Or right across the river, anyway.
1. I Will Destroy You With Mangoes
I used to get a massage in this building — in fact, it’s the place where, back in 1986, I met my first professional mentor, who eventually shared her lease with Sister Age some years after I became her mentor, and they both worked on me there, only the first lady I parted brass rags with after she had canceled my appointment on account of being “too busy” one too many times, and in passing given me one too many speeches about what was wrong with my answering machine message. She was from Northern Germany, a region where (at least from my observation) fault-finding is a form of folk art. Something in the water maybe.
Anyway the neighborhood is totally Latino now and there is this mini-mart called Miguel’s, where I have clear memories of unsuccessfully trying to buy an apple and a bottle of Deer Park when it was more of a video store, but apparently it has diversified now:
Police say German Cruz-Coreas, 49, entered Miguel’s Q-Mart on the 5500 block of Columbia Pike and demanded money from a store employee.
“When the employee refused, the subject proceeded to light coffee filters on fire and announced that no one could leave the store,” according to the Arlington County Police crime report.
The man started throwing mangoes and avocados at store employees and a 16-month-old child, according to Arlington County Police spokesman Dustin Sternbeck. He tipped over the store’s shelves, destroyed merchandise, broke the store’s slushie machine, and partially melted a television with the flaming coffee filters, Sternbeck said.
“He literally destroyed the entire store,” said Sternbeck.
Store employees barricaded themselves in a room inside the store during the incident, but the store’s manager was eventually able to subdue the man and hold him to the ground until police arrived and placed him under arrest.
Other than the Arlington PIO’s inaccurate use of the term “literally” (I drove by and the place is still standing), I am charmed by this account. I know of no television that would not be better for a little melting and no 16-month-old child that would not make me want to shot-put an avocado at it. But they hauled him off to the pokey anyway.
2. The Lunatics Are Running The Asylum
Gotta love the damage in the mug shot. This badass chick thing is catching on.
The chief of the U.S. Air Force Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Branch has been charged with sexual battery.
Lt. Col. Jeffrey Krusinski, 41, of Arlington, was removed from that position Monday afternoon, Air Force spokeswoman Jennifer Cassidy told Patch.
Krusinski, who worked out of the Pentagon, was charged this weekend by the Arlington County Police Department.
At about 12:35 a.m. Sunday, a drunken Krusinski approached a woman in a parking lot in the 500 block of South 23rd Street and grabbed her breasts and buttocks, according to Arlington police.
The woman fought him off as he tried to touch her again, according to police, at which point she was able to call for help. He was arrested and held on a $5,000 unsecured bond.
Krusinski and the woman did not know each other, police spokesman Dustin Sternbeck told Patch. She was not injured, he said.
Monday afternoon, Krusinski was removed from his position leading the Air Force’s Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Branch until more information could be obtained, Cassidy said.
“The thinking was it was best not to have him in this position right now,” she said.
The Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Program “reinforces the Air Force’s commitment to eliminate incidents of sexual assault through awareness and prevention training, education, victim advocacy, response, reporting and accountability,” according to its website.
Further, “The Air Force promotes sensitive care and confidential reporting for victims of sexual assault and accountability for those who commit these crimes,” the site states.
Krusinski has served in Afghanistan and Iraq, according to Stars and Stripes.
Tuesday, the Pentagon is expected to release its annual report on sexual assault in the military, according to Wired.com.
[Credit: Arlington Patch]
) responded to my remarks about the Sandy Hook school shooting — which has been talked to death everywhere, but usually with little insight — by contributing a link to a terrific essay about this type of event. The writer shares my gut instinct about mass killings committed by bright, isolated kids like Adam Lanza: simply, as a nation we treat our bright young people so badly (or at least do so little to prevent their ill-treatment), we value them so poorly, that it would be surprising if things like this didn’t happen. Leave aside, for now, the immediate glaring issue of how easy it is to get your hands on a firearm; enough people are talking about that. When I was eleven years old and being hounded and harassed to the brink of tolerance by classmates two years older than I was — because I used “big words” and liked Brahms symphonies better than the Beatles and would rather do Yoga than play kickball — I had an ace card some kids don’t: I might have been a four-eyed geek, but I was also, in my imagination, John Henry and Brynhild and the miner in the Sixteen Tons song, and when I blew my stack, six heckling little eighth-grade bitches ended up in the nurse’s office. Ordnance wasn’t as common in 1966. But beating the shit out of people does, sometimes, at least get you respect.
