Let’s say you wanted to spend your day stealing rolls of toilet paper. Where would you do it? Well, according to Ashtabula City Police, a city resident decided the municipal court, a place teeming with police officers, would be a good place to do it.

Elmer Bonds of Ashtabula, Ohio was arraigned Wednesday in Ashtabula Municipal Court for allegedly stealing toilet paper rolls from the men’s restroom at Ashtabula Municipal Court on a daily basis for the last few months.

Bonds pleaded not guilty to a charge of petty theft, a first-degree misdemeanor, during his arraignment.

“I ain’t gonna plead guilty to something I didn’t do,” Bonds said after his arraignment.

On Tuesday morning, Ashtabula Municipal Court bailiff Donald Rosetti allegedly saw Bonds on his knees taking a toilet paper roll off a dispenser, said Ashtabula Police Captain Phil Varckette.

Acting Captain Gerald Cornelius arrested Bonds at 9:30 a.m. Tuesday, Varckette said. Bonds spent the night in jail.

But Bonds said after his arraignment that he wasn’t stealing the toilet paper when he was arrested.

“It looked like I was. I was picking it up off the floor,” Bonds said.

Bonds was released on a $1,000 personal recognizance bond on the condition that he not enter the municipal building, said Municipal Clerk of Courts Janis Crowell.

Rosetti said he often saw Bonds in the building when he was not scheduled for any hearings.

Varckette said that Bonds would steal rolls of toilet paper nearly every day. He estimated that Bonds stole more than 100 rolls over the past few months. Varckette said Bonds would steal all of the toilet paper in the bathroom on any given day. He said the situation became annoying for the custodian who was constantly replacing the toilet paper.

A Maryville man spent his 23rd birthday in custody after police said they found him early Sunday running nude from the John Sevier pool snack bar with a box of stolen snacks.

Authorities said the man had apparently scaled an 8-foot tall fence while naked and covered in nacho cheese and was seen running toward a Jeep in which officers found clothing and an open bottle of vodka.

According to Maryville police, Michael P. Monn, born July 18, 1981, of McCall Road, Maryville, was arrested by officer Scott Spicer at 5 a.m. Sunday in the parking lot of the pool at John Sevier School, Sequoyah Avenue. Monn was charged with burglary, theft of property less than $500, vandalism less than $500 and public intoxication. He was also cited with indecent exposure. Monn was held at the Blount County Jail in lieu of $9,300 bond pending a 9 a.m. Aug. 3 General Sessions Court hearing.

Spicer reported at 3:38 a.m. Sunday he saw a Jeep CJ-7 in the parking lot of the pool and saw an open bottle of vodka in the console along with various articles of clothing. Minutes later, a nude man carrying a cardboard box ran toward the Jeep before Spicer stopped him and found the box filled with Frito Lay snacks and a container of nacho cheese.

“In addition, the male had nacho cheese in his hair, on his face and on his shoulders,'’ Spicer reported. “The nude male had a strong odor of alcohol and was semi-incoherent.'’

An official with Maryville Alcoa Blount County Parks and Recreation was called to the scene and together with police, they searched the facility. They found someone had climbed an 8 foot fence, broke into the snack bar through a window, ransacked the facility, left the freezer door open and caused $100 damage by ripping the water heater from the wall, according to a report.

Authorities reported someone also defecated in a garbage can, threw nacho cheese on the exterior wall of the snack bar and scattered chips on the ground outside the facility. About $40 in chips and $7 in nacho cheese were stolen from the snack bar, police said.

Andrew Greff drove to a Bismarck hospital with one arm Saturday morning after he blew apart his other arm with a pipe bomb.

“I lit a pipe bomb, and it went off in my hand,” the 21-year-old Bismarck man told St. Alexius Medical Center staff at about 6:30 a.m. when he ran through the emergency room doors. He said the accident happened at Kimball Bottoms, about 10 miles south of Bismarck.

The explosion blew apart Greff’s left arm between his hand and mid bicep, Bismarck Police Lt. Dan Donlin said. The Tribune was unable to contact Greff for comment, and the hospital was unable to release his condition Monday afternoon.

Earlier this month, Greff and a friend, Doug Feist, 27, were accused of keeping poisonous snakes in Greff’s 306 N. 13th St. apartment. They both face felony reckless endangerment charges for putting neighbors in danger. Greff was out of jail on a $500 bond.

