Blotter Fodder

POSTED // Jun 11,2007 - Broadsided10/08/06, 00:34, Strong Arm Robbery/Aggravated Assault, 922 E. 2100 South, Smith’snnThe 24-year-old female “attempted to take a 30-pack of beer from Smith’s without paying. When Smith’s employees attempted to intercede,...

News & Columns

Blotter Fodder

By Shane Johnson

POSTED // Jun 11,2007 - Take a Hint10/13/06, 03:09, Domestic Violence, Arson, near State Street and 900 SouthnnThe 33-year-old male suspect “argued with his girlfriend because she would not go home. The [suspect] then went out to his girlfriend’s car and kicked the...

News & Columns

The Missionary Position

Speaker of the House Greg Curtis

By Shane Johnson

POSTED // Jun 11,2007 - Greg CurtisnnAttorney, state lawmaker, speaker of the House Served mission in Auckland, New Zealand, 1980-82nnWere you ever injured on your mission?nn“One time we were playing volleyball on our recreation day. A huge Polynesian guy came flying through...

News & Columns

Shane Song

As with sausage and lawmaking, not everyone wants to know how political scandals are dug up. That’s what keeps James Evans in business.

By Shane Johnson

POSTED // Jun 11,2007 - Long-dead muckraker and hopeless cynic H.L. Mencken riffed, “Giving every man a vote has no more made men wise and free than Christianity has made them good.” While some of that blame resides with Mencken’s slavish Fourth Estate, most...

News & Columns

Tokin’ Victory

A guilty-as-sin stoner beats the rap, but the sheriff won’t discuss the one that got away.

By Shane Johnson

POSTED // Jun 11,2007 - May 2004, Doug Woods packed up his 1982 Volkswagen Vanagon and, with his trusty pooch Sadie riding shotgun, headed home to Boulder, Colo. He’d spent the previous six months with friends and family in Fremont, Calif., after his mother succumbed to...

News & Columns

Extremist Makeover

Utah’s dowdy moralists are no match for our queer eyes.

By Shane Johnson

POSTED // Jun 11,2007 - Year after year in the Utah Legislature, the usual suspects roll out a bevy of bills intended to stave off the encroaching “gay agenda.” A couple years ago, Amendment 3 constitutionalized the belief that “the gays” are not, and...

News & Columns

Cop Out

It’s almost criminal what some police officers get away with.

By Shane Johnson

POSTED // Jun 11,2007 - Erin wasn’t a cheerleader. She didn’t go to prom and all these cute little things,” Paige Guion says of her 19-year-old daughter. “She’s been an alternative kind of kid.”Pint-size, pony-tailed and huddling knees-to-chest...

News & Columns

Chestnuts, Literally

Ten can’t-miss gift ideas for the eccentrics on your list.

By Shane Johnson

POSTED // Jun 11,2007 - Isn’t it fun to paint? There’s a great scene in writer/director/star Jon Favreau’s 2001 comedic romp, Made, where two blundering wannabe wise guys (Favreau and real life buddy Vince Vaughn) take a sweetheart daughter-type to a DIY pottery...

News & Columns

Crime Seen

A cop is cleared in a deadly raid gone wrong but not by the deceased’s family.

By Shane Johnson

POSTED // Jun 11,2007 - Bounmy Ousa’s children still speak of their 59-year-old, pot-bellied father in the present tense. Because of his violent passing, the family believes Bounmy’s tormented ghost is always nearby, trapped between this life and his next incarnation....

News & Columns

Broken Home

One woman’s arduous custody battle wins child-welfare reforms, and nothing more.

By Shane Johnson

POSTED // Jun 11,2007 - Twenty-year-old Peter Bierly swings a hammer for a living, wields a crushing handshake and drips with certitude. But reliving a recent exchange with his estranged younger brother, the blond bruiser is reduced to embarrassed tears. ~~~image~~~ It had...