The Odd Truth, July 18, 2003
The Odd Truth is a collection of strange but factual news stories from around the world compiled by CBSNews.com's Brian Bernbaum. A new collection of stories is published each weekday. On weekends, you can read a week's worth of The Odd Truth.
Garbage Stolen At Gunpoint
MELBOURNE - In a rushed grab-and-run robbery, two men with a sawed-off shotgun stole two bags of garbage from a gasoline station attendant in the southern city of Melbourne, police said Friday.
The male attendant was carrying the garbage through a shopping center parking lot in the city's western suburb of Deer Park just before midnight Thursday when a green van reversed toward him, police said.
A man, who had covered his face with a piece of yellow cloth, slid the van's side door open, produced a sawed-off shotgun and demanded the attendant hand over the bags.
"He told them it was only rubbish but they took it anyway," police spokeswoman Bronwen Kelly said.
The van then sped off.
Police say they have no idea why the men grabbed the trash, but assumed they thought the bags contained money. Police believe the van was stolen and are treating the case as a normal armed robbery.
Loaded Teddy Bear
ORLANDO, Fla. - Airport security workers found a loaded handgun stuffed inside a brown teddy bear that a 9-year-old boy was carrying on a trip home after his family's Florida vacation, authorities said Thursday.
The FBI is investigating how the gun got inside the teddy bear.
A Transportation Security Administration worker noticed the outline of a gun when the bear passed through an X-ray machine at Orlando International Airport on Saturday.
The TSA found a loaded .22-caliber gun after the bear was opened. The boy's family told investigators that the bear was a gift from a girl at the hotel where they stayed during their Orlando vacation.
"She appeared at their hotel room door and offered them the bear," said Robert Johnson, a TSA spokesman in Washington. "The mother said it was okay and so the boy took it."
The Miami Herald reported that the gun had been reported stolen in 1996 in California.
Johnson said the incident "underscores the need to screen everyone and everything no matter how innocent the people or their belongings may appear."
The boy's parents, Robert and Angela Barry of Grove City, Ohio, were questioned by FBI agents and released. The boy turned 10 on Monday.
Defendant Moons Jury, Hoots 'Cuckoo'
PANAMA CITY, Fla. - Members of a Florida jury got to see a lot more than the evidence — when they were mooned by the defendant. Cornell Jackson started hooting "cuckoo-cuckoo" and dropped his pants in a Panama City court. He's making an insanity defense in an alleged assault on his former girlfriend. Deputies and bailiffs pounced on the bare-butted Jackson and dragged him from the courtroom Wednesday. Yesterday, Jackson's lawyer asked for a mistrial. But the request was rejected. The judge ordered the mooning defendant to watch the rest of the trial from a holding cell on closed-circuit TV.
Thai Elephants Don't Speak Swedish
STOCKHOLM - When the Swedish royal couple visited Thailand earlier this year, they were presented with two elephants as a gift from the king of Thailand. But the giant mammals don't understand Swedish, so two zookeepers are traveling to Thailand to learn Thai.
"The elephants must be able to understand commands in the languages they've been raised with, so that we don't have to teach them Swedish," Magnus Nilsson, chief executive of Sweden's Kolmaarden safari park, told The Associated Press on Friday.
In Thailand, the two zookeepers will also attend a special training camp for elephant keepers.
Thailand's culture minister Chakrarot Chitrabong earlier this week visited the park, 93 miles south of Stockholm, to make sure the elephants will get a good home when they arrive in Sweden in late October.
"Here the elephants will live as good as we do. Kolmaarden is one of the best zoological parks I have visited," the minister was quoted as telling the local newspaper Folkbladet.
For Kolmaarden, which does not have elephants any more, the gift is especially welcome. The park was forced to destroy all five of its elephants, from last year through this spring, after they were infected with tuberculosis. Swedish law requires that any animal infected with tuberculosis be destroyed because the disease is contagious between humans and animals.
Thai King Bhumibol Adulyadej presented King Carl Gustaf and Queen Silvia with the two elephants during a five-day state visit to Thailand in February.
Freight Train Stops For Coffee Break
KINGSTON, N.Y. - Apparently, there's no law against parking a train and blocking traffic to get coffee. So CSX Corp. won't be fined for tying up traffic last month when one of its freights made an unscheduled stop.
The Federal Railroad Administration looked into it, said Warren Flatau, agency spokesman. "It is my understanding that our field (investigation) did not find anything actionable under the regulations that we enforce," he said.
Had the stop about 6:30 p.m. June 9 caused an injury or collision then a fine probably would have been recommended, Flatau said.
That news had the mayor of this Hudson Valley city, 52 miles south of Albany, ready to blow his stack.
"I find it incomprehensible that to block six different intersections so an employee can go have coffee, putting residents of this community and emergency workers at risk, that there isn't a federal law against it," Mayor James Sottile told The Daily Freeman. "I find it absurd."
The coffee break was exposed by city Fire Chief Richard Salzmann, who after getting stuck at one crossing went to the nearby Dunkin' Donuts shop. There he saw a CSX employee carrying a tray of coffee cups back to the locomotive. Once the employee got on board, the train started up again.
CSX officials later apologized and said that the employee would be disciplined.
Stoner Tries To Sell Weed To Off-Duty Cops
DAVENPORT, Iowa - A man picked the wrong customers when he tried to sell marijuana to three off-duty police officers.
One was even wearing a T-shirt promoting police memorial week.
The officers had just returned from a boating trip Monday night when the 35-year-old man approached Sgt. John Hutcheson and asked him if he "smoked," police said.
Hutcheson told the man to go talk with Officer Jim Meyrer and Detective Mike Martin, who were standing nearby, police said.
The man then asked Meyrer and Martin if they wanted to buy marijuana. Meyrer said yes and asked the man if he had a pound.
The suspect told the officers he had two ounces, then showed a plastic bag containing a green, leafy substance, police said.
The man was arrested on two counts of drug possession.
The Dumbest Foiled Robbery Ever?
MT. UNION, Penn. - A would-be robber is empty-handed after being locked out of a convenience store he tried to hold up in Pennsylvania.
State police say a clerk at a Mini Mart went outside to empty the trash when a man approached her. He said he had a gun and told her not to look at him.
He told the woman to go back into the store and get all the money and bring it outside.
The clerk went inside the store — but locked all the doors and called police.
The man fled without any money.
Killer Lawyer!
LONDON - A British judge on Thursday urged a professional body to investigate why a lawyer found guilty of trying to kill his wife had been allowed to work as an attorney despite an earlier murder conviction.
Tokunbo Okunola was sentenced to life in prison Thursday for the attempted murder of his wife. He had been convicted in 1977 of murdering Stephen Scott and sentenced to life, but was released in 1994, and later qualified as a lawyer.
"I trust the Law Society will wish to investigate the circumstances in which he was admitted to their roll and able to practice in criminal law as an employee and as a partner in various firms of solicitors," Judge Giles Forrester said.
Okunola, 43, claimed he was under a voodoo curse when he attacked the home of his estranged wife Diane Ward with a firebomb, then stabbed her as she fled the fire.
A jury found him guilty of attempted murder on Wednesday.