xxxNews Of The Weirdxxx

Bizarre but true stories about real people collected by syndicated columnist Chuck Shepherd.

John Clayton III was awarded $1.5 million by a jury in Greensboro, N.C., in September based on injuries he suffered as a passenger in a car whose driver had to slam on the brakes to avoid a collision. The car Clayton was a passenger in was a police car; he was being brought to the station on an outstanding arrest warrant when the officer-driver hit the brakes. Clayton claimed the sudden stop caused him “back problems.”

Canadian military police seized 983 marijuana plants being grown by squatters on an active, 17-square-mile artillery range (Nicolet, Quebec).

Kevin Presland was awarded about the equivalent of US$150,000 by a judge in Sydney, Australia, in August because the Hunter Area Health Service psychiatric hospital released him too soon in 1995, after which he killed his brother’s fiancee. This was not a lawsuit by the victim’s family against the hospital; this was a direct payout to Presland, whose injury was that he was made to suffer temporary prison conditions after his arrest (he was acquitted because of his psychosis), whereas if he had never been released, he would have experienced only psychiatric-hospital conditions.

Former Kansas City Royals coach Tom Gamboa filed a lawsuit in September against a fan who attacked him during a September 2002 baseball game in Chicago, and also against the ballpark’s (U.S. Cellular Field’s) security firm and its concessionaire. (However, several days after the initial attack, Gamboa had told the Associated Press, “The fault is with the two people (the fan and his minor son) who did it. I’m not one who looks to (spread) blame. It’s nobody’s fault but the two idiots who did it.”)
Send your Weird News to Chuck Shepherd, P.O. Box 18737, Tampa, Fla. 33679 or [email protected]
Copyright © 2001 by Chuck Shepherd

NEWS OF THE WEIRD