Why was the marketing director of a hospital stockpiling weapons at work? That’s not the first line of what would surely be a terrible joke, he was actually doing that. Police found the weapons while searching the hospital after a bomb threat. There was no bomb, but there was a marketing director with 39 guns in his closet. The report says police “declined to provide details” as to “what he might have planned to do” with the guns. One potential answer to that question, “shoot somebody,” seems less likely to me given the number of guns involved, just because in my experience it’s hard to shoot more than two at once. In any event, one of the guns was allegedly an illegal assault rifle under New Jersey law, so police arrested the man.
Also arrested: a suspect identified only as “Brad” who tried to steal something from a Walmart in St. Cloud, Florida. Brad was unaware that it was the night of the annual “Shop With a Cop” event, where local officers apparently mingle with the children of the community (and, hopefully, their parents). This meant that the county sheriff, almost 40 deputies, and a forensic team were on hand at the time of the alleged theft. They were more than a match for Brad.
I get a surprising number of emails from PR people asking if I’d like to interview a party to a lawsuit, emails that generally mean the sender doesn’t know who I am. These lawsuits are typically not at all interesting, but I might make an exception for Steven King d/b/a If Love Is a Drug … God is Dope v. God Is Dope, LLC, God Is Dope Foundation, and Sharod Simpson, a trademark-infringement case pending in the Northern District of Georgia. On the other hand, the press release quotes the plaintiff’s lawyer as saying that they “want to return the concept [of trademark] to its higher purpose, not just one of material gain” (and I suppose the demand for “millions of dollars” doesn’t rule that out). So I probably won’t look into that further.
In other trademark news, it seems doubtful to me that you could get away with calling your business “Texas Guns and Roses,” even if you do in fact sell both guns and roses and you spell out the conjunction in full. On the other hand, the plaintiff and defendant are not exactly in the same business, and at least according to the defendant’s attorney, “nobody thinks” there is some affiliation. Nobody could not be reached for comment. See also “Guess Who Just Sued the Maker of Guns’n’Rosé” (May 10, 2019).
“I don’t know why anyone would think [it] is appropriate for them to pull their pants down and show the court their behind,” a Michigan judge said this week. Sadly, she wasn’t speaking hypothetically. The defendant who did this was appearing by video, and the judge had already muted him for being disrespectful, which may have prompted Tuesday’s mooning. According to the man’s lawyer, his client “was merely expressing his First Amendment rights and freedoms of speech” (he didn’t elaborate on the content of the intended message). Still, “a mental health evaluation probably would be a good thing,” the lawyer conceded.
Is it illegal to slap a police horse on the behind? Indeed it is, though one Florida man claims he did not know this. In Florida (and I think most states have a similar law), anyone who “intentionally or knowingly maliciously touches, strikes, or causes bodily harm to a police canine, fire canine, [search-and-rescue] canine, or police horse” has committed a first-degree misdemeanor.” Fla. Stat. § 843.19(3). Swatting a horse on the rump could make it bolt, according to movies I have seen, so prohibiting this makes sense.
Maliciously “teasing” a police animal is a second-degree misdemeanor under Florida law, but only if it is on duty at the time. I have previously been critical of animal-taunting prosecutions, even when the accused was one of the Oakland Raiders, but the Florida suspect went too far. See also “Judge: First Amendment Doesn’t Guarantee Freedom to Bark” (July 26, 2011) (discussing this potential defense—and the government’s “fighting words” argument in response—in an Ohio police-dog-taunting case).
