Odds & Ends

Dateline: Belgium—Police have let a motorist off the hook after his car was clocked by radar going Mach 3. The motorist was issued an automated speeding ticket for going 2,100 miles per hour in his Mini Cooper late last year. Police, admitting that it is unlikely the motorist was traveling at three times the speed of sound, have apologized for the mistake. Belgian newspaper La Derniere Heure said the alleged speeding incident happened in December, but only came to light when the ticket was sent out this month. Prosecutors asked to follow up on the unpaid fine said, “We called the local police to find out what height the plane caught speeding along the Boulevard Lambermont was flying at.” After the call, police apologized to the motorist and promised to make sure the faulty radar was repaired.

Dateline: Australia—Thieves in the town of Somersby on New South Wales' central coast apparently didn't believe the hype when they scaled two barbed-wire fences and climbed into an alligator pit to steal a four-foot beast named Mr. Cranky Pants. According to the Australian Broadcasting Corp., the 4-year-old alligator was taken from a reptile park north of Sydney over the weekend. Park officials raised the alarm on Monday, but the thieves apparently became fed up with their new acquisition rather quickly. Following a tip from the public, park rangers found the reptile in a nearby creek. “Mr. Cranky Pants is a cranky pants,” said Al Mucci from the Australian Reptile Park. “He gets moody and so they probably messed with the wrong alligator and dumped him.”

Dateline: Indiana—Police in White River Township are searching for some thieves with a sense of humor. Novelty toy distributor Greg O'Dell reported last Wednesday that someone had stolen his pickup truck and cargo trailer containing between 25,000 and 30,000 sets of Billy Bob Teeth. The novelty dentures, featuring crooked, tobacco-stained teeth, were worth upwards of $300,000 retail. Nonetheless, the teeth were unpackaged and did not include the necessary putty adhesive to make them custom-fit into wearers' mouths, making them essentially worthless for resale. “I've got a feeling someone is going to be disappointed when they get into the back of that cargo trailer and think they've got computers or construction tools and find out they've got Billy Bob Teeth,” Chief Deputy Doug Cox told Indiana's Daily Journal. O'Dell, who has recently begun expanding his product line, reported that the cargo trailer also included sets of Real McCoy, Austin Powers, Slapshot and Deliverance Cavity teeth.

Dateline: Michigan—In addition to the 200 boiled and plastic eggs, children hunting for Easter treats at a church event in Flint managed to locate a broken toy weapon, a BB gun and two loaded pistols. The church-sponsored Easter egg hunt took place on the grounds of the Gundry Elementary School last Saturday. Fifteen minutes into the hunt, one child found a plastic handgun and turned it over to one of the event's chaperones. Shortly thereafter, 11-year-old NaShalyn Porter found a real handgun in a rotting tree trunk. The weapon dropped out of her hand and went off when another child bumped her as she ran to give it to an adult, the girl's mother, 34-year-old Najia Elerson-Porter, told the Detroit Free Press. An empty bullet casing was found in the gun's chamber. Fortunately, no one was injured. Namon Marshall, pastor at the Ruth Street Church of God told WJRT News that another handgun found later had bullets in its clip. “It's terrible that something like this has happened,” Marshall told the station. Police opened an investigation after confiscating the various weapons.