Hospital staff called Bismarck police shortly after Greff pulled up next to the ambulance entrance. The bomb squad roped off an area around Greff’s car while they searched inside it for explosives. The car was towed when only a few large fireworks were found inside.

Greff didn’t answer many of the officers’ questions. He was heavily sedated due to the “extreme pain,” Donlin said.

Later that day, investigators went to Greff’s apartment with a search warrant. No one answered their knocks, but they found a 20-year-old man hiding in the closet when they went inside. The man was not arrested, and police would not release his name.

Further investigation revealed that Feist, of Bismarck, helped make the pipe bombs and that he and Greff were attaching them to propane tanks, Donlin said. Feist was arrested after a witness said Feist helped construct the bomb, Donlin said.

Feist’s car was searched next. Some evidence was found in the house and the car, but authorities were unable to elaborate because the investigation is ongoing.

“I haven’t done anything wrong,” Feist said Monday in an interview from the Burleigh County jail. “I never helped build the pipe bombs.”

Feist said he wasn’t with Greff Saturday morning, and that his friend acted on his own. Feist said he didn’t hear about Greff’s accident until after he was arrested and “it caught me as much off guard as everyone else.”

“I feel really, really bad for him, but I just keep thinking ‘Why would he do something like this?’ I don’t understand it,” Feist said. “It just doesn’t make any sense.”

The Burleigh County Sheriff’s Department also is investigating the accident because Greff said it occurred in the county. Sheriff’s Maj. Nick Sevart said they were unable to find where the explosion occurred, but deputies are continuing to search just in case Greff left something dangerous behind.

“If there’s a danger to the public, we want to take care of that,” Sevart said.

Greff and Feist were charged Monday with felony possession of a bomb, Burleigh County Assistant State’s Attorney Leann Bertsch said. Greff will appear in court for his first appearance — where he’s told of the charge against him and bond is set — when he’s released from the hospital. Feist had his first appearance Monday and is being held in the Burleigh County jail on a $5,000 cash bond.

Maybe they figured their mountain bikes’ knobby tires would help them rumble to safety through summer road construction zones.

Or perhaps they had been watching too much of Lance Armstrong’s Tour de France exploits.

In any event, two bandits are in Dearborn police custody this morning — a day after their ill-fated getaway in the wake of a sloppy armored truck robbery.

“They used all-terrain type bikes,” said Dearborn Police Detective and Sgt. Mike Sabo.

The pair, both Detroit residents, hid their cycles around the corner from a Bank One branch on Wyoming Avenue in Dearborn early Thursday morning. Then they confronted the armored truck guard who was filling the bank’s automated teller machine with cash at about 9:20 a.m., said Sabo. One of the suspects sprayed a noxious chemical in the guard’s face.

Then things started unravelling.

The guard fought back. He even pulled his gun, firing shots and wounding one of the cyclist-robbers.

But they got some cash, ran for their bikes, hopped in the saddle and began shifting gears.

After a short, speedy ride north, police caught up with them near Tireman, about two blocks away.

Police, trained to box in suspects in fleeing cars and take down sprinting scofflaws, had no trouble corralling the cycle-mounted robbers.

“They were removed from the apparatuses,” Sabo deadpanned.

One went to the hospital, where he was treated for one or more gunshot wounds. Police said only that he was in stable condition Thursday. The other went straight to the pokey.

Both are expected to be arraigned today on robbery-related charges.

The bikes are being held as evidence.

Story courtesy Hugh McDiarmid, JR. and the Detroit Free Press

A South Yorkshire man who shot himself in the testicles with a shotgun has been jailed for five years.

David Walker, 28, from The Crescent, Dinnington, had drunk 15 pints of lager when he accidentally discharged the gun which was stuffed down his trousers.

He admitted possessing a banned firearm when he appeared at Sheffield Crown Court on Tuesday.

The judge said he had no option but to impose the statutory minimum sentence of five years.

‘Crawled home’

His lawyer Gulzar Syed told the court: “He still feels quite severe pain,” adding that some pellets remained in Walker’s scrotum.

