1999 Bum Steer Awards
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I Think, Therefore I Scam, Part I
Steven Jay Russell, who had escaped from Texas penitentiaries on previous occasions by impersonating a judge and a medical worker, was paroled to a nursing home after medical records provided by prison doctors indicated that he had the virus that causes AIDS.
But They Can Have Gummi Worms And Bubble Gum for Their Last Meal
State Representative Jim Pitts of Waxahachie proposed a bill allowing Texas to impose the death penalty on children as young as eleven.
Neither Rottweilers, Nor Poodles, Nor Chihuahuas, Nor Chows Stays These Couriers From the Swift Completion of Their Appointed Rounds
The U.S. Humane Society reported that in the 1997 fiscal year, Houston ranked first in the nation in the number of dog bites reported by mail carriers with 65 attacks.
Exactly Why It Needs the Money
The State of Texas awarded a grant of $1,721.38 to train police officers in the North Texas hamlet of Krugerville, which has no police officers.
I Think, Therefore I Scam, Part II
The Texas Council on Offenders with Mental Impairments arranged for Russell to receive a fourteen-day pass to travel from the nursing home to Houston for experimental AIDS treatment.
Who Squealed?
Washington County authorities filed criminal charges against four men who helped high school senior Cammy Jean Cornelius of Agua Dulce abduct her own pet pig after it had been eliminated during preliminary competition at the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo and, along with about 2,900 other losing entrants, purchased by a slaughterhouse. The abduction was discovered two weeks later when her pig was named grand champion and received a $4,000 prize at a livestock show in San Angelo.
The Charge Should Be Mannequinslaughter
In Austin, off-duty University of Texas police officer Chris Myers spotted a foot protruding from the back of Jim Rankin’s Dodge minivan, handcuffed him, and called 911 for backup, although the foot was made of plastic and was not connected to a body.
I Think, Therefore I Scam, Part III
Several days after Russell left the nursing home, a man claiming to be a doctor notified the nursing home that Steven Russell had died during treatment in Houston. The nursing home later received a death certificate.
It’s a Bird! It’s a Plane! It’s Trademark Man!
DC Comics, a subsidiary of Warner Bros., asked Schulenburg High School to remove the Superman-style S from its football helmets and uniforms, class rings, and letterhead.
I Think, Therefore I Scam, Part IV
Russell, who had escaped to Dallas, posed as an attorney so that he could visit his former lover in jail, then pretended to be a millionaire from Virginia in an effort to get a $75,000 loan from a bank.
P.S. Send Me Your Picture
The American Civil Liberties Union suggested that sick children could be cheered up by receiving greeting cards from Texas prison inmates.
Vita Brevis, Ars No Longa
Harris County constables seized fifteen paintings and drawings by Robert Rauschenberg from Houston’s Menil Collection the day after the opening of a major retrospective of his work because the artist had failed to respond to a $5.5 million lawsuit filed by an Austin art dealer over unpaid fees.
But It Was a Deluxe Cardboard Box
The family of a Pasadena man sued Budget Funeral Home after an exhumation of his remains confirmed that he had been interred not in the casket they had requested but in a cardboard box.
Finally, Somebody Got It Right
The name of the state conservation agency was printed on the envelopes of its official stationery as the “Texas Natural Resource Conversation Commission.”
I Think, Therefore I Scam, Part V
Bank officials indicated that they wanted to check with law enforcement authorities, whereupon Russell faked a heart attack and was rushed to a hospital.
Hi, Cipriana. Can I Have an Advance on My Next Paycheck?
A masked robber who held up an El Pollo Loco in San Antonio wore the restaurant’s uniform shirt and called manager Cipriana Garcia by her first name. Thirty minutes later, police officers arrested him when he showed up for work.
I Think, Therefore I Scam, Part VI
Russell slipped out of the hospital and made his way to South Florida, where, after six weeks of freedom, he was apprehended and returned to Texas.
I Wasn’t Born a 40C, But I Got Here as Fast as I Could
According to the American Society of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgeons, breast-implant patients in Texas request the largest implants available more often than do women in any other state.
He Was a Hung Juror
Nicolas Chabarria, a Houston juror, was sentenced to six days in jail and fined $300 for oversleeping and causing a delay in a capital murder trial. After court personnel were unable to reach the juror by phone, a sheriff’s deputy drove up to his home just as he emerged with a young woman.
Take This Plane to Cuba or I’ll Purl
Fearing would-be hijackers might use steak knives as lethal weapons, the Chili’s Too restaurants at the Dallas–Fort Worth International Airport replaced their knives, which had five-inch blades, with new ones whose blades measured only four inches. Airport spokesman Joe Dealey, Jr., said of the old knives, “I think knitting needles pose a greater threat than these steak knives.”
Don’t Bogart That Stalk
Narcotics agents in East Texas pulled over an eighteen-wheeler on Interstate 30 for a drug inspection, ordered the driver to unload his cargo, and brought in a drug-sniffing dog that indicated it had found contraband—which turned out to be 41,000 pounds of frozen broccoli.
Another Case of Life Imitating Dreck
The Fort Worth Star-Telegram sponsored a party to watch the last episode of Seinfeld, in which Jerry, George, Elaine, and Kramer were sentenced to a year in jail. The winner of the Kramer look-alike contest at the party was Dwight Welsh, who was arrested at the party for assault and taken to jail.
Make That 25 Whata-burgers, 20 Large Fries, 20 Diet Cokes, and a Salad
After a masked intruder robbed the El Paso Whataburger where George Briseno was eating, Briseno chased and caught the thief, only to be apprehended himself for stealing the $200 the thief had taken.
Who Was That Masked Mammal?
Billy Bob Peacock, a missing inmate from the state jail in Hutchins, was discovered hiding in a culvert after a corrections officers saw a raccoon start into the culvert, then back out and run away.
10 Percent Off If You Die
The Denton City Council voted to assess a $25 ambulance surcharge for sick or injured passengers weighing three hundred pounds or more.
Bummed Steer Award
Officials at Sundance Square Management Company in Fort Worth ordered surgery performed on an anatomically correct topiary sculpture of a Longhorn steer.
Love, Honor, And Oh, Boy!
One month after his second divorce, 48-year-old Mike Mullen of Dallas—who lives in a 10,000-square-foot mansion and owns a 1,500-acre ranch and vacation retreats on the Gulf of Mexico and in Snowmass, Colorado, as well a private jet, two helicopters, and a thirteen-carat diamond ring—appeared on Oprah to say that he was lonely and wanted to remarry. He received letters from 39,000 women.
He’s Calling It the Penis de Milo
After judicious pruning turned the topiary steer in Fort Worth’s Sundance Square into a topiary cow, Robert Camuto, the publisher of FW Weekly, purchased the pruned appendage for $50 and announced he would donate it to a fundraising auction for the city’s Contemporary Art Center.
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