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Third-degree burns, stitches for South Bend brothers-in-law fighting over frying pan

Tribune Staff Report

2:19 p.m. Saturday, July 10, 2010

Updated Friday, July 16, 2010

SOUTH BEND — A dispute over the ownership of a frying pan led to third-degree burns for one South Bend man and 11 stitches for another, police reports said.

A 49-year-old man was cooking bacon on the stove at a house in the 600 block of Lincoln Way East when his 47-year-old brother-in-law claimed the pan was his, the report said.

The argument led to the man cooking cornering the younger man into a closet and spilling hot grease on the younger man. The report said the 47-year-old then grabbed the pan from his attacker and hit him in the head twice.

The 49-year-old was taken to an area hospital were he received 11 stitches before being arrested for assault, the report said. But the man who received third-degree burns on his hands told police he did not wish to press charges.
Police did report finding two pieces of bacon in the closet.

Bad Luck Bandit’ runs out of gas

 

Dee Riggs
World staff writer

 

Thursday, July 15, 2010

 

WENATCHEE — It helps to have a full tank of gas when driving away from the scene of a crime, a Tacoma man discovered Wednesday afternoon.

The man, dubbed by Wenatchee police as the Bad Luck Bandit, ran out of gas as he was leaving a store where Native American collectibles were stolen. 

Police, who had been alerted to the thefts by the store owner, arrested the 47-year-old suspect after he fled on foot from his car, which stalled 50 feet from its original parking spot, said Sgt. John Kruse, a Wenatchee Police Department spokesman.

The incident happened about 3:45 p.m. Wednesday in the 800 block of South Wenatchee Avenue, Kruse said. The man is suspected of stealing several Native American collectibles, which were on display at the Discount Center, 807 S. Wenatchee Ave. 

At the time of his arrest, the man also was in possession of several necklaces that were stolen from the Antique Mall in downtown Wenatchee, Kruse said. He also is suspected of stealing a beaded Native American ceremonial garment with a price tag on it for $10,500. Kruse said officers do not know where that garment came from. 

Anyone with information about the suspect or items he may have in his possession is asked to contact Detective Jeff Ward at the Wenatchee Police Department, 888-4210. 

The man was booked into the Chelan County Regional Justice Center on suspicion of first-degree theft.

Camden man accused of using fake money to post bail in Burlington County

 

JIM WALSH

Courier-Post Staff

July 15, 2010

 

"You can't teach stupid," Cinnaminson Police Det. Sgt. William Covert said of White, whose bail payment five days earlier had been inflated by a paperwork error. "He walks in the door looking for his money and we lock him up." 

White, who allegedly used five phony $20 bills to help pay $400 in bail on July 7, had two bogus $20 bills in his possession when he came to the station on Monday, Covert said. 

The two bills shared a serial number and matched at least one of the $20s used to make bail, he said. 

White's problems in Cinnaminson began with his July 7 arrest on multiple counts of shoplifting. White, accused of taking items from a Burlington Coat Factory and a Shop-Rite supermarket on Route 130, "actually had almost $900 in his pocket," Covert said. 

White received a summons for the shoplifting charges, but he had to pay $400 bail for two outstanding warrants from Camden, Covert said. 

Authorities realized the next day that the $20s were fakes printed on the wrong paper stock. Cinnaminson police then issued a warrant charging White with forgery. 

Meanwhile, Covert said, White apparently learned at a court appearance that he had been sought on only one warrant in Camden, with a bail requirement of $200. The second warrant, also with $200 bail, had been listed in error. 

"He said, "I want my $200 back,' " Covert said. 

Instead, White received a trip to Burlington County Jail, where he was held Wednesday on $5,000 cash bail.

Too much Sandwich more than man could chew

 

 

Christopher Quinn
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

3:36 p.m. Friday, July 16, 2010

"When this is all over, it's going to be funny," Paul Addison predicted to his best friend, Chad Ettmueller, who one night last February lay pumped full of morphine in an Atlanta emergency room.

