By ,
Published January 13, 2015
A supermarket shoplifting incident went hilariously awry, according to police in Slidell, La.
Cops say 19-year-old Devyn Coleman was the last customer in the Winn-Dixie (search) supermarket as it closed up at 1 a.m. Wednesday morning, according to the New Orleans Times-Picayune.
Even though he'd been seen taking things off shelves, he strolled empty-handed through the cash registers.
Asked what happened to the items, Coleman took off running — and slammed face-first into a locked glass door.
Employees dragged the dazed man back to an office room and called police.
But before the cops showed up, Coleman allegedly climbed up into the crawl space above the store's drop ceiling.
Police arrived to find him scrambling around inside the 4-foot-high space, his feet punching through ceiling tiles as he failed to find his footing on the steel support structure.
"This is one of the funniest and most bizarre cases we've ever had," said Slidell police Capt. Rob Callahan. "One of the officers said it was like chasing a rat through an attic."
Coleman almost eluded his pursuers by smashing through drywall into a storage room, but he darted back into his hole when cops entered the room.
The chase ended when he finally fell through the ceiling and landed in an open meat case.
Coleman got up to run again, but couldn't get much traction on the raw steaks and ground beef, and was finally brought to heel by a police dog.
"With all those steaks and hamburgers and hot dogs, that dog must have felt like he was in canine heaven," said Callahan. "But he did what he was trained to do and clamped down on the suspect's right leg instead."
Police found $60.33 worth of supermarket merchandise on Coleman, including several packets of hair dye, six cigarette lighters, a few black markers and a night light.
He also had a glass pipe and admitted to having recently smoked methamphetamine.
— Thanks to Out There reader Paul J.
PIKESVILLE, Md. (AP) — A herd of buffalo that got loose and wandered around a well-to-do neighborhood won't be causing any more trouble: Their annoyed owner plans to pack them off to the slaughterhouse.
As earlier reported in Out There, the 10 or so beasts disrupted traffic and alarmed homeowners Tuesday before officers managed to corral them on a tennis court. More than a dozen police cars and a police helicopter were used to herd the animals.
"The way I feel right now, I'm giving them all away," owner Gerald "Buzz" Berg told The (Baltimore) Sun. "They're going to the slaughterhouse."
Officers using outdoor lounge chairs as shields formed a human chain to corral the beasts, but one buffalo was seen leaping over a net on the tennis court to evade capture.
Berg, who owns a Baltimore demolition business, has raised bison on his 40-acre farm for about 10 years, mostly for meat.
Police spokesman Shawn Vinson said Wednesday that no charges were being pursued against Berg, who said he did not know how the animals escaped. A week earlier three bison got out through an unlocked gate but stayed close to the farm, Berg said.
Click in the photo box above to see pictures.
Giant Burrito Shuts Down School
CLOVIS, N.M. (AP) — A call about a possible weapon at a middle school prompted police to put armed officers on rooftops, close nearby streets and lock down the school. All over a giant burrito.
Someone called authorities Thursday after seeing a boy carrying something long and wrapped into Marshall Junior High (search).
The drama ended two hours later when the suspicious item was identified as a 30-inch burrito filled with steak, guacamole, lettuce, salsa and jalapenos and wrapped inside tin foil and a white T-shirt.
"I didn't know whether to laugh or cry," school Principal Diana Russell (search) said.
After the lockdown was lifted but before the burrito was identified as the culprit, parents pulled 75 students out of school, Russell said.
Russell said the mystery was solved after she brought everyone in the school together in the auditorium to explain what was going on.
"The kid was sitting there as I'm describing this [report of a student with a suspicious package] and he's thinking, 'Oh, my gosh, they're talking about my burrito.'"
Afterward, eighth-grader Michael Morrissey approached her.
"He said, 'I think I'm the person they saw,'" Russell said.
The burrito was part of Morrissey's extra-credit assignment to create commercial advertising for a product.
"We had to make up a product and it could have been anything. I made up a restaurant that specialized in oddly large burritos," Morrissey said.
After students heard the description of what police were looking for, he and his friends began to make the connection. He then took the burrito to the office.
"The police saw it and everyone just started laughing. It was a laughter of relief," Morrissey said.
"Oh, and I have a new nickname now. It's Burrito Boy."
Burglar Seems to Have Second Thoughts
ENID, Okla. (AP) — There may be a burglar with a conscience in Garfield County.
A television, stereo and VCR were stolen last weekend from a house in the small town of Kremlin.
Undersheriff Jerry Niles said the woman who lives at the house called deputies Monday night to say that someone broke into her house again while she was away, returned the electronics gear, even restoring the wiring and repairing a door jamb damaged in the original break-in.
"It was spooky," Niles said.
He said it was the first time he has ever seen all of the property taken in a burglary returned like that. Deputies are still investigating the case.
Sorry About the Massive Explosion
RAYMOND, N.H. (AP) — A Maine company on Tuesday accepted responsibility for a sand and gravel operation blast that caused extensive damage to a home and a neighboring hair salon. No injuries were reported.
At Scoundrel's Hair Salon (search), rocks went through a window and front door and smaller rocks were lodged in the wall. Office windows at Raymond Sand and Gravel (search) were blown out and a house on the property also was damaged Monday.
Maine Drilling & Blasting (search) of Gardiner, Maine, has been working for the sand and gravel company for years to mine a ledge.
The company said Tuesday it responded immediately and dispatched a team of safety and technical specialists to investigate the blast and an insurance adjustor to work with property owners.
NATCHEZ, Miss. (AP) — Who said reading isn't enriching?
Michele Anderson recently discovered more than just a great story when she opened a library book. She also found a wad of cash.
The former employee at Armstrong Library pulled a mystery novel off a shelf and noticed a bulge in its dust jacket. She opened the book and discovered what library officials termed was a "substantial" sum of money.
"I felt something in there, and from my time working here, I just had to straighten it out and felt in there and pulled it out," Armstrong said. "I thought, 'Whoa, wait a minute."'
Library officials declined to say how much money was discovered, or what the title of the book was, so they could locate the money's rightful owner.
The book hasn't been checked out since March 2004, when the library switched its system of tracking books. Before then, the book had been checked out 45 times, but the library's record-keeping system doesn't track previous checkouts.
Susan Cassagne, the library's director, said she believes if the money isn't claimed, it should belong to the library.
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