There are many reasons I hate riding the bus, but until today, beheading wasn’t one of them.

Canadian police charge man over bus beheading

When Mr Caton and two others returned to the bus to check on the victim, he said they saw the attacker “cutting the guy’s head off and gutting him”. Moments later, police surrounded the bus and arrested the man after a nearly three-hour standoff, an official said. “He was taunting police with the head in his hand out the window,” said Mr Caton.

(Nothing like witnessing a violent crime to thrust you into the spotlight where you belong, eh Mr Caton?)

But wait, there’s more…

Teen sexually assaulted girl on school bus, police say

The Pinellas County Sheriff’s office said Branden Allen, 18, a 16-year-old boy and a 15-year-old boy were arrested on charges of sexual battery and false imprisonment.  Authorities say the two younger male teens boarded the parked bus and acted as lookouts as Allen “sexually battered the victim despite her resistance and protestations.”

BONUS!!  Priceless comment left on another blog in response to this news story - Slightly edited for rambling:

A former middle school teacher who repeatedly raped a 13-year-old male student in the school supply closet has never served a day in jail.  When Mohanlal couldn’t come up with the $610k he needed to make bond, the judge let him use property owned by him and his relatives as collateral.  That’s a pretty unusual exception, but if you’re going to bend the rules just be sure it’s for a good cause, like freeing a child molester.

The liens were never actually placed by the bonding agency, and last Thursday the prosecution filed a motion to haul Mohanlal’s ass (and probably the rest of him… court documents don’t specify) back to jail where he belongs.

The boy, now 18, says he “can’t understand what the judge was thinking.”  Well, perhaps the judge was simply considering the nuanced shades of gray present in any criminal case.  Even Mohanlal isn’t all bad; for instance, he always made sure he sent his victim back to class with a note excusing his absence.

Prosecutor: Bring child molestor back into custody CNN.com

Edwin Ramos is charged with murdering a father and two sons on a San Francisco street last month.  It appears that Mr. Ramos, now 21, “benefited from the city’s long-standing practice of shielding illegal immigrant juveniles who committed felonies from possible deportation.”

San Francisco Chronicle

If there is, I don’t wanna know about it.

Megan Meier: In 2006, when she was 13 years old, Megan hung herself in her bedroom closet after receiving a cruel message from her Myspace crush. Her dad later saw it on the screen.. 16-year-old Josh Evans had told Megan the world would be a better place without her. Ouch, baby.

Lori Drew: Megan’s ex-friend’s 48-year-old mom. She heard Megan was saying nasty stuff about her kid, so she invented “Josh Evans” and created a profile for him on Myspace. The plan was to gain Megan’s trust and “find out what she thought about [Lori's daughter] and about other people,” per the police report. Right now she’s neck-and-neck with Britney Spears for Mother of the Year.

Ashley Grills: A 19-year-old temp employed by Lori Drew. She appeared on Good Morning America to defend herself against Lori’s assertion that the shenanigans were all her idea. Per Ashley, Lori was the instigator, even suggesting they could set up a meeting between Josh and Megan at the mall, then show up to laugh at her.

What happened: Megan’s parents found her in her closet, the message from “Josh” still on her computer screen. They had no inkling Josh wasn’t real until six weeks after Megan’s death. The Meiers and Drews lived in the same neighborhood, and eventually word leaked. The Drews became pariahs (my mom says that’s different than piranhas but sometimes I get them mixed up since both are things you don’t want to be around) and a target of self-righteous vandals.

Against the advice of neighbors, Lori and her husband Curt went to the Meiers’ house to “explain” and when they weren’t let in, started banging on the doors. On Thanksgiving. Click the report if you have weak eyes. (It’s okay, nobody’s recording your IP address and selling information indicating corneal defects to your health insurance provider at a tidy profit.)

Local law enforcement didn’t press charges for the Myspace incident because they felt that technically, no crime had been committed. But federal authorities became involved and, in unprecedented precedent, Lori Drew is now facing prosecution for violating Myspace terms of service by creating a false account.

