DATE: Tuesday, June 17, 1997                TAG: 9706170485

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B3   EDITION: FINAL 

                                            LENGTH:   54 lines

NEWS OF THE WEIRD

Got a permit for that flashlight?

CHESAPEAKE - Sounds like something from a Dick Tracy comic strip.

Chesapeake police were warned recently to be on the lookout for a deadly flashlight. The department warned officers about a ``.22-caliber flashlight'' found recently at a Maryland murder scene. The weapon was described as a functioning flashlight that also can be used as a gun.

Stranger things have happened. ``We get alerts sometimes about guns concealed in belt buckles,'' Chesapeake police spokesman Dave Hughes said.

- Liz Szabo

Drunken driver given wake-up call on law

ISLE OF WIGHT COUNTY - File this under the heading of Dumb Drunks We Have Known.

In 1995, police found a pickup truck stopped in the middle of an intersection, its headlights and tail lights on, gearshift in first or third gear, key in ignition, but the engine not running. The driver was asleep behind the wheel. Pizza was on the front seat, beer on the floor.

The trooper woke the man and found him drunk. He failed every field sobriety test, and his blood-alcohol level was double the legal limit. A court convicted him of operating a vehicle while intoxicated.

The man appealed. Hey, he argued, how could I be operating a truck when it wasn't even running?

Nice try, but no, the state Court of Appeals ruled this month. ``The trial court correctly concluded . . . that the only way for the truck to have arrived at the intersection was for (the man) to have driven it there'' while drunk. Case dismissed.

- Marc Davis

Thieves escape with giant tub

CHESAPEAKE - Somewhere, thieves are in hot water.

Late last month, someone swiped a 520-pound hot tub from the front of a hot tub store in the 300 block of Johnstown Road. The $5,000 hot tub can hold 365 gallons, but it was empty when stolen, police say.

``Obviously they'd have to have a pick-up truck or something to haul it away,'' Chesapeake police spokesman Dave Hughes said. ``They could have never picked it up by themselves.''

- Liz Szabo

Va. Power listed as accident victim

NORFOLK - Does the power company carry a deductible?

A suspect recently fled from police in a stolen car, then crashed into a Virginia Power pole at East 25th and Gazel streets. The suspect got away but left the stolen, crunched-up car with $4,000 worth of damage. A police report listed the victim of the crash as . . . Virginia Power.

Damage to utility pole: $50.

- Cindy Clayton

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