell High School, where no instruments have been stolen.

At football games this fall, the Jordan band was made up of a handful of kids. "We basically have no instruments at all," said the school's new band director, Marty Riley. "All have disappeared. Some of them were brand-new. We have the classes, but we don't have the instruments. It's my first year here. I truly have no idea where they've gone."

Meanwhile, Gonzalez has to get over the distress he's felt this semester at losing the tubas that anchor his band.

"We still have three tubas left, but we have more players than instruments," Gonzalez said. "We're going to have to find a way."

WE WILL FIND A WAY, RUBEN.

Peace and Love.

[Yuri-G]

http://rivals.yahoo.com/ncaa/footbal...=ncaaf-wp11446
Jerry Sandusky’s lawyer suggests calling a gay sex line to prove Sandusky’s innocence

By Graham Watson


Jerry Sandusky's attorney isn't off to the best start.
Joseph Amendola, who is supposed to be defending the former Penn State defensive coordinator who has been accused of multiple counts of sex abuse against young boys, continues to have foot-in-mouth moments. Tuesday, after Sandusky waived his preliminary hearing to go straight to trial, Amedola held an impromptu news conference on the courthouse steps and announced that anyone who thinks Sandusky is a child molester should call "1-800-REALITY."

"Anyone who is naive enough to think for a minute that Tim Curley, Joe Paterno and Gary Schultz and, for that matter, Graham Spanier, the university president, were told by Mike McQueary that he observed Jerry Sandusky having anal sex with a 10-year-old-looking kid in a shower at Penn State or Penn State property and their response was to simply tell Jerry Sandusky that, 'Don't go in the shower room any more with kids.' I suggest you dial 1-800-REALITY. Because that makes absolutely no sense."

http://l.yimg.com/a/p/sp/editorial_i..._innocence.jpgNo, what makes no sense is Amendola asking folks to call a gay sex line in an attempt to clear his client's name. Yeah, "1-800-REALITY" is a gay sex line. We know. We called. We heard, "Hey guys, welcome to the hottest place for triple-X action" and we hung up.
It's such a bad mistake that you can hear the district attorney and the rest of the prosecution giggling in an office somewhere.
Amendola's misdial came just a month after Sandusky flubbed his response when Bob Costas asked whether he was sexually attracted to young boys. And just 10 days after Sandusky stumbled while trying to clarify his attraction to young boys in an interview with the New York Times with Amendola sitting in a chair reading just a few feet away.
It's been one faux pas after another for Sandusky and his legal team and none of it has made Sandusky look less guilty or more sympathetic. From the very beginning, Amendola's defense has been to get out in front of the media and let Sandusky tell his story, and it has backfired at every turn. This latest gaffe should be a sign from the universe that staying quiet might be their best public defense.

[Ragnus]

Give the dude an A for effort at least.

http://miami.cbslocal.com/2011/12/15...rleading-team/

IAMI (CBSMiami) – At least one Colombian man has nothing to cheer about today.

Duastin Salazar, 28, pleaded guilty to visa fraud charges after trying to smuggle 16 people into the U.S. posing as a cheerleading squad, the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) announced Thursday.

“By posing as cheerleaders, these defendants believed they could evade law enforcement and unlawfully enter the United States,” said Mike Shea, acting special agent in charge of ICE HSI in Miami. “To protect the homeland, we continually evaluate areas where criminal organizations may attempt to exploit our systems and processes to deny them access.”

The stunt was executed on September 30 as the group tried to enter Miami International Airport from a flight originating in Cali, Colombia. According to ICE, the group had fraudulent documents permitting them to enter U.S. to attend a cheerleading competition in South Florida.

In addition to Salazar, six other people involved in the scheme either pleaded guilty or were convicted in the case. Like the six previous suspects, he was sentenced to time served, two years of supervised release and a $100 fine.

The other “cheerleaders”, some of them minors, were not criminally charged and returned to Colombia.

[Cail]

Miss. Mayor Reveals He is Gay…After Visiting Gay Sex Shop on City’s Dime

http://l3.yimg.com/bt/api/res/1.2/GH...Greg-Davis.jpg
A conservative Mississippi mayor has said he is gay after an audit showed he had the city pay for a wide range of personal expenses, including a visit to a gay sex store in Canada.

Southaven Mayor Greg Davis revealed publicly for the first time Thursday that he is gay, and said he has struggled to keep his sexuality from affecting his public role as mayor of Mississippi’s third-largest city.

“At this point in my life and in my career, while I have tried to maintain separation between my personal and public life, it is obvious that this can no longer remain the case,” Davis told the Commercial Appeal, a Tennessee-based publication. “While I have performed my job as mayor, in my opinion, as a very conservative, progressive individual — and still continue to be a very conservative individual — I think that it is important that I discuss the struggles I have had over the last few years when I came to the realization that I am gay.”

Davis, a Republican, has been under criminal investigation for allegedly misusing $170,000 in city funds on both his city-issued and personal credit cards. According to the Commercial Appeal, an audit revealed he used city money to pay for thousands of dollars worth of liquor, expensive dinners, and a $67 charge at Priape, a Toronto store described by its website as “Canada’s premiere gay lifestyle store and sex shop.”