Chris Dunn, cdunn@ajc.com Chad Ettmueller of Cumming takes a bite out of the double meat wicked sandwich at the Which Wich sandwich shop in Cumming on Monday, July 12, 2010. Ettmueller ordered that sandwich in March, dislocated both joints of his jaw while taking the first bite and paid about $4,000 out of pocket for the medical services needed to correct his jaw.

Ettmueller responded with mouth agape. He could not do otherwise. He had dislocated his jaw at maximum stretch when he tried to bite into a Which Wich sandwich shop's Double Wicked, a glorious pile of double portions of beef, bacon, turkey, ham, pepperoni, three cheeses and a wad of fixings on a whole wheat bun.

For 14 aching hours on that cold Saturday night, Ettmueller sat with his mouth stuck open, wide enough for a sparrow to check it out for a nesting site. 

As Jay Leno said while noting a news item about Ettmueller, "If the sandwich doesn't fit in your mouth, you've got too much sandwich." 

It has been an interesting five months. Ettmueller's discomfiting pose earned him Internet fame and the cross-county sympathy of Which Wich fans, who in a company-sponsored contest concluded June 23 voted the sandwich a new name. The Lockjaw.

That night in the Cumming Which Wich with his jaw jacked open, Ettmueller looked perplexedly at wife Carolyn and kids Conner, Kenna and Maddie and said as best he could that his mouth was stuck. 

Yup. OK, Dad. Whatever. Their responses had been conditioned by years of their father's joking. 

He walked outside. He manipulated the formerly cooperative body part with his hands. No luck. He was hitting himself in the chin in an unsuccessful effort to shut his mouth when Carolyn realized this was no laughing matter, though some emergency room workers would later disagree. 

She was a little freaked out, Carolyn admitted, but she was not crying. Not yet. The tears would come after they hurriedly wrapped the sandwiches and left for a visit to a nearby clinic. 

Ettmueller said, "They actually laughed at me," when he walked in gaping and Carolyn explained. 

The doctor failed to fix him. So the Ettmuellers headed to the first of two more emergency rooms they would visit that night. A half-day and $3,000 later for the insurance co-pays, deductibles and MRI's, Ettmueller awoke from the anesthesia with a closed mouth, sore muscles and a tight, chin-to-crown head wrap that stayed on for four days. 

It was, he said, "the most expensive sandwich that I never ate." 

Carolyn, a bit punchy from the night, dashed off an e-mail to Which Wich, telling the story and suggesting her beleaguered husband deserved a new sandwich since he did not get to eat his. 

Gary Birnberg, the Cumming Which Wich franchisee, saw it and thought: Is this for real? 

He discovered it was and, somewhat disturbingly, Ettmueller worked for a company that structures large lawsuit settlements. 

Phone calls between Binberg, the Ettmuellers and Jeff Sinelli, the CEO of the Dallas-based chain, eased the businessmen's concerns about Ettmueller practicing his craft upon them. 

Sinelli decided to try to spin Internet gold out of the bad situation. He flew to Atlanta and with Ettmueller's cooperation oversaw the making of YouTube videos about the incident.

LINK TO YOUTUBE VIDEO

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Fjt6bNk6As

As the story spread, Ettmueller's name popped up in media from Forsyth County newspapers to the BBC in England. He fielded calls from radio stations around the country. 

He has since pondered buying a Which Wich franchise and has also gingerly eaten a few Lockjaws since the incident. But he hung on to the coupon Binberg gave him to replace the original. 

And whatever did happen to the original? 

Addison, who had been called in for moral support that painful night, left the emergency room hungry. He knew that somewhere in the parking deck, the never-bitten sandwich sat in the Ettmuellers' minivan, he said. When he found the minivan and its doors were open, it was like a green light.

"It was delicious," Addison said, noting that he acted in the best interest of his friend. 

"It was a mercy killing, only tastier," he said.

 

LINK TO PHOTO

http://www.ajc.com/news/too-much-sandwich-more-572146.html

Man tries to shoplift tweezers, lands in jail

 

A 48-year-old man is facing theft and assault charges over an $8 pair of tweezers even he admitted he didn't need. 

The charges stem from an incident Friday at a pharmacy in Gig Harbor.

