E-Mail
Mike Pingree

Site design by
Mike Hanlon 

May 21, 2000

BAD COP, BAD COP: Violent crime has gotten so bad in Kenya that authorities set up an elite police unit - code-named Alfa Romeo - to help justice prevail. It didn't work.
Investigators say that members of the squad formed a carjacking syndicate, kept the money they recovered from bank robberies and tortured some suspects so badly that they came to court on stretchers. They also killed
people.
The group has been disbanded.

AT LEAST THEY'RE IN A GOOD MOOD: A new study appearing in the Moscow newspaper Kommersant says that, when most Russian men die, they are under the influence of alcohol.
"Everyone is drunk: murderers and their victims, drowning victims, suicides, drivers and pedestrians killed in traffic accidents, victims of heart attacks and ulcers," the paper said.
Most Russian men die on Mondays after a weekend of heavy drinking, according to the report.

POSSESSION OF FOOD PRODUCTS: James McClain was wearing a coat he borrowed from his cousin when he was pulled over in a routine traffic stop in Illinois. The cops checked his pockets and found a plastic bag which they assumed contained drugs.
He was charged with drug possession and held in jail because he couldn't make bail. He finally pled guilty to the charge so he would be released and not lose his new job. But, just as he was about to be sentenced, the police came back with the lab analysis of the contents of the plastic bag.
It contained bread crumbs from his cousin's lunch, not drugs. McClain was freed.

GERONIMOOOOO! Army records indicated that Spc. Jeff Lewis was trained and fully qualified to make parachute jumps with the 82nd Airborne Division. He wasn't.
The Army ordered Lewis, a supply clerk, to join his fellow troops in a jump at Fort Bragg, N.C., and, because a good soldier follows orders, he did it.
Despite his lack of any training whatsoever, his jump was successful.

AND DON'T EVER COME BACK, LOVER BOY! A 35-year-old airplane passenger, enroute from London to Cyprus, got into an aggressively amorous mood once the jet was airborne, and started groping the stewardesses and making suggestive remarks to them.
His behavior was so intolerable, that the pilot landed in Athens and had him arrested. He was also banned for life from flying on Cyprus Airways.

Mike Pingree writes another Looking Glass column in the Boston Sunday Herald. You can read it by clicking here:
http://www.bostonherald.com/news/columnists.html

Top  |  Home  |  Past Columns (The Archives)