He told the newspaper he doesn’t remember what he purchased at the store, but said he visited it on a recruitment trip for the city.

Davis, who is divorced with three daughters, made an unsuccessful bid for Congress in 2008, running on a family values platform. He was first elected mayor in 1997, and said it‘s too early for talk about whether he’ll resign in light of the disputed expenses. He said he plans to take time off through the holidays to spend time with his family.

“The only apology I would make to my supporters if they are upset is the fact that I was not honest enough with myself to be honest with them,” he said. “But I have lived my life in public service for 20-plus years, and in order for me to remain sane and move on, I have got to start being honest about who I am.”

[Kerberoz]

This book takes children aged 4 - 10 years on a journey of discovering about the ineffectiveness of vaccinations, while teaching them to embrace childhood disease, heal if they get a disease, and build their immune systems naturally.

I don't want to live on this planet anymore.

[Kuya]

Natural selection selects most naturally

[Orden]

@The Mississippi Mayor:

Is ugly; would not fellate.

I claim this page for the gays.

[Vuitton]

Man Eats Cocaine From Brother's Butt, Dies
http://www.koat.com/news/30037563/detail.html

A South Carolina man's brother died after police said he was forced to eat cocaine hidden in his brother's backside.

Both brothers were taken into custody on allegations they had drugs in their car.

But police told Charleston, S.C., TV station WCIV there were additional drugs hidden in 23-year-old Deangelo Mitchell's backside.

Officers said Deangelo Mitchell convinced his brother, 20-year-old Wayne Mitchell, to swallow the ounce of cocaine to hide the evidence. He died soon afterward.

"It's sickening," North Charleston Police Chief Jon Zumalt told WCIV. "I got upset when I saw the thing. I was pretty shocked on it."

Deangelo Mitchell already bonded out of jail on the drug charge, but now police are looking for him again on charges of involuntary manslaughter.

http://gossiponthis.com/2011/12/20/m...rs-butt-video/

http://gossiponthis.com/wp-content/u...e-mugshots.jpg

23-year-old Deangelo Mitchell (left) and his brother Wayne (20, on the right), both from Charleston, SC, were arrested after a routine traffic stop on November 30th when a cop found three small bags of cocaine hidden underneath the backseat of their 2001 Chrysler.

Video footage recorded from the squad car shows the men as they are being transported to jail.
In the video, Deangelo persuades his brother to do a simple favor for him: swallow the cocaine hiding in his butt (of all places) so that the cops wouldn’t find it on him.

Apparently … Deangelo had a lengthy rap sheet, and was worried that he would face life in prison if the cops found the extra ounce of coke on him … on top of the coke they had already found in the car.
A clearly nervous Deangelo tells his brother Wayne in the video “I can’t get no more strikes … no more” … before instructing his little brother to eat the cocaine from his behind.

“One of us gotta do it, you the only one that don’t have any strikes. …You my little brother… I’m gonna get life,” he said, according to an ABC news affiliate from Charleston.

Wayne eventually gives in to his older brother’s constant pleas and eats the cocaine, which Deangelo had pulled from the back of his pants, most likely right out of his butt crack.

As Wayne eats the cocaine, Deangelo appears to regret asking his little brother to get rid of his drugs in that way. It seems as though Deangelo feels bad for his little brother, and knows what’s about to happen next.

After he finishes eating the coke, Wayne asks Deangelo to check his mouth. His last words were, “I love you bro” and the video fades out.

Shortly after ingesting the ounce of coke, police say Wayne went into convulsions and started to bleed from his mouth. After being questioned, Deangelo told cops “he believed his brother swallowed an ounce of cocaine.”

Now, in addition to the drug charges, Deangelo Mitchell is facing involuntary manslaughter charges, as well living the rest of his life with the guilt of inadvertently killing his little brother with cocaine from his buttocks, which is worse than any man-made punishment.

[bigrougabagel]

lolwat?

Spoiler: show

A Utah man who was trying to kill a mouse ended up shooting one roommate and getting another arrested for child rape, while a fourth roommate slept through the whole thing.

Taylorsville Police Sgt. Tracy Wyant told Deseret News that the first roommate, 27, had been trying to kill a rodent when he missed and the round went through the kitchen wall and struck a second roommate, 28.

“After the gun was fired, both the roommate and Paul heard a scream,” Wyant explained.

Officers responding to the scene early Tuesday morning found a 13-year-old girl hiding in a basement closet. She told police she had been having an affair with the third roommate, 34-year-old Paul Daniel Kunzler. During an interview, the Children’s Justice Center determined that the girl had been having sex with Kunzler over a period of four months.

He was arrested on suspicion of two counts of rape of a child, three counts of sodomy of a child and three counts of sexual abuse of a child.

A fourth roommate, Zach Baker, told Fox 13 that he slept through the gunfire.

“I got woken up by the cops,” Baker said. “They came storming in my room, checking to make sure everybody was OK and nobody was shot or anything like that.”

