Hillbilly Restroom

     The district manager of a West Virginia Pizza Hut was fired after video of him urinating in a restaurant sink emerged, prompting the location's shut down. Though the incident took place after the store was closed, it's inexplicable, unacceptable and flat out disgusting. On top of that, it's a health code violation….

     In a statement, Pizza Hut was deeply apologetic for the vile actions of the former employee…."We apologize to our customers of Kermit, West Virginia."… Still, the chain insisted that the ex-manager did not tamper with any food….[Did he wash his hands after using the kitchen sink as a toilet?]

Julian Kimble, "West Virginia Pizza Hut Shut Down After Manager is Caught Urinating in Sink," USA Today, February 19, 2014

Grade School Kid Exercises His Constitutional Right To Possess Paper

     A little boy, in May 2014,  got himself into big trouble at an exclusive, private school for pointing an object that represented a gun. Eight-year-old Asher Palmer rolled up a piece of paper, called it a gun, and pointed it at other kids….Officials at the special-needs school in New York City then expelled him.

     The Lang School is a ritzy, private institution that specializes in educating students with language difficulties. In 2014, annual tuition was $51,500. [Parents who spend that much a year for a kid's elementary eduction have a special need themselves--common sense.] "Asher is exactly the type of student Lang is supposed to be serving," the boy's frustrated mother, Melina Spadone told The New York Post. "Why they did this doesn't make sense."

     The principal at Lang, Micaela Bracamonte--who called herself the "head of school" reportedly informed school employees that eight-year-old Asher "had a model for physically aggressive behavior in his immediate family." The boy's mother wasn't sure who that model would be, but she said she imagined that Bracamonte was referring to her husband who had been an American soldier during the Gulf War. "I find it offensive and inappropriate," the angry mother told The Post.

     Spadone explained that her son, a first grader, fashioned the rolled-up piece of paper after he talked with his father about weapons in the military. Asher's teachers didn't take the piece of paper away. Instead, they just warned him not to point the menacing piece of paper at anyone. [Remember what they say--there is no such thing as an unloaded, fake toy gun.]

     Eventually the boy pointed the piece of paper at another kid. School officials claimed that Asher declared that he would "kill" a girl, apparently in separate incident. Consequently, Bracamonte alleged that the little boy had a "concrete plan" for killing another student. [Perhaps he had reached out to a second grade hit man armed with an eraser.] The boy's mother suggested that her eight-year-old son wasn't using the word "kill" literally.

     The angry mother said she and her husband, in the past five months, had spent $120,000 for tuition and one-on-one tutoring at Lang School with the understanding that their son would attend the school long-term. 

The Fifth Grade Fake Beer Party

A superintendent says a Michigan teacher on March 6, 2014 gave non-alcoholic beer to a classroom of fifth graders as part of a history lesson. The superintendent says the teacher allowed Hyatt Elementary students in Linden, Michigan to sample O'Doul's that was brought to school by a student to represent ale common in the 1700s and consumed at the time because of the scarcity of clean water. The superintendent said the teacher made an "inappropriate choice." [Yes, the real thing would have been much more authentic.]

"Michigan Teacher Gives Fifth Grade Students O'Doul's Non-Alcoholic Beer," the Flint Journal, March 17, 2014  

The Daycare Spiked Sippy Cup Caper

     In college, it doesn't take much to put students to sleep. A good number of them come to class half-drunk or drugged, and a lot of professors are really boring. In preschool, however, kids tend to be wide awake, and in many cases, pains-in-the-neck. So what can a daycare worker do to calm these little buggers down?

     In 2013, at the Morgan Hill Kiddie Academy (sounds prestigious) in Morgan Hill, California, a 59-year-old daycare worker named Debbie Gratz came up with a solution to the hyper-kid problem. She was seen by a colleague spiking kids' Sippy Cups with the sleep aid Sominex. She must have figured that if you lace their little drinks with sleeping pills, they will drop like flies. Night-night sweet princes and princesses.

