Arlington Police Help Wake Up Drunk Passenger in Ocean City Taxi
Arlington County Police helped to wake up an intoxicated passenger in a taxi cab that had traveled all the way from Ocean City, Md. early Labor Day morning.
Police responded to the cab, which was parked on S. Joyce Street across from Pentagon Row, around 4:00 a.m. on Monday morning. They were told that the passenger was intoxicated and, following the 150+ mile drive from Ocean City to Arlington, the driver was not able to wake him up.
Police arrived on scene and assisted in waking up the man. Within a few minutes, the cab was on its way back to Ocean City.
Lauren Satchell, a manager for the cab company, Ocean City Taxi, said long distance rides like that one are not unheard of. In fact, she said the company handles one or two such requests per week. Recent destinations, according to one driver, included College Park, Md. and New York City.
“We go anywhere, as long as there’s money for the ride,” Satchell said. According to Satchell, passengers on such rides are required to make a $400 cash deposit prior to the trip. If there’s money left over at the end, it’s refunded. Another manager said the ride to Arlington would have likely cost around $350.
As for why passengers would travel such a far distance by cab, we’re told that the reasons vary, but usually involve some sort of emergency that requires them to get somewhere as soon as possible, or a situation that leaves them without transportation home.
“Usually, when someone goes from Ocean City to far away it’s because something happened, like they got pulled over and their license was suspended, or they come down with a friend and their friends left them,” Satchell said.
Satchell said she could not confirm why police were called on Monday, but did say that the company has a policy regarding unresponsive passengers.
“Legally we are not allowed to touch them to wake them up,” she said. “So if we can’t get them up by screaming, our procedure is to call the police department.”
Hospital Employee Arrested After Robbery Attempt, Foot Chase
A Virginia Hospital Center worker has been arrested and charged in a bizarre attempted robbery at the hopsital.
Police say 48-year-old Alexandria resident Albert Murray, an employee at the hopsital’s cafeteria, tried to rob his own employer over the weekend.
According to police, Murray took a taxi to the hospital around 4:00 p.m. on Saturday. While the cab waited outside, Murray allegedly went to the food service office in the cafeteria, confronted his manager with a knife, and demanded the combination to the safe. When the manager insisted she didn’t know the combination, police say, Murray bound her hands and feet with electrical cord, placed the safe on an office chair, and wheeled the chair out to the waiting cab.
The taxi driver became suspicious as Murray was loading the safe into the trunk and jumped out of the cab, according to police. At that point, hospital security ran outside. Murray is then accused of getting into the driver’s seat of the cab and trying to drive away. The cab driver, however, somehow managed to jump into the passenger seat of the hybrid taxi and kill the ignition with the press of a button.
Police say Murray then fled on foot. Officers quickly located him and, after a brief foot pursuit, Murray was taken into custody without further incident, according to police.
Murray was charged with abduction, grand larceny, two counts of robbery, and possession of PCP, according to Arlington County Police spokesman Dustin Sternbeck.
Airport Altercation at Reagan National
Two women were involved in an unusual altercation in Terminal A of Reagan National Airport this morning.
The alleged scuffle started around 8:40 a.m. when one of the women inadvertently struck the other with a suitcase, according to airport spokeswoman Courtney Mickalonis. The woman who was holding the suitcase later told airport police that the woman she struck then stood up and hit her several times.
While airport police were escorting the suitcase holder to the Arlington County Magistrate’s Office to swear a warrant against the other woman, the alleged attacker claimed that she was injured, Mickalonis said. Arlington County paramedics were called to treat her.
No word yet on whether any charges will be filed in connection to the altercation.
File photo
Pair in Covered Wagon Heads Down Rt. 50
(Updated at 3:15 p.m.) A Tea Party member from rural Georgia traveled down Route 50 in a horse-drawn covered wagon this afternoon, en route to “get some answers.”
With his travel companion, 33-year-old Missy Wilkerson, and his cattle dog, “Blue,” Ralph Casey is heading to D.C. to get answers for “the Small Businessman” from “someone in charge.” The nearly six week journey through the byways of small town America has garnered media attention, words of encouragement and offers of free food and lodging for the 69-year-old horseshoeing school owner.
Fast-moving traffic was able to maneuver around Casey’s wagon as it traveled at 5 to 10 miles per hour down the highway. Read more about his journey from the Madison County, Va. Eagle newspaper. Casey can also be found on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.
Whacky Russian News Program Visits Arlington Gas Station
Because of today’s breaking news, we had to push our article on last night’s very, very long discussion of the East Falls Church development plan to tomorrow. As a way of making amends, we bring you a segment from the English-language Russian propaganda news channel Russia Today, which you may be able to find in a dark corner of your extended digital cable service.
In the clip, a reporter interviews some folks at a Shell station in Arlington about America’s “addiction” to oil (spoiler: people at a gas station are in no hurry to ditch their cars). But the real reason to watch is for the American anchor’s lead-in to the reporter’s story:
And when it comes to the topic of petrol, and America’s appetite for it, we’re like heroin addicts. And as the color of the waters of the Gulf turn from a murky blue to a poop brown, RT’s Lauren Lyster asked Americans, “Can you kick the habit?”
That’s right, comrades, we’re heroin addicts and our water is poop brown. Courtesy of a TV network from the world’s largest oil producer.
As if to make the setup to an otherwise perfectly normal news story more ridiculous, before you press play you’re treated to a photo of a drunk Uncle Sam holding a gas pump.
Enjoy.
Twittering Food Truck Hits Wrong Button
It’s not easy being a food truck operator.
Running your own business is hard work. Handling lunchtime crowds in hot and humid weather is exhausting. And nowadays, if you run a popular mobile food business, you need to keep your loyal fans apprised of your every move lest an online revolt breaks out.
District Taco is one of the more prolific food truck vendors on Twitter. They’re total social media pros — answering questions and retweeting customers’ feedback.
But even Twitter pros will sometimes send an errant tweet. Today, @districttaco was trying to answer a question about how someone got a t-shirt. Unfortunately, they clicked the wrong retweet button.
@districttaco He bought it, amigo!RT @washdcnews Hit-and-Run Victim Remembered as Hard-working Family Man
An apology quickly followed.
The Unusual Case of the Stolen Wig
Police are looking for a a 6’2″ transsexual who ran from a South Arlington beauty store with a pilfered wig, hopped into a car and sped off onto Columbia Pike.
Usman Minayar, manager of the Crystal Beauty store on South Edgewood Street, said the suspect tried to stealthily put the $17 ten inch honey blond wig in a purse while her friend, a local stripper, distracted him.
When Minayar saw what was going on, the suspect made a mad dash for the door. He didn’t try to stop her.
“I was a bit scared… [s]he’s a big guy… [s]he might knock me down, you know.”
The suspect was wearing a black shirt, a bandana and “booty shorts” at the time of the theft, Minayar said.
He said he’s confused by the theft because both the transsexual woman and the stripper, a biological female, have bought items at the store before.
