A Brooklyn, N.Y., high school had to weed its courtyard garden after a marijuana plant was found growing among the black-eyed Susans and cornflowers.
The New York Daily News reported that Winston McCarthy, assistant principal of Paul Robeson High School (search) in the slowly gentrifying Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood, ripped the illicit intruder from a planter after it was discovered Tuesday morning.
"That's crazy," said Brandon Gibbs, 15, a junior attending summer school. "I wouldn't expect that, but look at the neighborhood we are in."
McCarthy gave the deracinated plant to officers from the New York Police Department's 77th Precinct, who said they would look into the incident.
"Anyone could have put it out there," chuckled one teacher, who wouldn't give his name. "The seed could have just blown in."
One 17-year-old girl, who attends another school nearby, said she wouldn't have called the cops.
"I would have taken it," she told the Daily News.
Labels pasted on the outside of the wooden planter identified each species growing within — except for Cannabis sativa.
Outhouse Wader Says He Was Searching for Ring
CONWAY, N.H. (AP) — The man police discovered in a women's outhouse tank last month says he was searching for his wedding ring.
Gary Moody, 45, of Gardiner, Maine, pleaded innocent Monday to trespassing and disorderly conduct from the incident at a rest stop off the Kancamagus Highway (search).
Moody was arrested after a girl entered the restroom and saw him in the raw sewage tank.
In court documents, the arresting officer reported Moody told him he was doing nothing wrong.
"He told me that he was changing clothes when he dropped his wedding ring into he toilet," Carroll County Sheriff's Capt. Jon Herbert wrote. "He said the ring was very valuable and he did not want to return home without it."
The officer reported Moody said he dropped into the tank through the toilet opening to search for the ring, and hid, out of embarrassment, when someone came into the outhouse.
Police screened the sewage and said they found no rings.
Fire Captain Waters Lawn With Fire Truck
KOKOMO, Ind. (AP) — A city fire captain has gotten in trouble for mixing work with his home life.
Capt. Kevin Shaffer must repay the department $120 for using a fire truck to water his yard. He also was reprimanded and must pay 35 cents per gallon for the water he used, officials said.
Shaffer and other firefighters were training recently on the south end of town, after which Shaffer wanted to purge the truck's tank.
Instead of dumping the water down on the street or down a drain as is normal procedure, Shaffer put the water on his lawn in the city 50 miles north of Indianapolis, Deputy Chief Pat Donoghue said Tuesday.
"We consider that a misuse of fire department equipment," Donoghue said. "He said he didn't want to waste it. If he didn't want to waste it, he could have watered the department's lawn."
Shaffer said he did not plan to appeal the reprimand or fine.
Pickup Crashes on Speedway, Man Escapes on Tractor
MARYVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — A would-be racer took an illegal turn around Smokey Mountain Speedway (search) and crashed her pickup truck, while her companion made a low-speed getaway on a farm tractor.
Dana Marie Cragin, 47, and Dennis Maynard Kimsey, 47, both of Maryville, were cruising around in Cragin's Toyota pickup Friday afternoon when she decided to try out the track, according to a police report.
She didn't get far. Witnesses said she hit the wall on her second lap. The truck was on its side and she was sitting on the ground beside it when officers arrived.
Cragin allegedly smelled of alcohol but refused a blood-alcohol test. She was charged with driving under the influence and criminal trespass.
Meanwhile, Kimsey is believed to have fled on a tractor from a nearby barn after confronting track owner Bill Garner.
Police issued an all-points-bulletin for a "red Massey Ferguson tractor with a yellow engine and a red sickle on the back."
Despite a broad search aided by a Knox County sheriff's helicopter, they didn't catch him until he got home Friday night. Police knew where to go. Kimsey left his wallet in Cragin's truck.
The tractor was recovered at a friend's house and returned to its owner.
Kimsey was charged with criminal trespass and released on $750 bond. Cragin was held in lieu of a $1,500 bond.
Call-In Confessor Pleads Guilty
CHICAGO (AP) — A man who called a radio station to brag about his role in a bank robbery may be regretting picking up his phone.
Randy Washington, 24, pleaded guilty Monday to federal charges that will likely put him behind bars for more than four years. He admitted he and five others robbed the South Chicago Heights TCF Bank (search) branch in April 2004.
The group escaped with $81,000, which they split. There were no leads in the case until earlier this year, when someone called the popular confessions show on WKSC-FM to talk about the heist.
The caller described the exact amount of cash taken, noted an employee was in on it and bragged that the group had since been "buyin' Louis Vuitton this, Blass that, everything, man."
Authorities quickly traced the call back to Washington's cell phone and arrested him.
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — R.I.P., Arnold the Crime-Fighting Pig.
A south Minneapolis neighborhood is mourning the loss of Arnold, a 450-pound porker who once foiled a burglary.
The beast died last month from apparent heart failure. He was 6.
Arnold earned his name after sinking his teeth into one of two intruders who tried to rob his owner, Becky Moyer, at gunpoint in February 2001.
She had just returned home when the two men confronted her in her garage. When they moved inside, Arnold was sitting patiently by the refrigerator waiting for his dinner.
Moyer screamed, and Arnold sprang into action. When he clamped down on the burglar's leg, the intruders bolted and left behind a puddle of blood.
"I never dreamed, never dreamed that a pig could be a protector," Moyer said. "Never."
Moyer received the part-Yorkshire, part-Vietnamese potbellied pig as a birthday present in 1999. Then, he weighed 10 pounds and was expected to top off at 60.
"I was like, 'I don't need this pig,'" Moyer said. "I just wanted a night out on the town or something."
Compiled by FOXNews.com's Paul Wagenseil.
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