Local story that wasn't reported...Why?

[CoffeeCat]

A friend called the other day and said she was totally mystified by a story her cousin had
just told her.

Her cousin was driving along I-80 in a convertible, when a car began tailgating him. The car
was driving so dangerously, that the cousin called a friend and gave him the license plate of
the person driving the car. The car then got along side the cousin and threw a hand grenade
into the convertible. It landed in the backseat. The cousin pulled over, got out of the
car, and the grenade went off--totally destroying the car and setting it on fire.

My friend has given me updates about his cousin, and I know this story is true.

I have never seen a mention of this in our local media and I find that bizarre. Obviously, the police
probably caught the person who lobbed the grenade into an open convertible, because the cousin gave
the license plate number to a friend.

No mention of arrests. I think this is a significant story, that someone would lob a hand grenade
into a car on I-08.

Anyone have any insight into why something like this went uncovered by local or national media?

[AuntPatsy]

1. I agree. this is surely news worthy, amazing what we are forced to believe

is newsworthy these days..incredible that such is not being discussed by your local or even our national media

[2KS2KHonda]

2. Hand grenades have fuses from 2 to 5 seconds. Your story doesn't hold water.

Sorry.
edit
It started out on I-80 and switched to I-08. Why do people post this kind of horseshit?

[Kutjara]

4. I was about to say the same thing.

Average fuse time of 4 seconds, 5-10 meter blast radius. So 4 seconds from the time the grenade was released by the thrower to stop a car, get out and get more than 5 meters clear? Unlikely.

[CoffeeCat]

5. You obviously know more about hand grenades..

...than I do.

All I know, is what I was told.

It for sure was a hand grenade, and the police on the scene told the driver
of the car that it was a "military-issued" hand grenade.

I am simply wondering why this went unreported.

It did happen. This person is without a car, because it blew up! I'm hearing
follow-up stories about insurance replacement, etc.

[Codeine]

14. How would the cop know

what kind of grenade it was if it had already exploded? Coulda been a friggin pipe bomb for all he knew.

I gotta call bullshit on this one.

[CoffeeCat]

18. I don't know...

I just know what I was told.

[LisaL]

19. Ask your friend for a police report number.

[EFerrari]

29. The poster was asking a question and a good one.

I'm glad there were helpful responses on this thread that pointed her in the right direction.

[Lex]

3. Perfect urban legend material.

It almost always starts with "a cousin of a friend". Or "a friend of a friend".

[nadinbrzezinski]

7. BINGO!!!!!!!!!

[Orrex]

8. My cousin's friend once heard an urban legend

:evilgrin:

[CoffeeCat]

12. I am not making this up though...

I have known this friend for several years. She's very reliable. She's having continued,
direct conversations with her cousin.

I'm sorry if this sounds made up, but it's not!

I hear you about the timing of the explosion. I don't have an explanation for that.
I just know what I was told.

I'm certainly not making this up out of whole cloth.

My friend wouldn't lie.

Now you've got me curious...I'm going to ask her about this tomorrow.

[LisaL]

17. Could your friend be pulling your leg?

[CoffeeCat]

20. No, my friend...

...is totally legit.

I'm wondering now if her cousin isn't completely bonkers.

People are pointing out valid problems with this story.

I'm going to ask my friend about this tomorrow.

[LisaL]

Is the cousin asking her for money on car repairs, for any chance?

[CoffeeCat]

26. No...

I'm not aware of that happening at all.

The car was expensive...50k. From the little I've been told, insurance
is covering everything.

The car was brand new and had been purchased less than a week before this happened.

Who knows.

I'll ask her about it tomorrow. Hopefully she'll say, "Oh yeah, he was mistaken
about the hand grenade. Apparently, it was a broken radiator."

I don't know. I'm just as mystified as the rest of you.

[Orrex]

6. I-80 is a mighty long road. Care to narrow that down?

And, how do you "know this story is true?"

Also, as was noted above, grenade fuses are too quick to allow someone to pull over, exit a vehicle, and get to safety before the grenade exploded.

I have no reason to doubt your honesty, but I suspect that the story that you were given is a fabrication in whole or in part.

[LisaL]

9. It either I-80 or I-08.

Which one is it? What state did it happen in?