According to charging documents, Troy J. Montgomery went into the store, selected a pair of tweezers and put them in his pocket. A store employee spotted the activity, confronted Montgomery and told him she was calling police. 

Montgomery took the tweezers from his pocket, threw them and headed for the door, court documents state. 

The store's pharmacist stepped into Montgomery's path to stop him and was shoved aside. The pharmacist fell to the floor and suffered a 3-inch cut to his arm, court documents state. 

Shoppers took Montgomery to the ground and detained him until Pierce County sheriff's deputies arrived. 

A deputy asked Montgomery if he wanted to answer questions about what happened.

"Not really," he replied, according to charging documents. "Besides being stupid, don't even need the thing, about the dumbest thing I ever did." 

Pierce County prosecutors have charged Montgomery with third-degree assault and third-degree theft.

Read more: http://blog.thenewstribune.com/crime/2010/07/13/man-tries-to-shoplift-tweezers-lands-in-jail/#ixzz0tsT5rzmD

http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/World-News/Patrick-Pogan-Police-Officer-Who-Deliberately-Knocked-Activist-Christopher-Long-Off-Bike-Walks-Free/Article/201007315665445?f=rss

July 16, 2010 Authorities: Woman lied about sex in SUV to hide laptop theft ALEX HARCHAREK The Daily Journal Staff Writer   VINELAND -- The real story behind what happened to a Vineland woman who made up a tale about being carjacked, and then told police she was having sex with a driver when their SUV crashed, took another strange twist, authorities said Thursday. Turns out both accounts were nothing but lies designed to cover up her role in the theft of a laptop computer that led to stealing a car and committing arson, authorities said. The woman, 23-year-old Sara C. Blasse of Galli Drive, initially told Vineland police she broke her arm in a confrontation with an armed carjacker in Chesilhurst early Saturday morning, authorities said. Officers found her wrecked SUV abandoned on a residential street in the Camden County town, smoldering from an apparent arson. But police said they weren't fooled by inconsistencies in her account of the carjacking, which prompted Blasse to change her story and say a male prostitute crashed her car while she gave him oral sex. That story wasn't true either, the Camden County Prosecutor's Office announced Thursday. Further investigation revealed Blasse and her boyfriend, 27-year-old Newtonville resident Henry Goode Jr., stole a laptop from a vehicle on Miller Street in Chesilhurst, the Prosecutor's Office said. The computer's owner witnessed the theft and called police. The couple evaded police, but soon crashed Blasse's 2003 Kia Sorento at Atlantic and Sherman avenues in Chesilhurst, breaking Blasse's arm in the process, Prosecutor's Office spokesman Jason Laughlin said. Blasse and Goode then stuffed paper towels into the SUV's gas tank and attempted to set it on fire but failed, Laughlin said. The couple fled in opposite directions, he said. Goode's brother took Blasse to South Jersey Healthcare Regional Medical Center, where she told police her first of two phony explanations, authorities said. While Blasse was at the hospital, Goode stole a van from a South Jersey Gas facility in Winslow, police said. He drove south to Atlantic County, where he abandoned the vehicle in Buena Vista -- but not before attempting, and failing, to ignite the vehicle's gas tank, the Prosecutor's Office said. Goode then fled to his home on the 400 block of 10th Street, where he was arrested Wednesday, police said. Blasse is charged with aggravated arson, burglary, theft, hindering apprehension by destroying evidence and filing a false report. She was released on bail Thursday. Goode was charged with aggravated arson, burglary, theft and hindering apprehension. He was being held at Camden County Jail.

Steele fires back at Democrats' sniping

Some liberals defend him, too

 

8:21 p.m.

Thursday, July 15, 2010

Washington Times

 

 

Republican National Committee Chairman Michael S. Steele rebuked top Democratic spokesmen Thursday for personal attacks that go beyond the pale, including suggestions that Senate candidate Sharron Angle wants her political opponents to die and that he is rooting for U.S. defeat in Afghanistan.

He also is getting unexpected help on the latter count from commentators normally aligned with the liberal wing of the Democratic Party.

