From the South Bend Tribune
June 07. 2007 6:59AM
Semi-truck takes man and wheelchair for a ride down Red Arrow Highway 
Tribune Staff Report
PAW PAW, Mich. -- A 21-year-old man was taken on a wild ride Wednesday afternoon when the wheelchair he was in became attached to the grille of a semi-truck and was taken four miles down a highway at about 50 mph.
The man, whose name police did not release, was not injured. The driver was unaware he was pushing the man, according to a news release from the Michigan State Police.
Authorities began receiving calls about 4 p.m. that the semi was traveling westbound on Red Arrow Highway, just outside of Paw Paw, with the wheelchair.
"You are not going to believe this, (but) there is a semi pushing a guy in a wheelchair on Red Arrow Highway," an unknown caller told the Michigan State Police.
Police at first believed the calls were pranks. But when troopers responded to the Ralph Moyle Trucking Co. at 39269 Red Arrow Highway where the semi had come to a stop, they noticed the wheelchair with the man sitting in it, still attached.
"It was quite a ride," the man reportedly told police.
"The man spilled his soda pop, but he wasn't upset," Sgt. Kathy Morton of the Michigan State Police said.
Police said the man was unharmed and unfazed by the incident.
The driver was in disbelief when he stepped out of the semi and saw what he had picked up along the way, police said.
"When he saw us, he was like, 'What's going on?'" Morton said.
An investigation revealed the driver had pulled out of a local gas station when the man in the wheelchair pulled in front of the semi, according to police. His wheelchair somehow became lodged by its handles to the front grille.
"Thank God the semi didn't go on (Interstate) 94," Morton said.
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Woman Arrested for Making Faces at Dog
Jun 7, 7:34 AM (ET)
CHELSEA, Vt. (AP) - A prosecutor has dropped charges against a woman who was arrested for staring at and making faces at a police dog.
"Prosecuting a woman for 'staring' at a police dog is absurd," said her lawyer. "People are allowed to make faces at police dogs and officers to express their disapproval. It's constitutional expression," said public defender Kelly Green, who represented Jayna Hutchinson.
Hutchinson, 33, of Lebanon, N.H., was charged with cruelty to a police animal and resisting arrest after a July 31 incident in West Fairlee in which police were called to a market to investigate a report of a brawl. They were approached by Hutchinson, who told one officer she had been assaulted the day before by one of the men involved.
She asked Vermont State Police Sgt. Todd Protzman to take her statement but he refused, telling her she smelled like alcohol and was drunk but that he would take her statement at another time.
After a heated exchange, she approached Protzman's cruiser, where his dog Max was waiting, putting her face within inches of the window and "staring at him in a taunting/harassing manner," Protzman wrote in an affidavit.
"While the defendant taunted my canine, Max was focused on the defendant and the perceived threat she presented to him," the affidavit said. "He was no longer focused on me and the other officers at the scene."
Officers arrested Hutchinson, adding the resisting arrest charge because she pulled her arms and upper body away during the arrest. She registered 0.21 percent blood-alcohol content on a breath test, more than twice the legal limit for drivers in Vermont.
On Tuesday, two days before Hutchinson was to go to trial, Orange County State's Attorney Will Porter decided to drop the charges, after viewing a videotape of the incident over the weekend.
"I think it was going to be difficult to prove her conduct changed the dog's behavior," Porter said. "Most of the time (in harassment cases) people would come tell the court what it felt like. Dogs can't do that."
Without the cruelty charge, jurors would be unlikely to convict her on the resisting arrest, Porter said.
