News of the Weird: Unconventional weaponry

Aidan Orion White, 25, of Auburn, Nebraska, went to jail on April 28 on charges of felony assault after he struck Saundra Lunzmann, 37, and her daughter, 7, with his “Star Wars” lightsaber. The little girl was playing with other children when White allegedly hit her, The Smoking Gun reported. When the mother yelled at him, he charged her and struck her in the arm with his weapon. Both victims said they experienced pain from the attacks. Police seized the “higher quality device … constructed of metal and thick plastic” after White admitted hitting the victims, whom he blamed for a rise in his rent. A judge has ordered a competency evaluation.

A Slidell, Louisiana, Lowe’s home improvement store was the site of a startling discovery on May 11, when 66-year-old James Kalliavas of Jasper, Georgia, was found in a display storage shed at the store with his pants around his ankles and a tub of Vaseline at hand. The Smoking Gun reported that Kalliavas admitted pleasuring himself while watching YouTube in the shed. He was arrested for obscenity and booked into the county jail.

Folks in Richmond, Virginia, were treated to a starchy sight on May 13 as a 4-ton potato made a stop as part of its 13th year of cross-county touring, WRIC-TV reported. The tour, sponsored by the Idaho Potato Commission, started in 2012 as a one-year campaign, but it was so popular the tater has been on the road ever since, promoting the American Heart Association and American Diabetes Association. (But where are the weird sprouts that potatoes in my pantry shoot out?)

Ashley Pardo, 33, of San Antonio was arrested on May 12 and charged with aiding in the commission of terrorism, CNN reported. The charges were related to Pardo allegedly supplying her middle-school son with ammunition and tactical gear in exchange for him babysitting his younger siblings. Police were called to the home on May 12 after the grandmother saw rifle and pistol magazines “loaded with live ammunition” in his room, along with a homemade explosive device. Jeremiah Rhodes Middle School had clocked his interest in violence, but Pardo “expressed to the school her support of his violent expressions and drawings and does not feel concerned with his behavior,” the affidavit read. On May 12, he went to school and then left the campus, after which extra security was put in place. He was later located elsewhere and charged with an undisclosed crime.

Seth Davidson, 24, an employee of Oaklawn Memorial Gardens in Fisher, Indiana, was arrested on May 12 after he dug up a grave to retrieve a gold ring from an urn, WTHR-TV reported. Officers patrolling the area that evening noticed an empty car parked nearby. As they investigated, Davidson walked out of the woods covered in dirt and said it was his car. He told officers he hadn’t been able to stop thinking about the ring, which he intended to pawn. Prosecutors charged him with cemetery mischief, criminal trespass and theft.

A kindergartener in the Greater Johnstown (Pennsylvania) School District brought treats to school on May 14, WJAC-TV reported. Sweet! Unfortunately, the tasty items were Jell-O shots, with alcohol, that three fellow students enjoyed. When school officials learned about the shots, “immediate action was taken,” with the kids going to the nurse’s office and then to a local hospital for evaluation “out of an abundance of caution.” The district said it is working with authorities to find out how the student came into possession of the shots.

Los Angeles NBC4-TV sportswriter Michael Duarte arrived at his home in Echo Park on May 10 to find it had been ransacked, the station reported. While taking in the damage, Duarte went into his bedroom and discovered a naked man sleeping in his bed. Duarte told a friend, who was waiting in a nearby car, to call police. Strangely, the intruder had clogged the toilet with towels, eaten a box of ice cream sandwiches and a box of Beyond Beef burger patties, and chewed 60 pieces of gum, which he had then spit out in a “big wad of gum about … the size of a softball,” Duarte said. He had also killed a possum with a statue and left it on the back patio. Duarte said as the suspect was being led away, “he was yelling to me and my friend and also the officers, ‘I’m going to kill you.’”

Authorities in Delaware County, Pennsylvania, have arrested 44-year-old Christina Solometo of Ridley Park after a crappy incident on April 29, NBC Philadelphia reported. Solometo and another driver took part in a road rage event that ended with Solometo exiting her car, backing up to the front of the other car and defecating on the front grille. As seen in a witness video, she then walked triumphantly back to her car and drove on. She was taken into custody on May 1 and charged with indecent exposure, disorderly conduct, harassment and depositing waste on a highway.

Veteran New York City denizens are familiar with a character called Kevin Carpet who has reportedly been around since the early aughts, according to the New York Post. Kevin is a performance artist who likes to wrap himself in a piece of carpet and lie on the ground where people will step on or over him. “This is not a fetish for me,” he said. “It’s a Zen-type state. I’m feeling the people, hearing what they’re talking about.” Some even remember him from the club scene. “It’s amazing he’s still around,” said one commenter on a May 4 TikTok post. Others call him “perverted” and “sick,” but one deadpanned, “That’s just Kevin Carpet.”

In an astonishing patch of bad luck — or was it? — an 83-year-old driver from Pomona, New York, has run his car into the same bank, with the same car, on the same day of the week twice within six weeks. The Briarcliff Daily Voice reported that on May 2, an unnamed driver ran into the Webster Bank in Nanuet and sustained minor injuries. The same driver also hit the bank on March 21, crashing through a plate-glass window in the front of the building. In the latest incident, the car crashed through the plywood covering the damage from the first hit. After the March crash, the driver said he thought his car had been in park when he stepped on the gas. He mistook the brake for the accelerator in the second incident.