Watercooler Stories

Company sells bullet-resistant formal wear

DENVER, March 7 (UPI) -- A Denver company is selling formal and business clothing with bullet-resistant panels for those who want to be protected in style.

Elite Sterling Security LLC said it is the sole U.S. distributor for the Miguel Caballero line of ballistic apparel, which is manufactured in Bogota, The Denver Post reported Thursday.

A.J. Zabadne, who founded Elite Sterling Security in August 2012, said he chose Denver due to increased security awareness from the Aurora theater shooting. He said sales of children's backpacks with ballistic panel inserts surged following the December massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn.

He said the other products being offered on the company's website and through sales reps include shirts, jackets, tuxedos and gowns with bullet-resistant panels inserted.

The company said the material used to make the panels is more effective than Kevlar.

"If you get shot wearing Kevlar, you'll fall down with a broken rib and feel like you want to vomit, but you will live," said Timothy Hogan, chief operating officer of Elite Sterling Security. "With ours, it feels like you've been hit with a water balloon."

Robert Swift's old mansion trashed

SAMMAMISH, Wash., March 7 (UPI) -- The couple who bought the foreclosed Washington state home formerly owned by ex-Seattle Sonics player Robert Swift say it was trashed when they got inside.

Jessica and Eric Ko-Dalzell said they purchased the Sammamish mansion Swift lost to foreclosure last year and the 27-year-old former NBA big man and some others finally vacated the home last weekend, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer reported Thursday.

"The first thing you get when you walk in the door is kind of whiff of whatever is festering in here," Jessica Ko-Dalzell said.

The couple said there was smashed glass in the fireplace, an El Camino with no engine in the driveway, animal feces on the deck, walls with holes on different levels of the house and trash piled on the kitchen floor.

The Dalzells said the basement was apparently used as a makeshift shooting range, with bullet marks on load-bearing arms, the online newspaper said. They said a handgun was found in the home.

Stolen front end-loader crashes into diner

WESTVILLE, N.J., March 7 (UPI) -- Authorities in New Jersey said they were searching for a man who stole a front-end loader and crashed it into the side of a diner.

Westville police said the suspect stole the front-end loader from a South State construction site and drove it down Route 130 shortly before midnight Wednesday, and crashed into the Piston Diner, the South Jersey (N.J.) Times reported Thursday.

Security cameras from Sunoco Logistics across the street from the diner recorded the crash and documented the suspect fleeing in a silver vehicle that pulled up to the diner around the same time as the stolen loader.

Police said they were analyzing two mini liquor bottles left behind in the front-end loader for fingerprints.

"This was pre-planned. He had a ride" ready to take him from the scene, Westville Police Chief Fred Lederer.

Vultures overrun N.J. neighborhood

BRIDGEWATER, N.J., March 7 (UPI) -- A U.S. wildlife official in New Jersey said vulture carcasses are being hung in a neighborhood to try to get rid of the 100 vultures roosting in the vicinity.

Residents of the Martinsville section of Bridgewater said more than 100 vultures have been roosting in trees and gathering on roofs in a 3- to 4-block area of the section since January, The (Newark, N.J.) Star-Ledger reported Thursday.

Nicole Rein, a wildlife biologist at the U.S. Department of Agriculture Wildlife Services office near Atlantic City, said the vultures may have been ejected from their old homes by Hurricane Sandy.

"Vultures like pine trees and evergreen trees because they still have the needles that offer protection from the elements," Rein said. "They typically nest later in the season but they don't build nests in trees, rather on the ground an in caves or abandoned barns."

She said the most effective way to get rid of the bird is to hang carcasses in effigy.

"The vulture effigy is a visual deterrent to the birds for that season but they may come back in future seasons," Rein said.

She said the effigies can be hung with federal and state permit, which she said the agency can arrange for the price of $400 to $500 per carcass.

Rein said residents have agreed to pay the fee and she will be hanging effigies in Martinsville Monday.