Climate Activists Get Busy and Gangsters Get Explosive in June’s Strange News
This month in security-adjacent news of weirdness brought mistaken planes, a backflip, and a really big kaboom among other stories.
But first, our standard disclaimer: Though these stories are presented with a lighter touch, security is serious and usually has victims, to whom we intend no disrespect.
Activists Spray Paint Wrong Plane: Two climate activists broke into private area of the Stansted Airport outside of London because they thought Taylor Swift’s plane was there. They used fire extinguishers to spray orange paint on two small jets, neither of which were in the employ of Swift. In fact, Essex Police said Swift’s jet was not at the airport.
At Least These Protesters Got the Right Place: Climate activists were busy in June. Two more threw paint on Stonehenge, the large stones placed in a British field centuries ago, just before the site’s biggest day of the year: the Summer Solstice. Just as with the bungled jet protest, the protestors sat and calmly waited for police to arrest them.
The Taekwondo Family Thwarts Sexual Assaulter: A family of five blackbelts was in their Houston, Texas-area taekwondo school when they heard a scream from next door. They found the woman who had screamed and a man on top of her touching her inappropriately, and used their skills to subdue the attacker.
This Sports Disruption Featured a Backflip and a Taser: Generally speaking, it’s a bad idea to call attention to a dimwit who runs out onto the field during a sporting event—they don’t show them on broadcasts anymore so the person does not get the publicity. So, forgive us, please, as we link to this phone-shot video of a man disrupting a Major League Baseball game. Just as security reaches the guy, he does a backflip, surprising everybody. The security officer gets the last laugh, however, by subduing the pitch invader with a Taser.
How Much Explosive Is Too Much? Well, it was certainly too much in this case—that’s what a gang of men trying to rob a cash van in South Africa discovered. An eyewitness account: “The bang was massive and when the dust settled the truck wasn’t there anymore, but it was in two bits and the sky was full of bank notes raining down.” Oops.
We also ran across these strange, security-adjacent stories in the past month:
Watch bungling drug dealer jump into river in bid to escape police
Family sues butcher who slaughtered pet pigs when he went to wrong house
Russia link suspected in Eiffel Tower coffin mystery
Alligator flees middle school petting zoo, is found at school door 11 days later
