Smart Phone, Dumb Owner 

Curses, Foiled Again
A man told police he was eating hot dogs in a park in Worcester, Mass., when another man approached, lifted up his shirt to show what appeared to be a handgun, grabbed one of the hot dogs and began eating it. “In doing so,” police Officer Joseph Francese noted in his report, “mustard spilled onto the suspect’s shirt.” According to the Worcester Telegram & Gazette, police identified Antonio J. Judd, 35, as their suspect after spotting him wearing the shirt with the telltale mustard stain. Judd pleaded guilty to larceny.

• Welsh police said Dean Gardener, 19, and Jason Fender, 22, attacked two men walking along a Swansea street in wigs, short skirts and high heels. The victims turned out to be cage fighters, who promptly punched their attackers to the ground and walked off. The Daily Mail said police identified Gardener and Fender from closed-circuit television footage of the incident. “You know it cannot have been a good night,” defense attorney Mark Davies told the newspaper, “when you get into a fight with two cross-dressing men.”

Issuing a Challenge to Bioengineers
Growing demand for chicken wings has given rise to “boneless wings,” fashioned from skinless boneless chicken breasts, which are now cheaper than wings. As recently as May 2008, skinless boneless breasts sold for 57 cents more than wings, but in seven of the past 11 months, wholesale wing prices have topped breast prices, according to the Agriculture Department. The New York Times reported that most experts expect wing prices to continue to rise at least until the Super Bowl in February. Noting the days of cheap wings might be gone forever, Adam J. Scott, a founder of the Atlanta-based chain Wing Zone, told the Times, “If they can figure out how to grow chicken with four wings, we’d be in really great shape.”

Smart Phone, Dumb Owner
Aaron R. Klein, 24, couldn’t pay his $57.75 tab at a bar in Brookfield, Wis., so he left his cell phone as collateral and said he’d come back the next day to settle up. After Klein left, according to a criminal complaint filed in Waukesha County Circuit Court, a bartender searching the phone for Klein’s name or number found seven pornographic images of children that had been downloaded to the phone. He called police, who arrested Klein when he returned to the bar. They searched his home computer and found between 300 and 400 child pornography images, leading to felony charges.

Way to Go
When heavy rain caused flooding in Chattanooga, Tenn., Sylvester Kitchens, 46, bragged he could swim an overflowing storm ditch and dared onlooker to bet him $5 he couldn’t. He got no takers, The Associated Press reported, but jumped in anyway. He bobbed along for about 150 feet before grabbing a chain link fence above the ditch. He lost his grip while family members tried to toss him a lifeline, and washed away into an underground culvert. Rescuers found his body four days later.

• Three members of a Florida family were electrocuted while trying to erect an antenna in Palm Bay, Fla. Witnesses told WKMG-TV News that Melville Braham, 55, Anna Braham, 49, and Anthony Braham, 15, were raising a HAM radio antenna onto their roof when they lost control of the pole. It struck an overhead wire, sending 13,000 volts of electricity through the antenna while the victims were holding it. “The house is on fire,” said a woman who placed a 911 call. “The house is blowing up.”

Backseat Driver
When sheriff’s Deputy Kristin Rozycki stopped a vehicle for speeding in Erie County, N.Y., she found Michael G. Spagnola, 38, sitting in the back seat insisting that he had not been driving. Suspicious because he was the only occupant, Rozycki determined that Spagnola was the driver and had climbed into the back seat to avoid a ticket, a conclusion that Spagnola later confirmed, leading to a charge of driving while intoxicated.

Compiled from the nation’s press by Roland Sweet. Authentication on demand. Submit items, citing date and source, to P.O. Box 8130, Alexandria VA 22306.