Wheelchair-bound man throws grenade
Downtown
Sat Feb 6, 2:30 pm: On a busy street near the Convention Center, a man in a wheelchair pulled the pin off a grenade and threw it. The deadly implement of war hit the concrete, skittered, then wobbled to a stop--but didn't explode. When police arrived, they closed off the block and called in the bomb squad. After a lengthy and painstaking investigation, it was determined that the grenade was a damn fake! The suspect is still at large: the police really want to get their hands on him, because this is the second time he has pulled this costly prank.


The golf clubs that fell to earth
Downtown
Tues Feb 9, 5:50 pm: A man standing on Seventh Ave outside the Sheraton Hotel received a surprise when a set of golf clubs came out of nowhere, hitting the street with a great crash! When the man looked up for some explanation, he observed several tote bags hanging out the window of a seventh-floor apartment across the street. These bags soon followed the fate of the clubs, landing with a thump on the sidewalk. It was later learned that two drunks were in this seventh-floor room, involved in one of those heated arguments that starts nowhere and ends nowhere. To get some ridiculous point across, one drunk started throwing his friend's property out of the window--and lord knows what else he might have tossed had the police not arrested him for reckless endangerment.


Fetus on a Greyhound bus
Downtown
Fri Feb 12, 3:05 pm: A call came in from the bus station stating that a fetus had been found on a Greyhound bus. When an officer arrived on the scene, he contacted the Greyhound employee who found the fetus. The employee, a garage worker, said that the night before a passenger had suffered a miscarriage in the bus lavatory, and disposed of the evidence in a most dastardly fashion, flushing the waste tank three times. Homicide was notified of the incident.


Acura blow-up
Sand Point
Fri Feb 12, 3:12 pm: An explosion rocked the area of 95th and Sand Point Way NE, normally a sedate quarter of town. At the scene police found an Acura parked on a dirt turn-off, burning in a most satanic manner. Firemen were called. When the smoke cleared, police looked into the charred chassis to find that two interior seats had been stripped out prior to the explosion. The car's owner was notified of the damage done to his property, but could not shed any light on this formidable mystery.


Wanted by the Mafia
Downtown
Sat Feb 13, 10:50 pm: A marked man stepped off a Greyhound bus from California, entered the bus terminal, and reported to authorities that the Mafia was after him. He was certain that they had already killed all of his family. The police were called in and told this story: The marked man's boss in Clayton, California, a "Mr. Pollack," has connections with the Mafia; this week the marked man learned something he wasn't supposed to know, and his boss wanted him whacked. The marked man took the first bus out of town and spent two sleepless nights on a journey northward, away from the hit-men and their bullets, their car trunks, and their cement slabs. Unconvinced, the police (who called the man "mental") attempted to contact the man's mother, but no one answered the phone... it just rang and rang. The police did, however, leave a recorded message, which for all we know met the unresponsive ears of a fresh corpse in a rocking chair. The fate of the marked man is yet to be determined.


Near death in a 7-11
Columbia City
Tues Feb 16, 3:08 pm: A man stumbled into a 7-11 store on Rainier Ave S, said he had been shot, and fell to the floor. The man was in very bad shape, with a wound in his upper chest and an exit wound in his back. As he lay dying in the aisle, amid the bright lights, bright foods, and magazines, the astonished store clerk called the police. When the cops arrived a few minutes later, the clerk could not enlighten them on who had shot the mystery man. After some investigation, the police found witnesses to a shooting--but they were vague and uncooperative, and the mystery thickened. It wasn't until later that night, when a man turned himself in to headquarters, that the fragments of this story came together. It went like this: Two drunks got into one of those arguments that starts nowhere and ends nowhere. To get some ridiculous point across, one drunk pulled out a gun, and the gun went off. The bleeding victim stumbled out of the house, across the street, and into the 7-11, where he fell to the floor.


Toyota in flames
Downtown
Tues Feb 16, 11:30 pm: A car on a city street was set aflame by an unknown arsonist. It appeared that the arsonist bunched papers into a heap, sprayed carburetor cleaner on the seats, and then (possibly after lighting a cigarette) threw a match into the car. The fire burned the seats of the 1980 Toyota, but didn't spread beyond the car's interior. When the owner of the car was notified of the satanic damage to his property, he said that there had been no previous instances of property destruction. Police failed to recover any prints or evidence from the car. The arsonist remains at large.