Democratic National Committee spokesman Hari Sevugan this week said, in a reference to old health care debates, that Mrs. Angle wishes death on her opponents.

Mrs. Angle, a Nevada Republican backed by Sarah Palin and a "tea party" favorite, leads her Democratic rival, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, in the polls.

During the fight over the health care bill, Mrs. Palin and some other Republicans predicted that the bill would result in "death panels" that would ration resources and decide which ill patients would or would not get expensive lifesaving treatments. Democrats denounced the claims.

"While 'death panels' were nowhere to be found in his health insurance reform bill, it looks like Sarah Palin can find a one-woman version of one in Nevada where Sharron Angle thinks people who criticize her political positions should die," Mr. Sevugan said. "Her sentiments are sick, but that fact that Republicans endorse, as their standard-bearer in Nevada, someone who wishes death upon her critics and calls for 'Second Amendment remedies' to deal with her political opposition is just as disturbing."

In an e-mail to The Washington Times on Thursday, Mr. Steele denounced the attack. 

"In politics, tough talk comes with the territory. But there is a line that should not be crossed. Making personal attacks - and claiming any candidate wants their opponents to die - is not just over the line, it denies basic human dignity," Mr. Steele said.

The jagged-edged comments began last week when Democratic National Committee spokesman Brad Woodhouse accused Mr. Steele of acts verging on treason - and supposedly "betting against our troops and rooting for failure in Afghanistan." 

Just before the July Fourth holiday, Mr. Steele created a political furor by telling donors at a Connecticut fundraiser that history shows that a land war in Afghanistan is a fool's errand and calling it President Obama's war. 

Last week, Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne, who describes himself as a political liberal, called Mr. Woodhouse's exaggerated rhetoric dangerous. 

"I have some empathy for Woodhouse, who must be weary of dealing with the other side's demagoguery day after day," Mr. Dionne wrote in his regular column. "But this is dangerous stuff in a democracy and particularly perilous from a party that, less than two years ago, rightly insisted it could oppose the Bush administration's foreign policy on thoroughly patriotic grounds." 

Some Democrats also saw more than a hint of hypocrisy in the Woodhouse attack on Mr. Steele coming after a vote by a majority of House Democrats to require that Mr. Obama present a plan by April to get U.S. troops out of Afghanistan. 

Salon columnist Glenn Greenwald, long a fierce critic of the Bush administration, called Mr. Woodhouse's statement "truly repellent" and compared the DNC's tactics to those of former chief Bush political strategist Karl Rove and called them "poisonous" and "manipulative." 

Mr. Greenwald, whose column on the subject also chastised Mr. Steele for not noting that Afghanistan was invaded under a Republican administration, also called out other liberals for similarly "replicating the worst of the GOP rhetoric." 

"Over on the front page of Daily Kos, Barbara Morrill ends her post about Steele's comments this way: 'What the family and friends of those who died or those who are still fighting there today think is, of course, another story.' A couple of months ago, Jonathan Alter and Keith Olbermann both suggested that criticisms of Obama weaken the U.S. and thus help Al Qaeda. Last October, both the DNC and some progressive groups accused Steele respectively of 'siding with the terrorists' and being 'downright unpatriotic' because he questioned whether Obama's Nobel Peace Prize was merited," Mr. Greenwald wrote. 

Mr. Woodhouse also suggested that Mr. Steele was being two-faced in giving a cold shoulder to Democratic National Committee Chairman Tim Kaine's offer to jointly call for a toning down of the rhetoric and, in language Republicans regarded as a poison pill - to "condemn the violence and threats which Republican supporters have engaged in since the passage of health reform." 

The RNC chief fired back on that matter Thursday. 

"We rejected the DNCs 'civility statement' precisely because we knew - and we have seen - that Democrats are incapable of living up to their own standards or their word," Mr. Steele said in a written comment to The Times. 

In a syndicated column titled "Steele right on Obama and Afghan war," Richard Cohen, another liberal commentator, called Mr. Woodhouse's attack on Mr. Steele "an ugly smear." 

