This Week in Stupid

By Joanna Miller in News on Jul 21, 2006 3:33PM

We know how it is. Sometimes things seem like a good idea at the time. Sometimes we don’t realize until it’s too late that something is really stupid. Of course, our dumb ideas don’t land us in jail, at least not usually. Some people, on the other hand, are taking the bad idea to a whole new level.

• Chicago has some of the nicest sidewalk planters around, but besides being pretty to look at, they’re not all that useful. Someone in LaPorte, Ind., on the other hand, took it upon themselves to turn one of the town’s planters into an herb garden of sorts. Local police following an anonymous tip found a three-foot-tall marijuana plant growing in the planter and destroyed it. The president of the town’s Business Improvement District said, “I wouldn’t know a marijuana plant from a dandelion.” Sure, dude.
• Other residents of LaPorte County, Ind., don’t take kindly to strangers on their property, as one man found out the hard way. While trying to find a friend’s house, the man was grabbed by two men and informed that he was under arrest. They neglected to tell him it was a citizen’s arrest, and he complied, thinking they were police officers. Two women then emerged from a nearby house and handcuffed the man. They released him after taking him to his friend’s house, and confirming his identity. The group claimed they didn’t know it was illegal to handcuff people in their yard, and they face up to four years in prison and fines up to $15,000.
• A Michigan auto mechanic faces jail time after leaving a six-foot boa constrictor in his mailbox as a practical joke on a mail carrier. Looking back, James R. Mell, 31, says he realizes it wasn’t very funny. His postal carrier, Nakeema Anderson, definitely didn’t see the humor, but she did see Mell in his driveway laughing when she found the snake. Mell has been charged with obstructing the delivery of U.S. mail and may face up to six months in prison. He did explain that the snake is not poisonous, does not bite and has tiny teeth.
• In an update from an earlier TWIS entry, four teens have been charged with misdemeanor battery for attacking two other teenagers with another’s prosthetic leg. A friend of Dominic “D.J.” Choate, whose prosthetic leg was damaged beyond repair in the attack, said he was disappointed that felony battery charges weren’t filed. As are we.

Metal Cuffs via pingnews.com