“I’d never seen the girl there before and I don’t know how long she’d been there,” he added. “They said she’d been hiding in a closet and that creeps me out. … I knew the guy was weird, but I didn’t expect anything like that to happen.”

The roommate who was shot in the chest was taken to a local hospital, and was later upgraded from serious to stable condition, according to KSL. The roommate who fired the gun was not arrested. Charges could be possible after prosecutors review the case.

Police said they suspected alcohol was involved.

[Salodin]

You can't make shit like that up lmao.

[Kerberoz]

He was arrested on suspicion of two counts of rape of a child, three counts of sodomy of a child

[Kuya]

Sodomy laws, lol

[Sepukku]

I thought sodomy laws were ruled unconstitutional because they were selectively enforced (aka against gay men), especially in the south, and therefore were considered discriminatory?

[Chun Liroy]

Maybe not thread-worthy, but still made me go "wat"

The off-duty cop accused of killing a man in a Murrieta bar shot to kill over a minor argument, a witness said.

Robert Kielar, a 42-year-old retired Marine, said he we working as a DJ at Spelly's Pub and Grille on Wednesday night when a sheriff's deputy reportedly shot and killed a Winchester man after arguing with him about darts.

The deputy, Dayle William Long, 42, was brought before a judge Friday afternoon to answer a murder charge in connection with the killing of 36-year-old Samuel Vanettes. Click here to read about the hearing.

Kielar said the disagreement between the victim's friends and the deputy was "like arguing over spilt milk."

"It was just kind of smack talking over darts," Kielar said

Chris Hull, who said he was a friend of Vanettes and witnessed the crime, told Patch on Wednesday night the deputy approached Hull's group of friends during a dart game. The exchange quickly grew heated, Hull said, and the deputy eventually pulled out his gun and shot Vanettes.

Kielar said the suspected shooter told the bar's manager to call the police before firing three or four rounds at Vanettes.

The off-duty officer "called the manager over and told him to go call 9-1-1," Kielar said. "The manager said why, then (the deputy) pulled the gun out, and (the manager) went to do it saw the look in the guy's eyes."

"That's when he shot him."

Kielar said he cobbled together details of the exchange from witnesses, the manager and his experience in the bar.

After the shooting, Kielar said he and another man corralled the pub's patrons into the kitchen to keep them safe. The two men then checked on Vanette, who reportedly had no pulse and was quickly losing blood.

"His head was blown out, and there was a pool of blood coming out of his head," Kielar said. "There was a pinpoint … on his upper left forehead."

Long was "shooting to kill," Kielar said.

The coroner in the case is withholding a detailed autopsy report on Vanettes until his suspected killer is ready to be arraigned in January.

Kielar said the fight between the deputy and Vanettes "wasn't even a big deal."

"The guy wasn't charging (Long)," Kielar said of the victim. "The guy wasn't threatening (Long)."

Kielar said he was hired three weeks ago to DJ for Spelly's, which he described as a laid-back pub frequented by a cast of regulars. The bar was quiet on Wednesday before the shootings except for a sound check playing over the speakers and the low murmurs of roughly 20 patrons, he said.

Long is scheduled to be arraigned on Jan. 12 on murder charges with a sentence enhancement for use of a firearm. He is being held at the Southwest Detention Center in Murrieta in lieu of $1 million bail.

http://murrieta.patch.com/articles/w...p-shot-to-kill

Chris Hull, a 39-year-old Temecula resident, said he was inside the bar and saw the shooting happen.

Hull said he witnessed a man walking up while Hull and a group of friends were playing darts. The man reportedly identified himself as an off-duty cop and started a discussion with the group about darts.

“We were playing darts, and he says 'I’m better at darts than you are,”' Hull said.

“My buddy says, ‘Aw, you suck at darts.’ (The man) says, ‘That’s why I’m a cop, I can do whatever I want to do.’”

Hull said his friend, identified only as Danny, asked the man, “Really, you can do anything?” The man then pulled out his gun, Hull said, and after the group repeatedly asked him to put it away he “pops three rounds into my friend Sam.”

Hull identified his friend as Sam Venettes. He didn't answer a request for Vanette's age or hometown, but said he was a "hardworking guy" who "works three jobs."

Police have not released any information on the name of the victim.

"I just watched the most horrific scene I've seen in my entire life," Hull told Patch.

"This is the worst day of my life."
It should be noted, the cop was a 10-year veteran of the force.

http://www.informationliberation.com/?id=37723


Feel free to change title/move to grocery store thread if you feel it doesn't really warrant a thread.

[Seanr]

cop got a bullseye

[Skyylya]

Merry Christmas.

Edit: Some of the other stories on there are ridiculous too. In another one a cop driving at night, without his lights on, well over the speed limit hit and killed a girl then arrested her father when he came running pissed off at the cop.

Is this like the onion? It's hard to believe.

[Correction]

Article is ambiguous. Which one of them sucked at darts?

[Kipling]

What the fuck. I'm from Temecula/Murrieta area for most of my life. Weird seeing this kind of stuff happen, nothing ever really happens there.

[Churchill]

Temecula? It's not even fucking Fresno!