Dateline: American SamoaTwo police officers at a territorial correction facility appeared in court earlier this month on charges they permitted inmates to go on beer runs. Samoa News reports officers Fiti Aina and Rocky Tua are accused of aiding the escape of a prisoner, permitting escape and public servant acceding to corruption following a surprise inspection of the Tafuna Correctional Facility. During the visit on July 20, investigators found alcoholic beverages in one of the cells. Court documents say an inmate told investigators he was sent on unsupervised visits to a nearby convenience store to purchase beer for fellow inmates and snacks for Aina and Tua. The officers are each being held on $15,000 bond.Dateline: FloridaA 22-year-old inmate in the Palm Beach Jail is suing the Palm Beach County sheriff in federal court, alleging that his rights are being violated due to a lack of dental floss. Jail inmate Joel Flores, who clearly has some time on his hands, says the lack of dental floss in Sheriff Ric Bradshaw’s jail is causing him “oral abscesses, pain, discomfort, tooth decay (loss), and could contribute to endocarditis.” Endocarditis is an inflammation of the inner lining of the heart chambers and heart valves. “Palm Beach County Jail Administration does not provide dental floss to inmates through property or the commissary, making it completely impossible to obtain and use as directed by the American Dental Association,” Flores says in his handwritten complaint. He wants the jail to provide dental floss to all inmates and is asking for “monetary compensation for my pain and suffering and emotional distress, as well as future required dental care.” Flores was booked into the jail in July on robbery charges.Dateline: VirginiaAccording to the Virginian-Pilot newspaper, a Chesapeake man ended up in jail after a car dealership decided he got too good a deal on his SUV. After 40-year-old Danny Sawyer purchased a Chevy Traverse and drove off the lot with it, bosses at Priority Chevrolet decided the customer paid $5,600 less for the vehicle than they thought he should have. Rather then yelling at the dealer who sold the vehicle, Priority Chevrolet tried to get the customer to sign a new contract for more money. When Sawyer refused, the dealership reported the vehicle stolen and had him arrested. After four hours in the Chesapeake jail, Sawyer was released on bond. Commonwealth Attorney Nancy Parr told the Virginian-Pilot her office would not be pressing charges against the car buyer. Dennis Ellmer, who manages the Chevrolet dealership, admitted that one of his employees did report the vehicle stolen. Ellmer told the newspaper, “It is my plan to let him [Sawyer] keep the $5,600. I can’t tell you how I plan to fix it, but it is my intention to make it right.” Sawyer has already filed two lawsuits, accusing the dealership of malicious prosecution, slander, defamation and abuse of process. He’s asking for $2.2 million in damages and attorney’s fees.Dateline: OhioIn recent years, law enforcement has been somewhat overzealous in finding and destroying “suspicious packages.” Officials in Akron could be forgiven for their concern, however, when a 4-foot aluminum pipe wrapped in duct tape with the word “Kaboom” written across it was found on the third floor of City Hall. The Summit County Bomb Squad, Akron fire crews and a K-9 unit from the University of Akron all converged on the scary stick once the building was evacuated. In the end, however, “Kaboom” turned out not to a threat, but a personalization. The pipe wasn’t actually a bomb. It was a walking stick left behind by a man whose full legal name is Natural Hunka Kaboom. “He basically told officers he left [the pipe] there, used it as his walking stick, left it at council when he was at a council meeting Monday night and he forgot about it,” Lt. Rick Edwards of the Akron Police Department told FOX-8 News. The Akron Beacon Journal describes the 66-year-old Mr. Kaboom as “a regular attendee at City Council meetings.” In a 2009 profile in the Falls News Press, Kaboom called himself a street minister to the “blind, crippled and mentally ill.” He also claimed his unusual monicker was a shortened version of his Polish family name, Kaboomski.
Compiled by Devin D. O'Leary. Email your weird news to devin@alibi.com.
