The 4 Most Epic Benders Ever Captured by an Arrest Report
The main pastime of inebriated white people is describing the most wasted that they have ever been, usually followed by explaining, in vivid detail, the well-deserved consequences of said event. I don't know why we're so proud of our terrible decisions and inevitable comeuppance. Perhaps it's a cathartic thing -- an attempt to alleviate some subconscious guilt for past transgressions -- or perhaps it's just really, really funny to relive the time Gary threw up on that cop. Regardless, we're going to have to figure out a new way to pass the time, because these folks have won the weirdo criminal competition once and for all.
Have You Ever Gotten So Drunk That You Woke Up With Sanctions?
Laura Hall is the patron saint of drunken consequences.
Laura Hall is the first human being to be banned from drinking in an entire country. I once got 86'ed from a bar for dry-humping a jukebox (in my defense, it was playing Journey's "Separate Ways," and I am but a man, with all of man's weaknesses). That's what it takes to get a single building to refuse to serve you alcohol again. Laura Hall did something so outrageous that an entire country put her picture up on the wall with the line "DO NOT SERVE" underlined six times. And the story, impossibly, gets better from there:
That country ... was England.
Nobody is drunker than England! Except places that are kind of England anyway, like Wales -- where Laura Hall is also banned from drinking. That's right: Not one, but two countries are so frightened of what Laura Hall does with a few in her that they have instituted nationwide bans to keep her from consuming alcohol within their borders. And getting hilariously, criminally drunk is all Wales does! Wales is Europe's Florida. The words on the national crest of Wales are "Fuck you, I can drive." Their entire language looks like a drunken email to your ex. Their national anthem is the slurred words to Chumbawamba's "Tubthumping" -- and fucking Wales thought Hall was so out of control that they had to adopt a liquor fatwa.
The judge who sentenced Hall said she "represented all that is despicable and rotten in society." He further elaborated that "it must be a frightening sight to see you in full sail." Holy shit! I'm pretty sure that's what grizzled old pirates timidly whisper to each other when you bring up the Flying Dutchman, and that quote was from a judge! A man who does nothing but listen to crime reports all day.
So what, exactly, did Laura Hall do to earn her international 86'ing?
I DON'T KNOW.
Various news stories mention a few different charges -- drunk in public, assault, trespassing -- but nothing that hints at what earned her the wrath of two entire countries and a sentence that sounds like a zealous priest's condemnation of the devil. But I'm actually fine with that. See, Laura Hall is like a horror movie -- right now she's the unseen monster, leaving our imaginations to fill in the blanks. Finding out her actual crimes would likely just disappoint.
But really, though, it has to involve at least some light treason, right?
In Her Defense, She Thought It Was a Really Slow Jet Ski
Part of the reason we hear so many crazy crime stories coming out of Florida is because the disclosure laws work differently down there. The other part is that Florida is as far as the psychopath parade got before they ran into the ocean and decided to just make camp. Regardless, for the connoisseur of hilarious crime, it's tough to beat the Sunshine State. An example:
Florida police arrested a woman for wrangling and illegally mounting up a manatee, then riding it around the ocean.
She was charged with two counts of Aquamanning in the second degree.
Gloria Garcia Gutierrez, a 53-year-old Sears employee, explained to authorities that she just didn't know you couldn't do it, so she did it. Which is the best excuse for anything I have ever heard. In what I'm going to have to assume were her exact words:
"Ain't nobody said I couldn't ride that bitch, so I rode that bitch."
It is, obviously, a crime to jack a sea cow and tear it around like a maritime Rascal scooter. But to her credit, Triple-G came forward of her own volition when she realized that authorities were looking for her, sadly denying us the slow-motion aquatic sea chase that dreams are made of.
Seriously, Though, That's His Beach
It was just another lovely summer day in Long Beach: The sand was warm, the waves were crashing, the Sublime was playing on repeat while men in cargo shorts gazed sternly at skateboards and smoked. The people were relaxed and content -- until a Nissan Maxima came careening through the parking lot, jumped the barrier, and made immediately for the water. The driver, leaning out of his window, yelled "THIS IS MY BEACH!" followed by his own Social Security number. No other words, just "THIS IS MY BEACH GUYS FOR REAL HERE IS MY SSN!" Over and over again, for the entire duration of his short, purposeful commute to the middle of the Pacific Ocean. I'm not sure what the standard protocol for proving beach ownership is -- if there's like a deed, or a little card, or a badge with a picture of you standing on the beach giving a big thumbs-up -- but I have a feeling it's not just frantically shouting your student ID.
