Posts Tagged ‘local-news’
Life on general assignment
In the new world at NBC News, I’m now doing general assignment after many years covering various beats. That yields a certain variety to one’s work week.
At 1 o’clock this morning, I was hunched over a spreadsheet calculating word-frequency counts for President Obama’s State of the Union address. Ten hours later, I was writing this:
One of the busiest interstates in the U.S. remained closed Wednesday, hours after a semi-trailer transporting French vanilla coffee creamer overturned in Phoenix, coating more than 150 feet of the highway with a white slick of delicious-smelling traffic hazard.
You never know what life on GA will bring next.
Grab your coffee mug: French vanilla creamer closes busy Arizona interstate (NBC News)
Police Blotter of the Day: ‘Marijuana’ in undercover deal was sandwich
A Graham man was charged Monday with selling an undercover police officer a bag that he said contained an ounce of marijuana.
Instead, the bag contained a half-eaten chicken sandwich.
(Dustin Rockwell Davis, 23, was charged with selling and delivering a counterfeit controlled substance — which is also a felony.)
Full story (Burlington, N.C., Times-News)
Shepard Smith apologizes for the wrong thing
Watch the full apology (YouTube via TPM)
After Fox News broadcast a man’s shooting himself in the head near Salome, Ariz., after a hundred-mile car chase Friday, anchor Shepard Smith abjectly apologized to his viewers:
“Sometimes, we see a lot of things that we don’t let get to you, because it’s not time appropriate, it’s insensitive, it’s just wrong. And that was wrong. And that won’t happen again on my watch. And I’m sorry.”
Hats off to Smith for the apology, which was richly merited — but not for the reason he gave.
What Fox viewers should have heard was an apology for the network’s having devoted any time at all to a local police chase involving some random guy whom nobody besides his friends and family have heard of.
Police Blotter of the Day: Honestly, officer, that’s not cocaine
FORT WALTON BEACH — A man who pulled out his pants pockets to show a Fort Walton Beach Police officer he wasn’t carrying drugs didn’t count on a plastic bag of cocaine falling to the ground.
Full story (Northwest Florida Daily News)
Police Blotter of the Day: Darth Vader. Robbing a bank. On a bike.
Really, there’s nothing else you need to know, other than that it was in Toledo, Ohio:
Full story (WNWO-TV of Toledo, Ohio)
Police Blotter of the Day: Cop twice uses Taser on mom at Mississippi middle school
A police officer working as a school resource officer in northern Mississippi twice stunned the mother of a Guntown Middle School pupil with a Taser during a heated argument at the school Wednesday morning.
The woman — identified as Michele Lee Eaton, 39, of Saltillo, about 15 miles north of Tupelo — was arrested on disorderly conduct, public profanity and other charges.
Guntown is where Adam Mayes, who allegedly killed a Tennessee woman and one of her daughters before killing himself earlier this month, was spotted on a convenience store surveillance camera.
Full story (M. Alex Johnson/msnbc.com)
Police Blotter of the Day: Driver throws hammer at motorist yakking on cellphone
The man called 911 and reported he was just passed by a car driven by a 44-year-old Waterloo man who suddenly stopped his car in the middle of the roadway, forcing the caller to stop in the roadway, at which point the man in the car began waving a hammer at the other man yelling “get off the phone,” he then allegedly threw the hammer at the caller. …
“These types of conflicts can easily go bad and are best left to authorities,” stated Sheriff Todd Nehls.
Full report (Dodge County, Wis., Sheriff’s Department via WMTV-TV)
Police Blotter of the Day: So drunk he didn’t know he’d been run over by a train
That’s some Night Train hangover.
Thomas J. Boersma apparently passed out on the Canadian Pacific railroad tracks just east of Forest Grove Drive. The conductor of the 76 car freight train said he saw a person laying on the gravel and resting his back on a rail. As the eastbound train approached the conductor said the man did not turn around. The train hit Boersma about three-tenths of a mile east of Forest Grove Drive. …
Police were contacted at about 3:30 a.m. and eventually found Boersma, who was wearing camouflage. Boersma was conscious but was not aware he had just been hit by a train, the police report said. Though Boersma suffered severe injuries to his buttocks and left arm he refused medical treatment, was agitated and combative, the report said.
Full story (Lake Country Reporter of Hartland, Wis.)
