Dateline: BrazilA referee in an amateur soccer match is facing disciplinary action after he pulled a gun during a dispute over a call. Video footage of the incident at a field in Brumadinho shows 27-year-old referee Gabriel Murta being held back by another official while brandishing a handgun. Brazilian news outlet G1 Minas Gerais reported Murta had been slapped and kicked by a player for declining to give a red card penalty to a player on the opposing team. Murta, who also works as a police officer, allegedly responded by going to the locker room and retrieving his handgun. No arrests were made following the incident, but officials with the Minas Gerais Football Federation say Murta could face disciplinary action.Dateline: AlaskaHow could he lose? Santa Claus is running for a City Council seat at the North Pole. According to the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, a man whose legal name is Santa Claus has launched a write-in campaign for City Council in the tiny Alaska town of North Pole. Claus, the former president of the North Pole Chamber of Commerce, is one of only two write-in candidates for North Pole’s two open City Council seats. No candidates filed for office during the regular filing period. A lack of candidates seems to be a problem in North Pole, whose full-time population sits just over 2,000. North Pole Mayor Bryce Ward, for example, is running uncontested in his re-election bid.Dateline: New HampshirePolice in Concord are searching for a man they say tried to steal $900 worth of electric drills, made chicken noises and ran away. CBS Boston reports Concord Police were called to a Sears store on Loudon Road on Sept. 15 after a man allegedly put four drills in a shopping cart and tried to leave the store without paying for them. When employees attempted to stop the man, witnesses say he “made chicken noises” and walked out of the store. The man was last seen running toward the parking lot of a nearby movie theater. The suspect is described as a white male, 25-35 years of age. Dateline: ArizonaA doghouse in Nogales was destroyed when a package containing nearly 24 pounds of pot fell from the sky. Homeowner Maya Donnelly told the Nogales International newspaper she awoke to what sounded like thunder in the early morning hours of Sept. 8, but went back to sleep. Later that morning she went outside and found her carport littered with wood and debris. There was also a large package wrapped in black plastic that had not been there the night before. “It was all right on top of our dog’s house,” Donnelly told the Nogales International. “It just made a perfectly round hole through our carport.” Following the discovery Donnelly’s husband told her to call 911. Nogales Police Chief Derek Arnson confirmed the mysterious package contained 23.8 pounds of marijuana—worth an estimated $9,500. Investigators believe the drugs came from an ultralight aircraft from Mexico that accidentally dropped part of its load early. “Someone definitely made a mistake, and who knows what the outcome of that mistake might be for them,” Arnson said. The drugs caused an estimated $500 in damages to the home and left the family’s German Shepherd, Hulk, without a home. Still, the Donnellys are grateful. “Where it landed was clear on the other side of the house from the bedrooms,” Maya Donnelly said. “We were lucky in that sense.”Dateline: CaliforniaPolice in Apple Valley, Calif. say they have arrested the “Maxi Pad Bandit,” who earned the unflattering nickname after robbing an auto parts store with a feminine hygiene product taped to his face. Security camera footage shows a man, his face partially obscured by a white maxi pad, breaking into the Battery Mart in the early morning hours of Sept. 28. Investigators later identified the man as 51-year-old Gary Victor. Victor, who has had run-ins with the Apple Valley police before, was arrested late last month. Police believe he may have been under the influence of “intoxicating substances” when he allegedly attached a sanitary napkin to his face and broke in to the store. “We had a pretty good picture of his face, ’cause he came to the store the first time and looked in the window without his maxi pad on,” Battery Mart owner Mark Wedell, told KNBC-TV. “But when he came back and he had the maxi pad over his eyes, I guess he thought it was going to take care of everything.”
Compiled by Devin D. O'Leary. Email your weird news to devin@alibi.com.