After the man carefully parked an economy sedan in the sea, he calmly opened the door, left the vehicle, and began swimming out into the water -- still ceaselessly yelling his presumed property ownership and proof of citizenship to nobody in particular. Nobody was hurt, not even the man himself, as the lifeguards quickly swam out and pulled him back in.
His reaction wasn't noted at the time, but I'm just going to take a guess here and say the guy was mad confused when those Speedo-clad trespassers chased him out into the middle of his pool and forcefully interrupted his afternoon swim.
127 Hours Is for Pussies; a Man Needs Only 540 Minutes
William Todd is not to be praised. William Todd hurt some folks. William Todd is a bastard. But goddamn, nobody has ever been as high as William Todd.
Todd's spree started, like all good sprees, when he got off a Greyhound bus in Nashville, Tennessee. That's how you know you're in trouble, right there: "Got off the Greyhound in Nashville, Tennessee" is a damn fine start to a heartbroken country song. No story starts "Got off a Greyhound in Nashville, Tennessee" and ends with "won the Nobel prize." Todd stepped off his bus for a nine-hour layover, and instead went on a raging, nonsensical crime spree you'd need some fucked-up mods to replicate in Grand Theft Auto.
First, he "broke into the Slaughterhouse and stole a Taser, revolver, and shotgun."
That's first. That's how it starts. That's just his opening act.
The news story capitalizes that phrase, by the way -- "the Slaughterhouse" -- which makes me think it's the name of a business. Maybe a gun store with a morbid sense of humor. But no, basic Googling says the Slaughterhouse in Nashville, Tennessee, is an annual haunted house containing, for some reason, a Taser, revolver, and shotgun. Apparently Nashville is extremely serious about the authenticity of fear in its holiday events. Well, I should say "was extremely serious." Whatever the Slaughterhouse was, William Todd burned it to the ground. But not before stealing one more thing: a T-shirt. So, just picture everything that happens from this point onward being perpetrated by a man wearing a shirt that says "THE SLAUGHTERHOUSE" in giant bloody letters on the front.
Todd then found a random group of people leaving a bar, whom he Tased, pistol whipped, and robbed. Five entire minutes later, William carjacked a taxi, took it to a Walmart, and bought $200 worth of food. Holy shit, he's operating on video game logic: He was low on health after getting caught in the fire, so he immediately jacked the very first car he found, drove it into a store, ran inside, and bought $200 worth of food to restore some bars.
Todd then broke into a law office, where he pooped on the desks and rubbed it into their law degrees. I don't know what the point of that was, but honestly, I just don't think it ever occurred to him to wipe his ass with anything but the law itself. Todd then wandered around a hotel knocking on doors, pretending to be a housekeeper. A female housekeeper, mind you, funny voice and all. He robbed another couple while crying the entire time. Todd was sobbing, not his victims -- just absolutely weeping into THE SLAUGHTERHOUSE shirt. During all of this, Todd somehow found time to shave his head completely bald, and then ran his stolen taxi into the side of a parking garage, totaling it.
SO HE STOLE A NEW ONE.
When police finally found William Todd, he was submerged inside a water tank on top of Opryland, just his eyes showing above the waterline.
And now it's worth clarifying that this was not an entire criminal rap sheet, cherry-picking the craziest examples from a few years of depravity. This wasn't a bad month, or an eventful week. Even after all of these crimes, should he have found a paint shop and lost his wanted level, William Todd would have made his bus.
This all happened in a single night. Nine hours. 540 minutes.
You're a dick, William Todd, but let nobody say you're unproductive.
Read Brockway's piece about real-life car jousting for Car and Driver. Or just buy his stunning, transcendental, orgasmic science fiction novel, Rx: A Tale of Electronegativity, right here. You could also buy Robert's other (pretty OK) book, Everything Is Going to Kill Everybody: The Terrifyingly Real Ways the World Wants You Dead. Follow him on Tumblr, Twitter, and Facebook.
