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Resorting to weird weaponry

Posted February 19, 2008 10:00 pm

Phil Luciano

It's not only rude to throw things at people, but often illegal.

You can throw a tantrum or throw your weight around. You can throw up or throw down. But don't throw caution to the wind and throw things.

In Peoria, such criminal stupidity often involves the Ernest T. Bass/Willie York technique of chucking bricks at windows. But more than you'd imagine, people pick odd ammunition.

This came to mind with last week's arrest of a 44-year-old Peoria man who allegedly hurled a frozen roast at his fiancee. The hard hunk of meat bashed her arm, then caromed into her noggin. He faces seven years in prison.

But he's not the only one to resort to weird weaponry:

Last March, an 18-year-old Peoria woman got into a pasta-related brouhaha with her stepfather. For some reason, he refused to let her finish cooking spaghetti, so she hurled a pot of hot water at him. She missed, but chased him out the door with a knife and chunk of wood. He got away and called police, who arrested her.

In December 2006, an 85-year-old woman called police to her Near North Side home. Her front picture window had been shattered overnight by a can of cranberry sauce. Police dusted the can for prints, to no avail.

In July 2006 in Pekin, a 40-year-old Creve Coeur woman allegedly broke into the home of her dead grandma. Acting on a burglary call, police arrived to find she had severely hurt her arm during the break-in. When responders tried to help her, she threw a telephone at a paramedic, then kicked two cops. Upon arrest, she admitted to having been drinking.

In May 2006 in Pekin, a victim turned the tables. A 50-year-old woman approached a man drinking a milk shake in his parked truck. She demanded cash, grabbing and tearing his shirt as she attempted to pull him out of his vehicle. In a rarely used self-defense technique, he threw the milk shake in her face. It worked: She ran off, and cops caught her later.

In January 2005, four men in an SUV tried to sell drugs to a Peoria pedestrian. When he declined, an occupant whipped an onion - specifically, as a police report stated, "one large, yellow Vidalia" - at his head. He ducked, narrowly avoiding becoming a casualty in Peoria's first drive-by vegetable attack.

In May 2004, a 60-year-old Morton woman was arrested after flinging a bag filled with cat feces and cat vomit at a Kmart employee. How do you collect cat vomit? I don't want to know.

In August 2001, a 44-year-old rural Peoria man was arrested for allegedly attacking his 87-year-old mother, whose house he shared. Irritated with his rude comments, the mom had hidden the phone from him, so he pelted her with tomatoes. Perhaps tellingly, his charges included two drug counts.

Color of racism: In December 1998, a Peoria painter was putting a new coat outside a shop outside town. He and a passer-by got into an argument about the quality of the painting. The painter decided to bolster his argument by using a racial slur, then shoved the passer-by. Then, in a move rarely employed by classic debaters like Plato and Aristotle, the painter whipped his brush at the passer-by. The painter was arrested on hate-crime and other charges.

Phil Luciano can be reached at pluciano@pjstar.com.

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