Cop who made pot brownies will avoid charges

DEARBORN, Mich. – A police officer will avoid criminal charges despite admitting he took marijuana from criminal suspects and, with his wife, baked it into brownies.

The police department’s decision not to pursue a case against former Cpl. Edward Sanchez left a bad taste in the mouth of at least one city official, who vowed to investigate.

“If you’re a cop and you’re arresting people and you’re confiscating the marijuana and keeping it yourself, that’s bad. That’s real bad,” said City Councilman Doug Thomas.

Sanchez, who resigned last year from the department in this Detroit suburb, declined comment Wednesday to the Detroit Free Press. Police Cmdr. Jeff Geisinger did not return calls seeking comment.

The department’s investigation began with a 911 call from Sanchez’s home on April 21, 2006. On a 5-minute tape of the call, obtained by the Free Press, Sanchez told an emergency dispatcher he thought he and his wife were overdosing on marijuana.

“I think we’re dying,” he said. “We made brownies and I think we’re dead, I really do.”

Sanchez later told police investigators that his wife took the marijuana out of his police vehicle while he was sleeping. In a subsequent interview, he admitted he got the marijuana out of the car himself and put it in the brownie mix, police said.

His wife also was not charged.

(From MSNBC.com)

Wendy’s manager shot over limit on chili sauce

MIAMI – A Wendy’s manager was shot several times in the arm early Tuesday trying to protect the restaurant’s chili sauce, authorities said.

A man in the drive-through argued with an employee because he wanted more of the condiment, police said. The worker told the customer that restaurant policy prohibited a customer from getting more than three packets.

The man insisted on 10, reports said. The employee complied, but police said the customer wanted more.

When the manager came out to speak to the man, the customer shot the manager, Miami-Dade police spokeswoman Mary Walters said. He was taken to Ryder Trauma Center at Jackson Memorial Hospital with non-life threatening injuries, police said.

The shooter fled with a female passenger.

“I did not know I got shot,” store manager Renal Frage told WTVJ-TV in Miami. “When I went back to the office, I saw blood pumping out of my arm, and I was shocked. I was checking myself out and couldn’t believe I got shot over some chili sauce.”

Frage added: “I got shot over chili sauce. I was trying to figure while in the hospital why someone would shoot me over some chili sauce.”

(From MSNBC.com)

Man attacks unlucky peacock at Burger King

NEW YORK – A peacock that roamed into a fast-food restaurant parking lot was attacked by man who vilified the bird as a vampire, animal-control authorities said.

Beaten so fiercely that most of his tail feathers fell out, the bird was euthanized, said Richard Gentles, a spokesman for the city’s Center for Animal Care and Control.

“It’s just unbelievable that someone would do something to a poor, defenseless animal and do it in such a cruel fashion,” he said.

The peacock, a male several years old, wandered into a Staten Island Burger King parking lot and perched on a car hood Thursday morning. Charmed employees had been feeding him bread when the man appeared.

He seized the iridescent bird by the neck, hurled it to the ground and started kicking and stomping the creature, said worker Felicia Finnegan, 19.

“He was going crazy,” she said.

Asked what he was doing, she said, the attacker explained, “’I’m killing a vampire!”’

Employees called police, but the man ran when he saw them. Authorities were looking for the attacker, described as being in his teens or early 20s.

It was not clear how the bird made his way to the Burger King, but a Staten Island resident who raises peacocks said he had given some to a person who lives near the restaurant.

(From MSNBC.com)