Monday 06/01/09

Human Interest News — Posted on June 1, 2009

Air patrol
A bird? A plane? Palm Bay, Fla.’s newest weapon in its arsenal against crime is something in between. Rather than fork over a huge sum for a police plane or helicopter for the sprawling city of 100,000, the police department has invested $10,000 for paragliding equipment and training for some of the city’s 150-person police force. Police Chief Bill Berger said the city’s police paragliders will give officers a chance to take shortcuts in the Brevard County town. The new police tool basically comes down to a seat above a lawnmower-sized engine and propeller all attached to a parachute. “It’s a lot more fun to patrol in that than in a patrol car,” police Lt. Mark Renkens told ABC News.

Kids these days
If some religious teens rebel by abandoning their faith, how do faithless teens rebel? According to a study released in May by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, more than half of Americans surveyed raised in staunchly atheistic or agnostic households have abandoned disbelief and are now, as The New York Times phrased it, “defecting to faith.” By comparison, only 14 percent of people raised Catholic and just 13 percent of people raised Protestant have abandoned the faith of their childhood, the survey concluded. Of those switching to theism after a childhood of atheism, about half said they had unmet spiritual needs.

Beaten back
It’s hard to figure how Fabian Moore and Tommy Wayne Garrett will explain themselves to cellmates after failing spectacularly on a home invasion caper in Claiborne County, Tenn., on May 12. Police say the two broke into the home of 58-year-old Wanda Bray at 6 p.m. as she was making dinner. The intruders demanded Bray’s medication, but the women refused, instead flinging the homemade chili she had just prepared at the intruders as a makeshift weapon. Bray then flung other household objects at the pair before eventually chasing them from the house with a broom. Authorities later arrested the men–and Samuel Partin, their getaway driver–and charged the trio.