Odds & Ends

Dateline: England—Veterinarians in Manchester discovered the source of a German Shepherd's lack of appetite when they cut her open and found no less than 28 golf balls in her stomach. Eighteen-month-old Libby was taken in by her owner Mike Wardrop after she began coughing up blood. Wardrop, a bar manager at the Didsbury Golf Club, frequently took his dog for walks on the golf course. “When I take her for a walk every day she is prone to finding golf balls,” Wardrop told Reuters News Service. “She can fit five in her mouth.” Wardrop had no idea she was eating the balls as well. Since the operation, the relieved owner has bought his dog two footballs. “She can't swallow them,” he said.

Dateline: Phillipines—A lawyer tried a rather novel defense for his client in a recent drug case. Manuel Urbina argued in court that since the 67kg of cocaine and the loaded gun were found hidden in a rooster's cage, they actually belonged to the bird and not to his client, Francisco Armando Rivera. “The drugs were in the possession of a rooster and two hens and the law is very clear that whoever is in possession of the drugs is the one who should be accused,” said Urbina. Attorney General Julio Centeno called the defense case “an absurd joke.”

Dateline: Oregon—The city of Portland has agreed to shell out $145,000 to an elderly blind woman who was beaten, pepper-sprayed and shocked with a stun gun by local police. Last year, city workers showed up at the home of 71-year-old Eunice Crowder with an administrative search warrant to remove an accumulation of trash and debris on Ms. Crowder's lawn. According to Crowder and her lawyer, the woman told a city employee that she was blind and hard of hearing and asked him to read the entire warrant to her. The employee apparently refused and placed it in her hands. Workers were then ordered to begin removing items from the yard. Crowder grew concerned that the city employees would remove a family heirloom, a 90-year-old red toy wagon with rhododendrons in it. She asked to enter a trailer where items from her yard were being placed to feel around. Police officers Robert Miller and Eric Zajac arrived just as Crowder was stepping into the trailer. Moments later, the elderly women felt someone strike her in the head, which caused her prosthetic eye to pop from her right socket. Officers acknowledged that Crowder was “pushed into the dirt next to the sidewalk” and that her glass eye did become dislodged “at some point.” While on the ground, the blind woman was doused in pepper spray and shot three times with a Taser. Crowder's 94-year-old mother tried to assist her, but was pushed up against a nearby fence by officers. Although the police department did cite Crowder for harassment and disobeying an order, all charges were dropped. “To kick the crap out of old folks seems a little bit much to me in the name of law enforcement,” said Crowder's lawyer, Ernie Warren Jr.

Dateline: California—Apparently unclear on the concept of a getaway, bank robber Ronald Langsdale, 58, robbed the Bank of America in Huntington Beach, then walked across the parking lot to Mario's restaurant and ordered a beer. Several minutes later, police entered the restaurant and found Langsdale sitting at the bar, counting “a wad of money.” All of the stolen cash—minus the cost of a beer—was recovered. Langsdale is currently being held without bond.