When Guns Are Outlawed | News Quirks | Salt Lake City Weekly

When Guns Are Outlawed 

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Curses, Foiled Again
After police investigating the shooting death of a convenience-store clerk in Pasadena, Texas, identified Michael Ray Morris, 29, as one of their two suspects, Morris returned to the crime scene to complain to a television reporter that he’d merely been a customer. The reporter jotted down Morris’s license plate number and passed it along to police. Detectives contacted Morris, who’d also called the police station to object to being named a suspect. During questioning, Morris gave detectives information he thought was bolstering his alibi but that led police to Daniel J. Stiner, 22, who confessed to the shooting and implicated Morris as his accomplice. (Houston’s KRIV-TV)

• During a routine traffic stop in Dallas, Texas, Mario Miramontes, 22, hoped to conceal his arrest warrant by giving the officer the name of his cousin, Christopher Ayala, 25. He’d used the name before, but this time the officer’s search disclosed that the cousin also had a warrant, on charges of fondling an underage relative. “I thought the name was clean,” said Miramontes, who wound up spending 13 months in the Dallas County Jail without access to a lawyer. He was finally released after Ayala’s attorney, who said he told prosecutors many times that they had the wrong man in custody, finally convinced Judge Larry Mitchell of the mix-up. (The Dallas Morning News)

Success Breeds Failure
Red-light cameras, which many motorists insist are aimed at enhancing revenue rather than safety, have reduced the number of tickets issued in Chicago suburbs so successfully that jurisdictions which counted on the fines in their budgets are experiencing significant shortfalls. Libertyville, Ill., for instance, projected net revenues from red-light violations at $462,000 this fiscal year, but after six months, only $32,000 had been taken in. Although municipal officials agree the decreased revenue is manageable if it promotes safer driving, Gary Biller, executive director of the National Motorists Association, which opposes red-light cameras, suggested, “It’s not that driver behavior is being modified. It’s just that people avoid those areas.” (Chicago Tribune)

When Guns Are Outlawed
A 49-year-old Australian mother told police in Mackay that a man wearing a leather mask broke into her home and attacked her with a rubber dildo. Prosecutor Sgt. Sabine Scott said the dildo “appeared to be wrapped in such a way with duct tape to make it a better bludgeoning weapon.” (Mackay’s The Daily Mercury)

• Police said they arrested Carolee Bildsten, 57, after she raised a “clear, rigid feminine pleasure device” over her head and attacked an officer at her apartment in Gurnee, Ill. She claimed self-defense, explaining the officer had accompanied her while she got money to pay her meal check at a nearby restaurant. “I’m counting my cash to make sure I take out enough, and the officer walks into my bedroom and startles me,” Bildsten said. “I got scared, and the only thing in my sock drawer besides my socks and my cash was a dildo.” (Chicago Tribune)

Way to Go
Authorities blamed carbon monoxide for the deaths of five boys, ages 16 to 19, in a motel room in Hialeah, Fla., that they rented for a birthday celebration. Investigators reported that the teens had borrowed a friend’s car, but it wouldn’t start and needed a jump. Reluctant to turn off the engine in case they couldn’t start it again, they left the car running in the single-car garage attached to their motel room. The cleaning lady who discovered their bodies the next afternoon said the smell of gasoline filled the room. (The Miami Herald)

• Fire officials in San Bernadino, Calif., determined that Steven Vego, 44, died after he heard a “pop” and saw a fire in his backyard, then went out to douse it, accidentally stepped on a downed power line and was electrocuted. His wife, Sharon Vego, 43, tried to rescue him but also stepped on the power line and was electrocuted. Their son, Jonathan Cole, 21, tried to rescue his parents but he, too, stepped on the power line and was electrocuted. (Los Angeles’s KABC-TV)

Not-So-Great Escape
When a police officer approached Jona Zeigler, 40, in Moses Lake, Wash., to arrest her for an outstanding felony warrant, she drove away. At one point, she decided to flee on foot. “She tried getting out of her car as it was rolling and tripped and was dragged underneath her vehicle,” police Capt. Dave Sands said, adding that Zeigler was taken to the hospital for treatment prior to her arrest. (Moses Lake’s Columbia Basin Herald)

Compiled from the nation’s press by Roland Sweet. Authentication on demand.

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