Subscribe | UPI Odd Newsletter Subscribe It was a week of overdoing it. In Independence, Mo., this week police officers over did it, pulling out their revolvers and shooting dead an alligator, or at least as croaked as a concrete croc can get. Advertisement WDAF-TV in Kansas City reported Rick Sheridan, the owner of the lawn ornament heard gunfire while working in his garage. When he went to see what was going on he found several police officers with their guns drawn. The life-like gator had actually been put in place, the owner said, to scare off trespassers because "No Trespassing" signs were not doing the trick. The police department later apologized. In Milwaukee this week, Frontier Airlines employees on a domestic flight over did it, calling in a hazmat team to examine what was later revealed to be baby powder. Somehow, the fact that the suspicious powder was found on a diaper changing station did not deter the airline staff from fearing some sinister plot was in play. There were also two babies on board, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported. No word on whether the hazmat team took care of disposing of the dirty diaper found nearby. "We contacted the Transportation Safety Administration out of an abundance of caution," said Frontier spokesman Peter Kowalchuk. Advertisement And how many movies have been made lately with a scene in which a passenger says something untoward or flashes a smartphone and then gets the stun gun treatment by some overly gung-ho air marshals suspecting a terrorist attack? The pilot of a United Airlines flight to Ghana from Washington turned the aircraft around and was escorted back to the city by two Air Force F-16 fighter jets after one passenger slapped the top of the head of another passenger who had pushed his seat into a reclining position -- taking up, so to speak, too much of his air space. The Boeing 767 at that point had too much fuel on board to land and, therefore, had to circle for 25 minutes in order to even land. Authorities agreed after the flight that no arrests were necessary, The Washington Post reported.
