Weird News Files

A worker died after being trampled and a woman miscarried when hundreds of shoppers smashed through the doors of a Long Island, New York Wal-Mart Friday morning, witnesses said.

The unidentified worker, employed as an overnight stock clerk, tried to hold back the unruly crowds just after the Valley Stream store opened at 5 a.m.

Witnesses said the surging throngs of shoppers knocked the man down. He fell and was stepped on. As he gasped for air, shoppers ran over and around him.

“He was bum-rushed by 200 people,” said Jimmy Overby, 43, a co-worker. “They took the doors off the hinges. He was trampled and killed in front of me. They took me down too…I literally had to fight people off my back.”

Nassau County Police are still investigating and would not confirm the witness accounts. Police did say there were several injuries but weren’t more specific.

Jessica Keyes was among the shoppers. She said she saw a woman knocked down just a few feet from the dying worker.

“When the paramedics came, she said ‘I’m pregnant,’” Keyes said.

Paramedics treated the woman inside the store and then, according to Keys, told the woman:

“There’s nothing we can do. The baby is gone.”

Before police shut down the store, eager shoppers streamed past emergency crews as they worked furiously to save the store clerk’s life.

“They were working on him, but you could see he was dead, said Halcyon Alexander, 29. “People were still coming through.”

Only a few stopped.

“They’re savages,” said shopper Kimberly Cribbs, 27. “It’s sad. It’s terrible.”

Source: New York Daily News Link filed under Weird U.S. News

Here’s some of that Thanksgiving spirit at Wal-Mart as posted on YouTube.

ATLANTA – A Delta baggage worker got a bit of a fright before Halloween when she opened a jetliner’s cargo door and found a cheetah running loose amid the luggage. Two cheetahs were being flown in the cargo area of a Boeing 757 passenger flight from Portland, Ore., to Atlanta on Thursday when one escaped from its cage, Delta spokeswoman Betsy Talton said Friday.

“They told us a large animal had gotten out of a container in the cargo hold and they were having to send someone to tranquilize it,” said one passenger, Lee Sentell of Montgomery, Ala.

He said luggage was delayed, but baggage handlers promised to send his bags to him in Alabama.

The good news for passengers: The escaped cheetah didn’t damage any of their luggage.

The airline summoned help from Zoo Atlanta, and experts rushed to a closed airport hangar and tranquilized the escaped animal and took both big cats to the zoo.

Both 1-year-old female cheetahs were on their way from the Wildlife Safari Park in Winston, Ore., to the Memphis Zoo in Tennessee, Memphis Zoo spokesman Drew Smith said in an e-mail. He said the two cheetahs will stay a few days at the zoo in Atlanta until the Memphis Zoo gets a team together to fetch them.

The cheetahs are on loan to the Memphis Zoo, but Smith said he wasn’t sure how long they would stay there.

Source: Yahoo News via AP Link filed under Weird US News

LINCOLN, Nebraska ― A judge has thrown out a Nebraska legislator’s lawsuit against God, saying the Almighty wasn’t properly served due to his unlisted home address. State Sen. Ernie Chambers filed the lawsuit last year seeking a permanent injunction against God.

He said God has made terroristic threats against the senator and his constituents in Omaha, inspired fear and caused “widespread death, destruction and terrorization of millions upon millions of the Earth’s inhabitants.”

Chambers has said he filed the lawsuit to make the point that everyone should have access to the courts regardless of whether they are rich or poor.

On Tuesday, however, Douglas County District Court Judge Marlon Polk ruled that under state law a plaintiff must have access to the defendant through a known address, for a lawsuit to move forward.

“Given that this court finds that there can never be service effectuated on the named defendant this action will be dismissed with prejudice,” Polk wrote.

Chambers, who graduated from law school but never took the bar exam, thinks he’s found a hole in the judge’s ruling.

“The court itself acknowledges the existence of God,” Chambers said Wednesday. “A consequence of that acknowledgment is a recognition of God’s omniscience.”

Therefore, Chambers said, “Since God knows everything, God has notice of this lawsuit.”

Chambers has 30 days to decide whether to appeal. He said he hasn’t decided yet.

Source: CBS2Chicago Link filed under Weird US News

VERO BEACH, FL — A McDonald’s cashier called 911 after a Vero Beach drive-thru customer allegedly offered to pay for his meal with marijuana. The Indian River County Sheriff’s Office said the cashier called Monday with a description of the vehicle the suspect had been riding in.

