Community Corner

Weird Iowa Rewind: Cop Shop Mistaken for Strip Club, Marion Police Buy Their Own AR-15s

Plus, a doctor offers to buy rifles for Marion police, and a surprise visit to Homemakers Furniture store ended with a man having a heart attack.

The latest installment of Weird News was compiled by local editor Deb Belt. It originally ran Saturday, here's what you might have missed.

It's 2 a.m., easy to get lost, right? But to confuse the West Des Moines Police Station with a strip club – that's weird.

Police Officers Ken Brock and D.J. Frunzar were parked at the police station when a car pulled into the drive. When officers tried to talk the man driving, he drove through the cop shop parking lot, behind another building and up the private drive to the station's overhead garage doors, finally stopping when Frunzar activated his patrol car lights.

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When police asked them what they were doing, the man and passenger Alexandria Siddens said they were looking for Beach Girls strip club, located about four miles away. During a search of Siddens' purse officers found morphine and a painkillers. She was charged with illegal possession of Schedule II narcotics.

Parents of student athletes are passionate, perhaps opinionated, folks, right?

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Nothing odd about that. Unless you are Iowa State University athletics director  after he criticized a call by referees this week. "That was a horrible call," he reportedly said. And then apologized for his remarks at the game on Thursday.

News that the Marion City Council decided police officers will have to reimburse the city for the cost of AR-15 rifles purchased for officers traveled across the nation. The city's police chief said people from all over the country want to donate money so officers don't have to pay for the weapons. A doctor volunteered to pay $10,000 for five years to pay off the cost so officers don't have to do so.

Police deal with some of the weirdest situations, such as a Cedar Rapids man who claimed to hold a black belt in martial arts and was accused of felony assault for allegedly placing an emergency doctor in a chokehold.

According to a University of Iowa Police Department Press release, on Jan. 21 at 4:50 p.m., Iowa City after being admitted. When stopped by a doctor from going into the lobby, Hirvela allegedly slammed the doctor into the wall and placed her in a choke hold. He then threatened to choke other doctors if called to the incident.

And this item was a scary surprise. 

in Urbandale right before last weekend's Super Bowl. The game plan was to buy a new reclining chair for him.

Shortly after entering the store David began feeling dizzy and stopped breathing. Customers and employees used an automated external defibrillator to revive him. After receiving a pacemaker, he was sent home from the hospital earlier this week.

 


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