Expressing a view shared by non-interventionist Republicans and conservatives, Mr. Cohen wrote that "Steele was right from the start. His truth was the larger one, which is that enough time has elapsed so that the war in Afghanistan can be seen as Barack Obamas." 

Mr. Cohen referred Mr. Woodhouse as "exhibit A in what, looking back, will be seen as the overselling of this particular war." 

Steve Benen at the Washington Monthly's Political Animal blog said he understood that "the urge at the DNC to give the RNC a taste of its own medicine is pretty intense, but when DNC messages about a war in 2010 are effectively identical to RNC messages about a war in 2004, there's a problem." 

Some conservative leaders who are not normally cheerleaders for Mr. Steele also came to his defense, especially over calls from such prominent Republicans as William Kristol, Liz Cheney and GOProud that Mr. Steele should resign over his Afghan remarks. 

"There are many reasons why Michael Steele should not be chairman but Afghanistan is not one of them," former Texas GOP Chairman Tom Pauken told The Times. "Republicans have legitimate reason to question the rationale for the war and whether we have an exit strategy."

http://www.wreg.com/news/wreg-woman-finds-cash,0,3471059.story

http://news.yahoo.com/s/newsnet5/newsnet5_ts3135

Father killed in failed plan to get custody of child

 

12:00 AM CDT

Wednesday, July 14, 2010

 

SCOTT GOLDSTEIN

The Dallas Morning News 

 

Dwayne Lamont Moten wanted custody of his child. So he devised a plan with another man to get the new boyfriend of the child's mother out of the way, according to Dallas police.

Jacob Wheeler would shoot to wound Moten. Then Moten would call 911 and pin the shooting on the third man.

"It was a very ill-conceived plan," said Dallas police homicide Sgt. Bruce McDonald.

And it failed.

Moten, 20, a felon, died Saturday afternoon. Wheeler, also 20 and a felon, faces a murder charge, according to police records.

The shooting occurred about 3:20 p.m. Saturday in the 2700 block of Malcolm X Boulevard near Grand Avenue.

"He was actually planning on shooting him in the thigh and shoulder," McDonald said. "I don't know if [Moten] flinched and turned sideways a little more. The bullet entered the chest cavity and was fatal."

Before he died, Moten drove a short distance and yelled for someone to call an ambulance, according to a Dallas police report.

At some point Moten also called 911, though he did not pin the shooting on the third man during that call, police said.

The story that detectives were initially told implicated the boyfriend and didn't add up, McDonald said.

Police arrested Wheeler on an unrelated aggravated robbery charge Sunday morning and later added the murder charge. He was being held at the Dallas County Jail on Tuesday night on $750,000 bail.

 

 

LINK TO VIDEO AND PHOTO

http://www.myfoxdfw.com/dpp/news/071410-Man-Killed-in-Bizarre-Custody-Plot

Scott Brown slams Kathy Griffin for calling daughters 'prostitutes'

Michael O'Brien 

The Hill

07/15/10 06:24 PM ET

Sen. Scott Brown (R-Mass.) lashed out at comedienne Kathy Griffin on Thursday for describing his daughters as "prostitutes."

Brown strongly condemned remarks Griffin made on CNN in which she mocks Brown's daughters, Ayla and Arianna.

“People can call me any name they want, but families are off limits," Brown said. "I love my daughters Ayla and Arianna very much, and any parent would be proud to have them as children. Kathy Griffin and Bravo ought to be ashamed of themselves.”

Griffin is shown in video identifying a photo of Brown, in which she makes a joke about the Brown daughters.

"Scott Brown, who is a senator from Massachusetts, and has two daughters who are prostitutes," she tells CNN anchors John King and Dana Bash.

Brown has drawn some guffaws for his signs of affection toward his daughters; after winning a special election in January to fill the Senate seat of the late Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.), joking that the two were "both available."

Ayla Brown, a former college basketball player and "American Idol" contestant, works as contributor to "The Early Show" on CBS. Arianna Brown has spent this past summer doing some modeling.

 

LINK TO VIDEO 

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l3QgzaZ6UsQ&feature=player_embedded

5:18 AM ET, 07/16/2010  

Mild earthquake felt across region

Washington Post