Small Bits of News You Didn’t Know you Needed

Slaughtered pig traded for drugs
Detectives from the Syracuse Police Drug Unit spotted a unique drug transaction while conducting surveillance in the City of Syracuse Thursday night. Police were keeping watch along the 200 block of Merriman Avenue when, at approximately 7:40pm, a fifty dollar bag of cocaine was sold for $10 and half a slaughtered pig. Investigators say after the transaction was made, police moved in and arrested both the buyer and the seller. Police who were at the scene say a crowd gathered while the men were being handcuffed; when the detectives turned from the suspects, the slaughtered pig was gone.
The seller, Omar Veliz, 42, of Merriman Avenue was charged with criminal sale of controlled substance and criminal possession of controlled substance. He told police the pig was for a celebration he was planning for a relative who was being released from prison.The cocaine buyer, Angelo Colon, 45, of Honeyhill Road in Fulton, was charged with criminal possession of controlled substance. He told police this was not the first time he’d driven to Syracuse with a slaughtered pig in the back of his van to trade for drugs.
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NY Car Ticketed Repeatedly With Dead Body Inside
NYC Woman Believes Her Father Lay Dead Inside His Car For Weeks While Police Wrote Tickets Over And Over
Police made a gruesome discovery earlier this week while getting ready to tow a heavily-ticketed van – a decomposed body in the back seat.
It was that of a missing man, and now his family wants to know to how officers could ticket the vehicle numerous times -- and never notice what was inside.
The daughter of 58-year-old George Morales wants everyone to remember her handyman father in a different way, not as a decomposed body found in a van under the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway on Wednesday. He'd been dead a month, in a van with four parking tickets.
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Police 'arrest innocent youths for their DNA', officer claims
Hundreds of teenagers are having their DNA taken by police in case they commit crimes later in life, an officer has disclosed
Officers are targeting children as young as 10 with the aim of placing their DNA profiles on the national database to improve their chances of solving crimes, it is claimed.
The alleged practice is also described as part of a "long-term crime prevention strategy" to dissuade youths from committing offences in the future.
The claim comes amid widespread criticism of government proposals to store DNA profiles of innocent people, including some children, on the database for up to 12 years.
Civil liberty campaigners have condemned the tactic of as "diabolical" and said it showed contempt for children's freedom.
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Man charged in lawn mower beer run
A Vassalboro, Maine man has been charged with operating under the influence after he and a friend made a beer run on a riding lawn mower.
Police say 51-year-old Danforth Ross of Vassalboro was charged May 29.
Trooper Joe Chretien had been flagged down by several motorists warning of a wayward mower and made the arrest after Ross and his friend emerged from a variety store with two cases of beer.
Ross' driver's licence had been revoked, so the pair opted for the lawn mower.
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