Rob McKenna sez: “The Bill of Rights is part of this complete breakfast!”

Watch out America. The feds are coming after you for that Facebook account you made for the pair of mules in the muddy corral off 228th St in Canyon Park. It’s all fun and games until somebody gets indicted.

[Note: To be fair, you could have made a separate account for each mule; combining them is indicative of your maturity and restraint.]

Holland, June 2007 Filled with the heady exuberance of youth (and cocaine), a young Hollandite decided to take daddy’s car for a spin. Four cop cars were damaged as police tried to keep him off the main roads. Finally he crashed into a ditch, but not before destroying some poor farmer’s corn field.  Yet another example of why kids shouldn’t be allowed to take cocaine without parental supervision.

Child prostitute, 1871. Inscription on the back: Mary Simpson a common prostitute age 10 or 11 year. She has been known as Mrs. Berry for at least two years. She is four month with child.

[Anonymous photographer. Silverprint 8 1/2" x 6", via Wikipedia.]

Earlier this month, Harrel Braddy was finally sentenced to death for the 1998 kidnapping of Shandelle Maycock and her 5-year-old daughter Quatisha. He drove them to a sugarcane field where he strangled Shandelle until he thought she was dead. He then drove little Quatisha to an area of the Everglades known as Alligator Alley, threw her in the water, and left her to be eaten alive.

In court, Braddy was wearing an electric shock device and knee brace and was surrounded by “extra police officers, all measures taken after Braddy escaped from the courthouse in 1984 when he choked a Miami-Dade County corrections officer.”

“During two other escapes that year, Braddy kidnapped and robbed an assistant pastor and an elderly couple. At one point Braddy was on the run for more than a month before authorities found him in Georgia.”

So yeah, it’s a good thing Miami-Dade County is so cautious with this obviously dangerous, violent criminal. Unfortunately, it seems they neglected to use the knee brace, electronic shock device and extra police when they released him from prison in 1997 for “good behavior” — after serving less than half of a 30-year sentence for a variety of charges, including two counts of attempted murder.

“After he was arrested for kidnapping the Maycocks, he tried to escape from the interrogation room by bending an air conditioning grate.”

Via The Perry Bible Fellowship by boy-genius Nicholas Gurewitch

Reidsville, NC: Seven-year-old Alisha was behind the front counter with her mom, a convenience store clerk, when an armed robber walked in demanding money and cigarettes. Alisha angrily yelled at him to “back off” and chased him out of the store while “mommy called the po-po.” As for his punishment, “He should be locked up by his gills and towed to the police.”

Seattle, WA: A man singing Coldplay’s “Yellow” at a Seattle karaoke bar was violently attacked by an enraged 21-year-old girl. “Oh, no, not that song. I can’t stand that song!” she screamed, and lunged at the singer. It took several people to pull her off of him.  I don’t blame the girl, though.. the victim’s blood is on Chris Martin’s immaculately groomed head.

Rochelle, GA: Juanita Jones, 53, called police to “help her get her money back” after discovering she’d unwittingly paid full price for substandard crack. Oh, those crazy crackheads and their madcap shenanigans!!

Kevin Eckenrode, 26, has been convicted of involuntary manslaughter in Pennsylvania for causing the death of his girlfriend, 23-year-old Rachel Kozlusky, whom he dropped out a high-rise window after a night of drinking. You know how it is, guys… you and your best girl are spending the evening together, knocking back a few stiff drinks… Highballs, Hot Toddies, Singapore Slings.. whatever it is the kids are drinking these days. As the two of you embark on your fifth consecutive cocktail hour, you find yourself playfully dangling the love of your life by her wrists out the window of your 23rd floor apartment.

Though the manslaughter was involuntary, the alcohol consumption was not. True, drinking can help you forget your troubles, but it can also cause you to forget basic laws of physics when you need them most.

The moral of the story is, never drink more than four feet off the ground unless you’re tethered to something.