News of the Odd

[Hoosier_Vol]

Sober driver flees police drink check, crashes


TOKYO (Reuters) - A Japanese driver, afraid of having to take a breath-test, fled a police drink-driving checkpoint even though he was well under the legal alcohol limit, but ended up crashing his car.

The 44-year-old man drove through the checkpoint on a road in the western Japanese city of Ikeda late Wednesday. Pursuing police officers found the car about half a mile away, upside down in a dry riverbed below the road.

The driver, who suffered light injuries to his legs, was sitting beside the vehicle.

"I'd been drinking, so I fled," the Mainichi newspaper quoted the man as telling police.

A spokesman for the Osaka prefectural police said the man was not in breach of drunk-driving laws and they were treating the case as a simple traffic accident.

 

[Hoosier_Vol]

Thief on horseback steals cell phone

RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil (Reuters) - Brazilian police have arrested a teenager who rode a horse into a busy district of Rio de Janeiro and, brandishing a toy gun, forced a man to hand over his cell phone.

Police told Reuters on Thursday the 15-year-old had confessed he borrowed the horse from a neighbor in the Rio slum where he lives and committed the crime after being promised $20 for a phone with a camera by members of a local criminal gang.

He rode into the courtyard of a hospital in Rio's Meier neighborhood and snatched the phone from a man waiting in line there. When police caught up with him a few blocks away, he was on foot and the horse was nowhere to be seen.

"I've been robbed four times in this area, but this time I was totally flabbergasted seeing a boy on horseback ordering me to give up my phone. I've seen robbers on bikes or on foot, but this is crazy," Extra newspaper quoted the victim as saying.

Horses are not a common sight on Rio streets but they can sometimes be seen in the slums on the outskirts.