Friday Five: The Week’s Top Safety and Sign News Updates

Friday, Feb. 10, 2012 –

You might want to think twice next time you want to let your dog poop on that nasty neighbor’s lawn. Sh*t literally hit the fan In Port Richey, Florida, as a disagreement between two women over dog poop ended in late-night fisticuffs. Looks like someone needs to invest in some dog poop signs.

In Chicago, a high school art contest took a turn a turn toward gangsterdom. The picture below, drawn by a 15 year old Chicagoan, was selected as the winner of a citywide competition to design a windshield vehicle sticker. Upon first glance, it looks like a harmless piece of art honoring Chicago’s heroes—the city’s police, firefighters, and paramedic—but administrators and the police officials say that if you look closer, the drawing could be construed as an homage to the Maniac Latin Disciples, one of Chicago’s most vicious criminal gangs. The original sticker design has been scrapped and replaced with the second place design. We included a picture of the Gang symbol so you can be the judge of whether this is a subliminal gang endorsement or an innocuous celebration of Chicago’s finest:

Not only have criminals infiltrated the world of high school art, they have also begun an assault on the pecan industry! A record-high price spike in Pecans has farmers in Georgia on the defense against pecan-pilferers hoping to loot the expensive nuts from privately owned orchards. Farmers are putting up No Trespassing Signs and even arming themselves with guard dogs and shotguns to deter looters. A high price to pay for a slice of pecan pie!

The lawless hoodlums of Occupy Pittsburg are also being hit with No Trespassing Signs as local police forces have begun the process of closing down the protestors out of their encampment at Mellon Park in Pittsburg. The Occupy movement is being blamed for trashing the park with garbage and attracting rats to the park, but many protestors have resolved not to go quietly into the night.

We’ll conclude with a more serious story about real police doing real police work to take a drug-dealing subset of the infamous “Bloods” gang off of the streets of Middletown, New York. Thirty-three members of the “9 Trey” gang will be charged with federal narcotics violations for allegedly distributing heroin, cocaine, and crack. Using hard drugs is a dangerous path to go down, and it’s good to see New York police taking more action to stamp out these life-ruining items.

– A. Li and Z. Miller