Snail mucus, potheads add to strange Fla. news

[December 28, 2010]  TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) -- This year, Floridians learned that burials at sea don't work if the body doesn't sink, giant snail mucus can make you sick and that an underwire bra can stop a lawyer from visiting her client in prison.

Florida lived up to its reputation for being an odd state in 2010, with residents committing stupid crimes, making poor decisions and exhibiting general weirdness.

There was the man pulled over in Manatee County who claimed the crack in his crack wasn't his. Officers found bags of marijuana and crack cocaine stuffed between the man's butt cheeks. He said the pot was his but "the white stuff is not mine."

That was far from the only weird case handled by police. A 32-year-old Pasco County man called 911 to complain his mother took his beer, while police in Deland said a man walked out of a bar and head-butted a street preacher who called him a sinner. A Pasco County man was charged with slashing his father with a knife during an argument over who would walk the dog.

There were other strange dog stories. A man was walking his Jack Russell terrier in Tampa when an alligator snatched it. He pulled out his handgun and started shooting at the gator. It let go of the dog, but the pet wasn't breathing until the man performed CPR and revived it.

Dogs weren't always the victim. A Hernando County man was run over by his own pickup truck after his dog jumped into the running vehicle and put it in gear.

Threatening items that bomb squads had to handle this year included a box with two kittens in Cocoa and a stuffed pony in Orange County. Authorities blew up the stuffed pony, but spared the kittens. A Melbourne street was shut down for three hours, the time it took the bomb squad to figure out the flashing object in the middle of the street was a restaurant pager.

If that didn't make you lose your appetite, this might: Several people in Miami complained got sick after consuming mucus from a giant snail in a religious ceremony.

2010 wasn't the year to mess with the elderly. An 84-year-old man was arrested in Bay County for allegedly hitting a deputy with his cane. Would-be robbers knocked an 83-year-old man to the ground in Clearwater only to turn and run when the victim pulled a gun on them. A 69-year-old woman turned back a robber after picking up the gun he dropped in her car while smashing the windshield with it. He also dropped his cell phone and was caught.

Weirdness didn't just involve senior citizens: A Clay County woman was arrested after posting a photo of her baby with a bong on Facebook.

Nor was odd news limited to the living. A family honoring a relative's dying wish gave him a burial at sea, only to have the body resurface off a Fort Lauderdale beach. A Tampa-area couple paid $8 for a box of bones at a yard sale that they planned to use as Halloween decorations, until they got home and realized it was a real human skeleton.

Finally, Florida has the kind of corrections officials that will make you rethink what you're wearing. A Miami attorney said she was kept from visiting her client at a federal detention center because the underwire of her bra set off the metal detector. After she took it off, she said guards wouldn't let her in because she was braless.

[Associated Press; By BRENDAN FARRINGTON]

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