Prosecuting lawyer Andrew Hatton told the court how Walker had gone home to get the shotgun after arguing in the pub with lifelong friend Stuart Simpson about whose turn it was to buy a beer.

As he was returning to the pub, which had closed by this time, he accidentally fired the weapon.

“He had it shoved down his trousers,” Mr Hatton said.

“After the shotgun had discharged he placed it in a rubbish bin and crawled back to his home address.”

Walker told officers he was so drunk he had no idea how he managed to shoot himself and why he went to fetch the weapon.

Judge Robert Moore said recent legislation regarding banned guns meant he had to impose the statutory minimum sentence on Walker of five years in prison.

“The shooting of yourself is plainly an exceptional circumstance which is capable of reducing the sentence,” Moore said.

“But in this case, I am quite certain, it does not justify reducing it below the statutory minimum.”

A Richfield man towed a golf cart at speeds of 50 mph, causing the cart to flip over and injure two occupants, Washington County authorities said Monday.

The Washington County Sheriff’s Department issued a drunken driving citation and requested two charges of recklessly endangering safety against Nicholas Roethle, 21, following the accident about 10 a.m. Sunday.

Capt. Dale Schmidt said Roethle was driving his red Ford Escort east on Hillcrest Road, towing a golf cart containing two men.

According to the department report:

Michael Ludwig, 19, and Charles Bode, 18, were in the golf cart at the time but both managed to jump out before it flipped over. Ludwig and Bode, who fled the scene, suffered minor injuries in the accident.

When deputies arrived, Roethle was in the Escort, which had come to rest in a cornfield just off Hillcrest Road. Roethle told a deputy that Ludwig was the only person in the cart but that he had run off after the accident.

Roethle said he had driven into the cornfield to try to find Ludwig.

He said he had begun towing the golf cart at a home on Wildlife Drive, and he led deputies there. Lloyd Ebert, 19, of Slinger and Bode, of Allenton, were at the Wildlife Drive home. Ebert told deputies he was in the car with Roethle.

Ebert said Roethle had promised to drive just 15 mph or 20 mph while towing the golf cart but hit 50 mph just before the accident.

Bode told deputies he had thought the car and the cart were traveling about 40 mph and that the car was going dangerously fast.

The men had spent several hours playing with the golf cart, including dragging it through cornfields. The plan was to get the cart to a nearby garage “and put in a snowmobile engine to make it a ‘hot rod,’ ” according to the report.

Roethle was arrested on suspicion of drunken driving and his blood-alcohol level was 0.12, over the 0.10 level considered evidence of intoxication in Wisconsin, according to the Sheriff’s Department.

Story courtesy LAURIA LYNCH-GERMAN and the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Usually, vice cops work months to find informants who will set up undercover buys, leading to hours of tedious surveillance and, hopefully, a drug arrest.

Sometimes, such as Tuesday, business comes to the cops.

It seems a visitor to the Kent County Courthouse had a dime bag of marijuana in his pocket. The contents of his pockets became apparent when he emptied them for security officers.

The 29-year-old Grand Rapids man was walking into the courthouse at 8:25 a.m. when he set off the alarm on the walk-through metal detector.

Kent County Sheriff’s Deputy Dale Robinson, who was working security, said the man turned over his keys, believing they were the problem. That didn’t help.

Robinson waved a hand-held metal detector, which sensed metal in both front pockets of his jeans.

The man was pulling change from his left front pocket when Robinson noticed the small, suspicious bag.

“What is that?” Robinson asked him.

“It looks like weed,” the man responded.

Lt. Bruce Partridge, head of courthouse security, said it was a “couple, three joints worth, a usable quantity.”

The man quickly explained himself. He took the pot from his 12-year-old son, who had found it while doing yard work, he said. He put it in his pocket but forgot it was there, he continued.

Skeptical deputies turned over the marijuana to Grand Rapids police and let the man go pending an investigation.

It was unclear why he was in the courthouse, although he has been in recently on traffic offenses.

Partridge said it is not the first time courthouse visitors have been so helpful to police.

Late last year, a man emptied his coat pockets and pulled out four rocks of crack cocaine. “He said it wasn’t his,” Partridge said.

Deputies questioned that, wondering why it came from his coat.

“It’s someone else’s coat,” the man said.

Courtesy Ken Kolker and The Grand Rapids Press