This Week in Stupid

By Matt Wood in News on Oct 17, 2005 1:53PM

Chicagoist has decided to extend its Stupid Edition beyond the past weekend, because people seem to do stupid shit every day of the week. Not even counting the infamous third-strike call in the Sox game on Wednesday, Chicagoland entertained us plenty this week:

• Five teens in Crown Point, IN were hospitalized after they tried to get high from jimson weed, a poisonous plant. The hallucinogenic plant isn't illegal and grows wild all over the area, but the amount of seeds in one fruit can be a lethal dose. The kids ate some of the seeds then instant messaged all of their friends, including one whose mother is a nurse. She immediately called paramedics.


• Although this story is from Springfield, it's still worth including. Police charged two men with burglary and felony theft for breaking into the Springfield Zoo to free a caged hawk. One told police he wanted the hawk "to be free and happy in a non-caged world." The only kink in their noble plan is that the bird was born in the zoo and raised by humans for the past 25 years, so it probably doesn't have the hunting skills to survive in the wild.


• A Northwestern graduate student was busted for wire fraud after he allegedly bilked people out of over $1 million. He had been posing as a wealthy investor to take money from people, and also posted offers on craigslist to secure green cards for immigrants. He might have gotten away with it, except that at the same time he was running his scam he was also applying for a job at the FBI. He actually passed the first round of the application process because he is proficient in a second language, but subsequent background checks outed him.


• A 23-year old man managed to crash his Audi into the revolving door of Lord and Taylor's on Michigan Avenue. He was wasted of course, with a blood alcohol level of .24, three times the legal limit.