[Orrex]

13. Nice--I didn't catch that

Maybe it wasn't a grenade at all! Maybe it was an M-80. Or an M-08.

:shrug:

[NeedleCast]

10. Can't Be True

A hand gernade has a short fuse. There is no way anyone in a car driving at freeway speeds would have time to pull over and get out of a car before it went off.

[dysfunctional press]

39. you obviously haven't seen 'diehard 2'...

but I have. :evilgrin:

[Naturyl]

11. Sorry, but it's not even remotely believable.

There isn't a speck, molecule, or atom of believability in it.

No offense and I'm sure you're a fine person, but this doesn't wash. Maybe you're doing it for a reason?

[CoffeeCat]

16. Good God!!!

I am not making this up!

This is what my friend told me happened.

Maybe I can be accused of being naieve, but I'm not a liar.

I'm simply reiterating what was told to me.

This happened about a month ago.

So lovely to be called a liar!

[Orrex]

22. No one's necessarily calling you a liar

But a number of us suspect that either your friend lied to you.

[CoffeeCat]

25. Well, I know you don't know me...

...or my friend--but I've known her for decades.

She's not a liar. We talk daily. It's not possible that
she would make this up.

We are boring, stay-at-home moms from the suburbs, who are in the same book club.

I'm guessing--if this story is indeed untrue--that the cousin is the culprit. I don't
know her cousin. Never met him.

Obviously something is amiss, if it's true about hand grenades going off in 4-5 seconds.

I feel like a complete idiot right now for believing the story.

[Orrex]

28. Well, look at it this way

Since you've known your friend for decades, you have decades of trust between you. It seems likely that, as you speculate, the cousin is the liar in this case. For whatever reason, your friend chose to believe his story and relate it to you in good faith. Based on your trust, it was reasonable for you to accept her account of it without scrutinizing the story as you might have if you'd overheard it at a bus stop or something.

So your error (if you will), is in trusting your friend who probably didn't knowingly deceive you in any case. That's not such a bad thing IMO.

Don't feel like an idiot, complete or otherwise; we've all bought into stories that, upon later reflection, make no sense.

:hug:

[CoffeeCat]

32. Hey thanks....

I'm more curious now, than anything.

I haven't spoken to my friend about this in a while. I kinda forgot
about the story, until I thought about it tonight. It will be interesting
to hear what she has to say.

Thanks for your kind words.

[nadinbrzezinski]

33. Let me reach for the hat of the emergency responder

you know nothing about hand grenades... good news most cops don't either.

Bad news, it is easy to get confused when you get an explosion, especially if this is your beat cop who's never served in the military and has no clue how this works

Now here are somethings that could have made the car go boom... and are not quite a hand grenade

1.- Your every so popular pipe bomb... once they go off, the people who will tell them apart from a bona fide hand grenade are your local SWAT guys, to be specific the explosives expert. If your police department does not have a demolitions expert then the hand grenade will remain, even when it is not. Trust me. seen this... HAND GRENADE... two months later... it was just a pipe bomb... and yes you can pack enough explosive power into one of those puppies to do that... and if you pack enough other stuff... you get metal shards too... oh and pipe bombs don't have a regular 3-5 second fuse all the time... so your friend may have had time. Or rather had time, since we are dealing with all the paperwork and not a funeral.

2.- Even if the cops know this is not a hand grenade, must people who have never had contact with milgrade gear will call this a hand grenade, innocent mistake... hey, the first time I saw the particular pattern of an AK, and chiefly heard it... I ducked, training mostly, but I did NOT know what I was getting shot at with... Not until the debrief. That said next time around... yep it is that distinctive.

3.- Somebody is pulling somebody's leg... yes you should consider that possibility.

4.- You are not lying... and without some more info, like where on I-80 and a police report number... this has a little air of WTF? But only because I have had the honor of actually seeing milgrade gear in real life. That said I will not say you are lying... and as you said. you have no way in your life experience to put all these caveats into the story... some of us... unfortunately, do. You know what? Consider yourself lucky. Trust me, with the knowledge come at times bad dreams.

[CoffeeCat]

35. Wow...

I'm learning so much tonight!

I thought this would spark discussion about why some stories are reported, and why
some information is kept from us.

Instead, many people practically debunked the story--and now I know more about hand
grenades than I ever dreamed of knowing!