     Apparently Morgan Hill Kiddie Academy administrators did not approve of Gratz's behavior altering methodology because they called the police. Following a search of the daycare worker's dwelling, officers took her into custody. Charged with felony child endangerment, Gratz waited for her arraignment in the Santa Clara County Jail. According to reports, she confessed to spiking the kiddie drinks with Sominex.

     In September 2013, following her guilty plea, the judge sentenced Gratz to six months in the local jail.

DNA Analysis

     DNA "fingerprinting" has nothing to do with actual fingerprints; the term simply means profiling or identifying….Though it became a byword among the public during the O. J. Simpson trial in 1995, it was first developed a decade earlier, in England.

     The basic principle of DNA testing is that every human being who is now alive, or who has ever lived throughout all time, owns a unique set of genes. Every cell of every human being contains a code unique to that individual, like the bar codes on supermarket products.

     This DNA--deoxyribonucleic acid--is the principal carrier of genetic data in human beings and in almost all other living organisms (with the exception of certain viruses). When studied through an electron microscope, its shape is that of a spiraling rope ladder, scientifically known as a double helix.

     Because each person's DNA is unique, when samples are taken from blood, semen, or other bodily fluids at a crime scene or during an autopsy, and are then compared with the DNA of either the victim or the victim's suspected killer, a match is either made, or not. If it is made, then the degree of certainty that this DNA belongs to this person is authoritative. By that I mean that the standard for most DNA testing is that there be no more than one in a million chances that the test is in error. In practical terms, this means there is little or no chance for error at all. This one-in-a-million standard, moreover, is conservative.

     In DNA tests, possible error is ranked at one in 5 million, or sometimes one in 10 million….

Frederick Zugibe, M.D., Ph.D. and David L. Carroll, Dissecting Death, 2000

Forensic Pathology: A Struggling Profession

     Well-trained forensic pathologists were scarce until a few medical schools began offering formal training in the 1930s. Physicians had testified in trials for decades, but most had seen only a few violent deaths in their careers and did not understand the science of stab angles, poisons, and gunpowder marks.

     Throughout the 20th century, forensic medical training struggled to catch up with other specializations, perhaps because of its idiosyncrasies. First of all, its patients are dead, so instead of studying laboratory slides and live patients, budding forensic pathologists needed to work on bullet-riddled bodies. As a result, they worked in morgues, far from a hospital, a source of the medical profession's power. Even recently, forensic pathologists have complained that textbooks and training cover the medicine--injury patterns and pathologic changes--but not the practical stuff like how to check the lips of an overdose for medication dye or the proper way to mark and preserve a bullet fragment.

John Temple, Deathhouse, 2005

Thornton P. Knowles On A Poet He Knew

A poet I once knew told me he was a genius. Only he knew of his genius, and now I knew it, too. I was not to pass this on because if his fellow poets knew of his gift they would be jealous. He was telling me because, as a pulp fiction writer who knew my place in the literary hierarchy, I wouldn't be envious. He was right about that. Moreover, the last thing I would want to be was a genius who wrote poetry. Any poet who thought he was a genius was, by definition, a nut case. Not long after this unpublished poet let me in on his secret, a passerby found him hanging from a tree in a public park. Don't let your children grow up to be poets. And if you can, for their own sanity, talk them out of becoming novelists as well.

Thornton P. Knowles

FBI Undercover Operations

     Although it is not part of the career development program in the FBI, some agents volunteer for service as an undercover agent (UCA). All UCAs are volunteers, and there is no special compensation for performing these duties. Generally, UCAs must have a solid investigative background before being considered for such work and also receive the full support of their superiors. Their undercover activities may take place in the office territory to which they are assigned or another field office. Volunteers for this program are evaluated for their expertise and psychological suitability. Special training programs are also available at [the FBI training complex at Quantico, Virginia] to teach agents the tricks of pulling off an undercover assignment. [Undercover operatives have to be good actors.]

