Lead Story

* In suburban Seattle, Wash., in July, according to allegations, a
33-year-old state trooper, who had made a routine traffic stop of a
20-year-old man who was rushing his girlfriend to an abortion clinic,
detained the couple for 90 minutes so they would miss their appointment,
while attempting to talk them out of the abortion.  They were forced to
follow the trooper to a church, where a woman continued to exhort them.
[Seattle Times, 9-16-94]

New Civil Rights

* The city of Buffalo, N. Y., agreed in August to pay $4,000 to two
Niagara Falls men arrested in 1991 on drug charges.  Police accused the
men of swallowing drugs and thus forced them to vomit, which the men said
violated their rights. [Syracuse Herald-Journal-AP, 8-10-94]

* Responding to a California law requiring that low-income housing be
located in areas other than traditionally poor neighborhoods, the city of
San Diego gave final approval in August to a 28-unit project at a seaside
community in La Jolla, sandwiched between the Pacific Ocean and a ritzy
golf course.  The market value of the apartments, which offer panoramic
ocean views, is from $300,000 to $500,000 each, but public-housing tenants
will typically pay $323 a month, up to $675 a month if their income is as
much as $34,000 a year. [Washington Times, 8-6-94]

* Ben Thomas, a Largo, Fla., man with muscular dystrophy, announced in
January that he would file a formal complaint against next year's Walt
Disney World Marathon.  Thomas was denied entry in the wheelchair division
because he uses a motorized wheelchair; the USA Track and Field
organization specifies that only manual wheelchairs can be used by
wheelchair entrants because motorized ones do not present a sufficient
competitive challenge.  Thomas claims that the Americans with Disabilities
Act requires Disney to admit him. [Orlando Sentinel, 12-23-93, 1-15-94]

* Last fall, the Utah Court of Appeals dismissed an appeal from state
prison officials, who had wanted prisoner Nick Paul, 28, punished under
a 1992 law designed to protect guards.  Paul was charged with spitting on
a guard; under the 1992 law, the court ruled, only the "throwing" of fecal
matter and other bodily fluids is punishable. [Denver Post, 10-10-93]

* In May, a state administrative law judge ruled that University of North
Carolina housekeeping employee Eric Browning, 37, must be reinstated in
his job.  He had been fired for threatening to kill his boss, but the
judge said that punishment was too severe. [USA Today, 5-6-94]

* Clara Kizer filed a lawsuit against the city of Helena, Ala., and three
of her neighbors in April.  She claims that because the state possesses
"right of way" rights to her, and her neighbors', property close to the
street, her dogs ought legally to be able to relieve themselves in that
space without the neighbors harassing her. [Tuscaloosa News, 4-30-94]

* At a San Diego, Calif., public school in February, a 17-year-old boy
showed up for class one day with a handgun in his car, which was parked
in the school parking lot.  School rules called for his expulsion, but
his lawyers successfully claimed that he suffers from Attention Deficit
Disorder, which caused him to forget that the gun was in the car, and thus
he could not be expelled.  (School officials said the incident was the
first they had heard of the boy's disability.) [Insight-San Diego
Union-Tribune, 5-23-94]

Latest Bites

* Tongues:  Javier Salinas, 23, had part of his bitten off by a
35-year-old woman who was defending herself from his alleged sexual
assault, in Phoenix, Ariz., in July; Helen Carson bit off part of her
husband's in Kingsport, Tenn., in August, as she pretended to make up
after a domestic quarrel. [Arizona Daily Star-AP, 7-30-94][Jackson,
Tenn., Sun-AP, 8-4-94]

* Nose: Michael Hetherington, 18, had part of his bitten off during a
scuffle in Huntington Beach, Calif., in June.  Hetherington was part of
a group of pit bull owners who were brawling with the owner, and his
friends, of a Rottweiler. [Odessa American-Orange County Register, 6-7-94]

* Ears: A Tel Aviv, Israel, man was accused of biting off the earlobes of
both his estranged wife and her mother in Petah Tikva, Israel, last fall
in a family quarrel; a pastor in Libungan, Philippines, accused another
pastor of biting off his ear and spitting it out during a fight this
spring over which of the two would be in charge of their church. [[Arizona
Daily Star, 11-2-93]] [[Bangkok Post-Reuters, Mar94]]

* Lips: Walter Martell's lower lip was bitten off in a street fight in
Central Falls, R. I., in May.  (Police located it too late to have it
surgically reattached.) California State University at Fresno fullback
Chris Burk was charged with biting off the lower lip of another man in a
fight in August. [Providence Journal-Bulletin, 5-24-94] [USA Today
8-11-94]

* Private Parts: In May, a 35-year-old man in Saginaw, Mich., needed 65
stitches to repair his penis after his live-in girlfriend bit him in a
quarrel over whether he was seeing another woman.  In January in
Anchorage, Alaska, Sarah Achayok, 36, also confronting her boyfriend over
alleged infidelities, bit his penis so severely that part of the tissue
was shredded.  In neither case was the organ severed. [Detroit News, 5-
14-94] [Anchorage Daily News, Feb94]

I Don't Think So

* Testifying on behalf of a colleague in a murder trial in Hillsboro,
Ore., in July, Hell's Angels' leader Ralph "Sonny" Barger said the
government's theory--that Michael McClure killed four former Angels in
retribution for testifying against another Angels' leader--was wrong.
Barger admitted, "We really don't care for [turncoats]," but would not
kill them.  He was asked what typically would be turncoats' punishment.
Answered Barger, "They get voted out of the club." [AP wirecopy, Jul94;
Seattle Times-AP, 8-8-94]

Least Justifiable Homicide

* In December, Curtis Shields, 29, was convicted of stabbing a 20-year-old
neighbor in Chicago after the two men argued over who had the greater
knowledge of black history. [Chicago Sun-Times, 12-22-93]

Copyright 1994, Universal Press Syndicate.  All rights
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name News of the Weird.