I hear what everyone is saying--and obviously there is some kind of miscommunication--either
with the police officer at the scene or with the cousin.

I can't wait to mention this to my friend tomorrow, because now I'm curious!

This happened in Des Moines, Iowa--on I-80. My friend told me this story about a month ago.

[Orrex]

36. nadinbrzezinski made all of that stuff up

She's a total freak for Metal Gear Solid, and sometimes it spills over into everyday conversation. What can you do? :shrug:



(:evilgrin: I kid the poster who obviously knows a lot more about the subject than I do)

[nadinbrzezinski]

37. Well metal gear solid ROCKS you know

:evilgrin:

[nadinbrzezinski]

38. As to why news is not reported

As I posted bellow... EMS and police really don't have time to do that.. and most cases that would be worthy of a press release... again we are too busy writing my damn ems report or police report. At times we have to clean a damn ambulance \ police car too

So the end result is that many stories that are worth of at least a line in the paper remain in your usual collection of reports at your local police, hospital, fire department station, what have you.

It is purely logistics

And when the pressers show up... everybody quickly learns to watch Ps and Qs.. and to politely direct them to the Public Information Officer, or the designated POI for the shift.

[NeedleCast]

23. Not Calling you a liar, but

it wasn't a hand gernade. At best, a gernade has about a five second fuse. If someone had the corrdination to pull the pin and fling it from a vehicle moving at freeway speed into another vehicle that would have taken at least 1.5 to 2 seconds. To slow down from an average freeway speed of, say 65 MPH takes several seconds, even locking up your brakes. By the time the car had decelerated enough for the drive to jump out while the car was still moving the gernade would have gone off and your "friend" would have been kibble.

It's possible it was a molitov cocktail or some other explosive, but it was not a hand gernade, or this story would include a funeral.

[CoffeeCat]

34. That makes total sense...

I believe the car blew up, because I heard about the insurance and how the
car was totaled.

However, it's highly likely that someone threw something in the car--as you said--like some
other kind of explosive.

[Naturyl]

24. I'm not calling you one.

How could I be calling YOU a liar if the story originates with your friend?

Your friend told you a story which is not even remotely believable. How would that make you a liar?

[CoffeeCat]

30. You said this in your previous message...

"No offense and I'm sure you're a fine person, but this doesn't wash. Maybe you're doing it for a reason?"

I took that as you suggesting that I was making this up.

When you said, "Maybe you're doing this for a reason?"? thought you were implying that I was making things
up for some reason.

My apologies if that's not what you meant.

[Naturyl]

31. I meant maybe you were telling us the story for a reason.

Sorry for any possible offense. In light of what you've said since, it seems to me that your friend's cousin is the one who needs to be asked why they are telling your friend such an outlandish tale.

[Cleita]

15. If no one tells the local news, it won't get reported.

The police often don't notify media. It's usually reporters and people like that who look for stories. They may have police scanners and such but not everything makes it on the news. If you witnessed something like this and think it deserves media attention, call your local news station or newspaper.

[nadinbrzezinski]

27. And that is another bingo....

Ah the many stories that I know off that happened while I worked in EMS... that never, EVER made it to the local paper. Oh and yes, they were news worthy... too, but hey my job was to take care of the patients, not call the media... until they saddled me with the POI job for a while

Oh and on that one, we still didn't call... no time mostly

[Lex]

21. What police dept. would've taken the report? Those reports are public info.

It would be easy to call the specific police department and confirm the story. Usually there is a liaison officer for the public and media about confirmation of reports and that sort of thing. One can even order a copy of the police report.

[RaleighNCDUer]

40. Alternate scenario -

Person has an expensive car and can't make the payments. Person finds a lonely stretch of road, parks, lights off a pipe bomb

and when the cop shows up to investigate the burning car, says "some crazy guy just threw a grenade in my car - I was just driving along and 'boom' - barely got out before it went off"

anc collects the insurance.

[watrwefitinfor]

41. How do you get

a license number when the other car is tailgating YOU?

Even if the tailgating vehicle had a tag in front, how could anyone read the number in reverse, at freeway speeds, with the other car right on the bumper?

And all this while using a cell phone?

OR maybe I'm missing something here.

Wat

[uppityperson]

42. nothing on snopes, so submitted to them, just in case. Glad friend is ok, though

story sounds odd.