     The vast majority of undercover operations are criminal in nature, but intelligence-directed undercover operations also take place. Generally, undercover assignments fall into one of two categories. Group II operations can be approved by the Special Agent in Charge of the field division, with the concurrence of the local U.S. Attorney. Group IIs, as they are called, still require careful coordination and planning, but generally they are less sensitive, less dangerous, or shorter term, and less costly than other types of operations. 

     Group I undercover operations are the opposite. They may be dangerous, elaborate, lengthy, technically challenging, involve prominent personages, be very costly, or have foreign aspects involved. This group requires painstaking planning, substantial amounts of documentation, a lot of coordination, and minute review by a panel of senior FBI Headquarters and Department of Justice officials. 

     Perhaps the most legendary FBI Group I undercover operation was ABSCAM, a political corruption investigation that resulted in the conviction of members of Congress in the 1980s. Probably the most well known Group I operation was that of Special Agent Joe Pistone, who infiltrated the La Cosa Nostra (Mafia) with devastating results to the mobsters. So successful was Pistone in his role that he carried it out for years and was on the verge of becoming a "made guy" when the operation was terminated. His exploits were recounted in the book and movie that bears his undercover name, Donnie Brasco. 

Joseph W. Koletar, The FBI Career Guide

Thornton P. Knowles On Creating A New Crime Fighting Superhero

I'm creating a new superhero called Passive-Aggressive Man, an anger management advisor by day, a crime fighter by night. Among his other powers, the super crimefighter has an interrogation technique that rarely fails. When a criminal suspect initially refuses to confess, PA Man becomes so emotionally distraught even the most cold-blooded criminal feels his pain and quickly spills his guts. Witnessing a man in a lavender cape weep uncontrollably usually does the trick. Sometimes hardened detectives in the interrogation room also collapse emotionally. Passive-Aggressive Man's arch rival will be Sociopath Man, a politician by day, a ruthless villain by night who runs a criminal enterprise without a hint of human decency, empathy, or regard for his fellow man. When good and evil finally clash, it's not hard to predict who goes down in mortal defeat. Fantasy is no match for reality.

Thornton P. Knowles

Memo To Police Officers: Don't Push Unruly Pregnant Women To The Ground Then Hit Them With A Baton

    After a video posted online showed cops knocking a pregnant woman to the ground and then pushing another woman during a Brooklyn melee, the NYPD opened an internal affairs investigation. The video shows Sandra Amezquita intervening in her teenage son's arrest early Saturday September 20, 2014 in Sunset Park. The pregnant woman is in a scuffle with the officers who are seen pushing her to the ground onto her stomach while they are trying to subdue her. They then shoved another woman when she tried to approach them.

     Cops from the 72nd Precinct were arresting Amezquita's son, 17-year-old Jhohan Lemos, for allegedly having a knife when several of his family members tried to intervene…"Oh, my God, she's pregnant," one onlooker says in the video after Amezquita was thrown to the pavement and handcuffed.

     Jhohan Lemos was charged with criminal possession of a weapon, resisting arrest and harassment…The teen's dad, 50-year-old Ronel Lemos, also got into the tussle with cops and was booked for assault on a police officer, resisting arrest, and harassment…A third man, 46-year-old Secundino Payamps, was also busted for assault on a police officer, obstruction of justice, and harassment. Officers issued a summons to Amezquita for her part in the melee…

     "Her belly is now black and blue with bruises," a witness told a TV reporter. "She's bleeding and she's having complications."…[In August 2015, the New York City Civilian Complaint Review Board found that the police officer had acted improperly when he pushed the pregnant woman to the ground then hit her with his baton. The review board recommended that this officer be docked up to five days of vacation time. A second officer was placed on modified duty. Critics of the review board's recommendations in this case were outraged at what they considered slaps on the wrist. A federal lawsuit is pending. No one ever said that being a police officer was easy.]

Antonio Antenucci and Aaron Feis, "Cops Wrestle Pregnant Woman to the Ground in Disturbing Clip," The New York Post, September 24, 2014