Santa smelled of beef and cheese
A drunken Santa Claus in Wisconsin scared a group of kids when he stumbled into their yard looking for his reindeer.
The family called police after Thomas Arnold, 55, drove his car to the lawn and got out yelling, “Have you seen my reindeer? If you see my reindeer, call me right away.”
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Santa tried to put his hat on a 6-year-old girl. He had dirty hands and boozy breath, the kids said.
“He smelled like alcohol. So I knew it wasn’t the real Santa because Santa doesn’t drink alcohol,” 9-year-old Katie Dockerty told WEAU in Wisconsin.
Police said Arnold was driving home from a party and was trying to spread Christmas cheer. Arnold was charged with having an open beer in his car.
Siren song
A woman looking for her ex-boyfriend stole an ambulance and led troopers on a 50-mile chase, according to the Oklahoma Highway Patrol.
Troopers say Mindy Jones, 28, was at a hospital taking a blood-alcohol test after she was arrested on charges of DUI and hit-and-run. Jones escaped from a nurse and took an ambulance on a joy ride, police said.
Troopers and television crews followed her to a home, where she stopped in the yard. While in handcuffs, Jones told television station KOCO she “had the ambulance and had a pretty good time driving it.”
Shear insanity
A Wisconsin teacher was charged with disorderly conduct after punishing a first-grader by cutting her hair.
The teacher told school officials she was frustrated by 7-year-old Lamya Cammon because the girl would not stop playing absent-mindedly with her braid. The teacher called Lamya to the front of the class and then chopped it off with scissors.
“I wasn’t playing with it that loud,” Lamya told the ABC affiliate in Milwaukee.
After the teacher cut it, Lamya said she returned to her desk and cried as her classmates laughed at her.
“[The teacher] threw it away, and she said, ‘Now what you gonna go home and say to your momma?’ And I said, ‘That you cut off my hair,’ ” Lamya said.
School officials moved Lamya to a different classroom. Police issued the teacher a $175 ticket.
Strong-armed robbery
A Pennsylvania man used a backhoe to break into his father’s museum to steal 90 paintings valued at $20 million.
Police charged Alfonso Frank Frazetta, 52, with theft, burglary and trespassing after he was caught loading the artwork into his trailer and sport utility vehicle.
Frazetta is the son of pioneering science fiction and fantasy artist Frank Frazetta, renowned for his paintings of Conan the Barbarian, Tarzan and Vampirella, some worth $1 million.
Police were notified after the backhoe tripped off a burglar alarm.
‘I’m clean, man!’
A 25-year-old Texas man was jailed after police found him taking a bath in a house he had broken into.
Police said a resident called to report that a strange man had kicked in the front door.
Officers found the man had stripped naked and was taking a bath.
After a brief struggle, the man was arrested.
– Compiled by Scott McCabe