A deputy spotted the vehicle, found marijuana in the car and arrested its occupant, 27-year-old Shawn Alexander Pannullo.

Pannullo was charged with possession of cannabis and posted $500 bail. It was unclear if he had an attorney.

A Sheriff’s report did not say what the suspect ordered at McDonald’s or if he ultimately purchased the meal using something other than marijuana.  (A Happy Meal, perhaps?)
Source: TCPalm News Link  filed under Weird US News

ASHEVILLE, Va — You can call her CutoutDissection.com, Cutout for short, but just don’t call her Jennifer.

The former Jennifer Thornburg — whose driver’s license now reads Dissection.com, Cutout — wanted to do something to protest animal dissections in schools.

The 19-year-old’s new name is also the Web address for an anti-dissection page of the site for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, where she is interning.

“I normally do have to repeat my name several times when I am introducing myself to someone new,” she told The Asheville Citizen-Times. “Once they find out what my name is, they want to know more about what the Web site is about.”

The Asheville High School graduate who’s working in Virginia said she began opposing dissections in middle school after a class assignment to cut up a chicken wing made her uncomfortable. She helped create a policy at her high school that allows students who object to dissections to complete an alternative assignment.

Despite her legally changing the name, she said most of her family members still call her Jennifer.

“It will take me a while,” said her dad, Duane Thornburg, who lives in Daytona Beach, Fla. “She’s still Jennifer to me. I understand why she’s done it. Believe it or not, I totally respect it.”

A CD showing the treatment of animals before they are dissected finally convinced him to support his daughter’s cause, he said.

Source: Newsvine  filed under Weird US News

As a screener at Newark Liberty International Airport, Pythias Brown was supposed to keep deadly objects off airplanes. But for the past year, Brown has been swiping electronic equipment from luggage of the passengers he was supposed to protect.

A laptop here, a cell phone there. Within months, he had snatched more than 100 items, authorities say.

But this summer, Brown got too ambitious for his own good stealing a $47,900 camera from an HBO crew and a camcorder from a CNN employee, authorities said.

Brown attracted the attention of one of his victims — and eventually investigators — when he tried to sell the equipment on eBay, the online auction site, authorities said.

Federal investigators charged the 48-year-old Maplewood, NJ resident this week with theft. He is scheduled to appear Wednesday in federal court in Newark. If convicted, he faces up to 10 years in prison.

Officials at the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), which employees the airport screeners, said Brown has been placed on administrative leave and, based on their own findings, will soon be fired. Brown has worked as a screener at Newark Liberty since 2002.

When investigators raided Brown’s home last week, they seized a trove of contraband. Among the items seized were 66 cameras, 31 laptop computers, 20 cell phones, 17 sets of electronic games, 13 pieces of jewelry, 12 GPS devices, 11 MP3 players, eight camera lenses, six video cameras and two DVD players.

Brown confessed that he began stealing two to three items per week from the airport beginning in September 2007. He told authorities he put most of the stolen items up for sale on eBay.

One of the items was a Sony camcorder that was swiped from the bag of a CNN employee who was a passenger on flight from Newark to Houston in July 2008.

In August, the CNN employee contacted police to report that the stolen camera was listed for sale on eBay. Authorities said the camera was posted by a person with the user ID “alirla.”

Investigators then used their own eBay account to place the winning bid on the camera, and arranged to pay Brown through a PayPal account.

Authorities said they gave Brown an address in Marlton where he sent the camera. On the package, Brown listed his Maplewood home as the return address. The serial numbers on the camera matched those of the stolen CNN equipment.

Video images from security cameras at the Newark post office from where the shipment was mailed linked Brown to the package. Brown’s credit card was used to pay for the postage.

As investigators built their case against Brown, an HBO employee reported the theft of a $47,900 camera from a bag he had checked at Newark Liberty for a flight to London in September.

Again, authorities found the camera posted for sale on eBay by “alirla,” according to the affidavit. They traced the eBay account to a Verizon Internet address listed to Brown’s fiancee. The couple, who had their wedding scheduled for Oct. 12, lived together at the Maplewood residence where the Verizon account was registered.

Authorities raided the home on Oct. 1.

The TSA worked closely with homeland security investigators to bring the charges against Brown. More than 300 TSA employees have been terminated for theft.

Source: NJ.com Link filed under Weird US News