10-04-02

FREE MONEY
Authorities in Istanbul said the guard at a state-owned bank robbed its cashiers and gave away the cash to people in the street. The guard was distressed because the branch was closing down and he was losing his job.

SELF-INCARCERATION
An allegedly drunk driver was arrested after following an inmate transport bus into the Santa Clara County, California prison grounds. The driver told guards he needed desperately to go to the bathroom and he thought he was following a Greyhound Bus to a depot.

NO COOKIE, NO PHOTO
A 22-year-old man was charged with kicking the Cookie Monster in the head and back at a Sesame Place theme park in Langhorne, Pennsylvania. Police claimed Lee McPhatter was upset that the character wouldn't pose for a picture with his daughter. A woman was inside the costume.

ISN'T THERE A TINY TAPE IN THERE?
An alleged warehouse thief in Salem, Oregon was undone by his lack of technical knowledge. Police said that after robbing the business, he stood on a chair and dismounted and stole the security camera -- not knowing the video tape recorder was located elsewhere. Police identified the suspect from the tape.

SCARE OF THE DOG
A house burglar in Ettenleur, The Netherlands, couldn't wait to use the bathroom. His toilet-flushing noise woke up the family dog who chased after him snarling. The thief ran off empty-handed.

SCARE OF THE DOG II
A University Of Central Oklahoma police officer flushed a trespasser out of the woods by threatening to send a police K-9 in after him. The suspect gave himself up when he heard growling and barking. There was no police dog -- Officer Bryan Weathers impersonated one.

JUST THE FAX
Three convicted killers were freed from a Corsica prison after the warden received a counterfeit fax ordering their release. The fax looked like it had been signed and sent by a judge.

Officer Safety

On April 24, 2002, a Glendale Police Officer made a traffic stop regarding vehicle registration tabs.

During a consent search of the vehicle, Officers located a full size “Sharp” personal video recorder on the right rear passenger seat.

Upon closer examination of the video camera, officers were able to remove a fake videocassette, which had been placed into the video camera. Once the videotape was removed, officers discovered a fully loaded “Taurus” 9mm semi-auto handgun.

The officers checked the weapon and were able to detect the serial number had been altered.

Legal Issues--Search and Seizure

An officer spotted the defendant’s car making a right turn at a high enough speed and sharply enough that the tires spun out. The officer later testified that tires could lose traction for reasons unrelated to speed, but that it always is unsafe when a vehicle’s tires squeal during a turn.

The defendant was stopped, not for unsafe driving, but for squealing his tires, something the officer testified is a violation of Texas Transportation Code Section 545.420, an exhibition of acceleration.

After the defendant was stopped for the traffic offense, he was arrested for driving while intoxicated. The defendant moved to suppress any evidence of his intoxication because there was no probable cause to arrest him, and no reasonable suspicion to support the stop.

The trial court denied the defendant’s motion to suppress, and he appealed.

Holding: Because the defendant was stopped without a warrant, the State was required at the suppression hearing to demonstrate the reasonableness of the stop within the totality of the circumstances. The officer “must have observed specific objective, articulable facts which, in light of the officer’s experience and personal knowledge, together with inferences from those facts, would warrant a reasonable person to believe a traffic violation had occurred.

Section 545.420 of the Transportation Code prohibits an exhibition of vehicle speed or acceleration, something that is suggested when a vehicle moves from a stopped position with its tires spinning. The speed of the vehicle must be increasing.

In this case, however, there was no evidence that the defendant’s car was accelerating. The officer testified that the defendant made a right turn, causing the tires to squeal, and that squealing tires does not always indicate acceleration.

In fact, the officer admitted that the defendant was not speeding, but testified that it is illegal to squeal tires. He said the defendant “made” [the right turn] too sharp causing his tires to spin or to squeal,” and then stated, “I don’t know if he made it too sharp, but he made it fast enough that it caused his tires to make a squeal as he turned.”

The officer never testified that the defendant appeared to be accelerating through the turn, or that the tires squealed because of acceleration. As a result, the evidence in the suppression hearing did not support a finding of reasonable suspicion to believe the defendant had violated the law regarding acceleration.

On the other hand, denial of the defendant’s suppression motion was proper if any theory of law supported it. An officer’s subjective motivation in making a stop is irrelevant; the test is an objective one.

Although the officer in this case might have thought that the stop was based on acceleration, when the law and evidence did not support a stop on that ground, the stop might nevertheless have been valid if evidence of some other violation existed.

The officer testified that the defendant “made the turn in an unsafe manner and caused his tires to spin out. He also stated that, “any time you make a turn where your tires are squealing, it’s unsafe.”

Based on the officer’s observations regarding the unsafe operation of the defendant’s vehicle, there was sufficient evidence to produce reasonable suspicion that a traffic violation had occurred. The stop was valid under this theory, and not because of acceleration.

The defendant also complained that there was insufficient evidence of intoxication to produce probable cause for his arrest. In this regard, the officer had seen the defendant driving immediately before making the traffic stop.

The defendant got out of his car without being asked to do so, fumbled through his wallet looking for proof of insurance, and lost his balance – almost falling – as he leaned over to pick up a paper he had dropped.

The officer smelled alcohol on the defendant’s breath before administering three field sobriety tests, all of which the defendant failed. The trial court’s ruling that probable cause existed for the arrest for DWI was amply supported by the evidence. Singleton v. State, 2002 WL 522278 (Tex.App.-Texarkana, 4-9-02).

A SACK FULL OF SPARROWS

Paul Harvey once told of a little boy, whom doting parents had spoiled into a brat. The boy carried with him a sack, and in the sack there was a most pitiful kind of stirring. He had captured some tiny birds. The sound of imprisoned wing-beats slapped hopelessly at the heavy manila walls. A pitiful chirping now and then issued from the little paper prison that he swung at his side. He met an old man as he walked along.

“Watcha got in that sack?” asked the old man.

“I got a sack of sparrows!” said the little boy.

“What are you going to do with them?” asked the old man.

“I’m going to take them out of the sack, one by one, and tease them—pull a feather out now and then, and then I’ll release them to the cat for his dinner.”

“How much would you sell the whole sack for?” asked the old man.

The little boy thought a moment and decided that he should put a lot of capital on the venture and dicker down if he had to, so he threw out the figure: “I’ll take two dollars, for the sack!”

“Done,” said the old man; and he reached in his pocket, pulled out the two dollars, and gave them to the boy. The boy then handed him the sack. The old man held it far more kindly than the reckless youngster had.

In a moment he untwisted the coiled paper neck of the bag and pulled it open. In but a little bit, the sky connected brilliantly with the open inside of the bag and the birds were gone.

And so it happened one day that God met Lucifer with a huge bag. Inside the bag were the most hopeless sounds of life struggling to be free - the sounds of young and old alike wailing in pain.

“What have you got in the bag?” asked the Father.

“People,” smirked Lucifer.

“And what will you do with them?”

“I will torment them one by one, and when they are all worn out with trials, I will throw them in hell.”

“And what will you take for all of them?”

“Your only Beloved.”

“Done!” said the Father. And He reached down to earth and gave us the gift of His Son.

And in such a happy trade-off we come to hold the key to the resurrection and the life.

Double-Dog Dare

The perfect age is somewhere between old enough to know better and young enough not to care.

Who remembers a time when:

If you can remember most or all of these, then you have lived!!!!

Pass this on to anyone who may need a break from their "grown up" life...

I double dog dare ya!

Brain Conflict