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June 4, 2000

TAXI! TAXI! Since he had escaped from prison in San Francisco only a few days earlier, Noel Miller, a 48-year-old bank robber, apparently couldn't afford a getaway car as he returned to the bank-robbing profession, so he took a getaway taxicab.
Police say that he went to Louisiana and robbed a bank in Metairie, fleeing the scene in a cab, and that he chose the same means of exit after robbing another bank in New Orleans three days later. 
But he was caught after a bank robbery in St. Rose when a witness followed the taxi and called the cops.

YEAH, THAT'S WHAT IT WAS, AN INVESTIGATION: Some New York City policemen have apparently been reading girlie magazines in their patrol cars and sometimes watching naughty videotapes in the precinct house while on duty, and the top brass wants it stopped. 
There is only one exception. It's OK "if the viewing is necessary as part of a documented, ongoing official investigation." 

BANG, BANG, YOU'RE DEAD! The British Royal Navy, ever eager to cut costs, have ordered recruits learning to fire live shells at the gunnery school to shout "bang" instead of actually pulling the trigger. Each shell costs about $1,000. 
The young sailors are said to feel very foolish indeed.

SO, ELIO, HOW'D THE TEST GO? Apparently nervous about the test to get his Oregon drivers license, Elio Padilla started the car and immediately hit the curb, an automatic failure. He begged the instructor, Ruth Ramos, to let him try again, but she turned him down. He then started driving across a parking lot, refusing to let her out of the car. She jumped out the next time he stopped. 
Padilla has been arrested for kidnapping.

SAY, IS THAT GUN NEW? Bandits drove through the front of the largest gun store in Colorado and stole at least 40 weapons - mostly 9 mm handguns - and fled in another car, leaving the black Suburban still wedged in the front door with the engine running. A short time later, they were involved in a three-car accident, and took off running when a Good Samaritan tried to help them. Police knew it was the same guys because they got the Samaritan to back off by pointing a gun at them with the price tag still hanging off it. 
A massive manhunt was under way.

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

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