On Fri­day, state police arrested Ker­mit Butts, 26, of Madis­on­burg, Cen­tre County, in con­nec­tion with the killing last year of Samuel Boob, 29, of Pot­ter Town­ship. Pre­vi­ously arrested and charged with first degree mur­der were Boob’s wife, Miranda, who allegedly planned the slay­ing, and Ronald Heichel of Belle­fonte, accused of shoot­ing of the vic­tim twice with a shot­gun, accord­ing to police. Butts allegedly drove Heichel, a co-​​worker, to the victim’s house, where the shoot­ing occurred, and then drove Heichel away. Butts was charged with aggra­vated assault and pro­vid­ing aid while hin­der­ing appre­hen­sion or pros­e­cu­tion. Court papers say that Miranda Boob and Heichel were lovers, accord­ing to the Cen­tre Daily Times.

Dar­ius McCol­lum loves planes trains and auto­mo­biles — just not in that order. A bur­geon­ing urban leg­end, McCol­lum has long been known for tak­ing New York trains for a spin. This week he stepped down and made off with his B team favorite, a city bus, and was arrested for the 27^th time.

McCol­lum, once cuffed, remarked: “I bet they don’t leave the keys in the igni­tion next time.”

Duly noted.

Up until now, McCollum’s been a kind of urban leg­end, leg­endary not for his mythic nature – he’s real enough – but because what he does is so bizarre. McCol­lum most often steals trains, usu­ally sans pas­sen­gers, and pilots them expertly from one sta­tion to the next or even fur­ther until the NYTA cops nail him. How­ever, this week’s arrest elicited a scary quote from McCollum’s mom, Elizabeth:

““He loves trains more than any­thing else — buses are his sec­ond choice,” she said from her North Car­olina home. “He loves planes, too, but he hasn’t been able to get on one of those yet.”

Yet?

An Ari­zona cop, on leave fol­low­ing a head injury from a motor­cy­cle acci­dent, recently had some trou­ble with his order at KFC. They were out of the chicken he wanted, and fol­lowed store pol­icy by offer­ing him an alter­na­tive and a voucher instead of a refund.

Here’s police Lt. Michael Graham’s sum­mary of what hap­pened next:

“The thing that I’m proud of: I didn’t lose my tem­per. I didn’t raise my voice. This isn’t worth it,” he says.

But if this is what not los­ing your tem­per looks like, I’ve been doing it all wrong. The manager’s version:

“He told me, ‘Look, fat a – , I don’t want to talk. Just give me my money or I’m tak­ing you to jail. Do you know who I am?’” [KFC worker] Tavi Padilla told other Williams police offi­cers via a writ­ten statement.…

“He told me that he was the police lieu­tenant and told me I had to give him his money back. I said that whether he’s the pres­i­dent of the United States or just a reg­u­lar per­son, I can’t give him his money back,” [19–year-​​old man­ager Corey] Fritsinger said.…

“He asked me how old I was and said he was going to take me to jail per­son­ally,” he said. “He said, ‘I’m putting you in the back of my car.’”

By Graham’s own account, he later referred to some lower-​​ranking offi­cers who showed up on the scene as “lazy fucks.” And records from police dis­patch have Gra­ham call­ing in with this: “I’ve got a prob­lem with the man­ager. I’m going to take him for fraud­u­lent activ­ity, so I need a car.”

To their immense credit, the Williams, Ari­zona, police depart­ment seems to have done the right thing here — sus­pend­ing the offi­cer imme­di­ately, going to his house with a war­rant to retrieve his badge and gun, con­duct­ing a dis­ci­pli­nary hear­ing promptly, and then fir­ing him.

(stolen from: http://​rea​son​.com/​b​l​o​g​/​2​0​1​0​/​0​8​/​30/cop-​​congratulates-​​self-​​on-​​rest)

GONZALES, La. –  Police arrested the sus­pected ‘Brownie Ban­dit,’ a man accused of repeat­edly break­ing into a bak­ery, steal­ing freshly baked brown­ies and leav­ing behind crumbs and bro­ken win­dows. Gon­za­les police said Jamon J. Simoneaux, 18, had a bag full of brown­ies when he was arrested Thurs­day in Jumonville’s Bakery.

Bak­ery owner Lynn Jumonville told The Advo­cate he called police after the cost of bro­ken win­dows and screens began to mount. He said the bur­glar would break in about 8:30 or 9 p.m.

Police booked Simoneaux on six counts of sim­ple bur­glary and four of sim­ple crim­i­nal dam­age to property.

Lynn and wife Pat Jumonville esti­mate that he took about 12 dozen brown­ies and about two dozen sugar cookies.

Simoneaux remained in the Ascen­sion Parish jail Sat­ur­day and it was not clear whether he had an attor­ney. Bond was set at at $90,000.

Paris Hilton arrested for drug charges? Please, this chick is freaky rich and if she wants some cocaine, she just sends her cocaine assis­tant out for it.

How­ever, we do all hope this gives her an idea for her next movie: Girl Prison!

We’re at it again, stir­ring up trou­ble and whet­ting your appetite with a 7 Best series. This time, tacos.

With one of the largest Mex­i­can pop­u­la­tions in the U.S., Chicago’s got taco stands, taco carts, taque­rias, Mex­i­can restau­rants serv­ing tacos, and all vari­eties of places to get a taco; also taco. (Taco.)

But who makes the best tacos in Chicago? Is it Taco Bur­rito King? Is it Tio Louis? Is it taco Bell? (No, it is not Taco Bell). It’s been a long time since Chicago Tacos were rated (Tri­bune, 2006) and it’s about time they’re rated again — and this time by experts (that means you guys).

Of course, being that The Beat Cop’s Guide is a rec­og­nized author­ity on street food, eth­nic cui­sine, grease, and women’s cham­pi­onship nude vol­ley­ball, we’ve got to estab­lish some ground rules for what makes for a great taco stand.

1. It’s not a chain. Usu­ally this goes with­out say­ing, but some chains in Chicago are quite regional and hard to spot. For instance, my favorite taco joint (which will remain unnamed in order to not influ­ence the con­test), is part of a small chain of taque­rias run from a cen­tral mothership-​​taqueria which beams ground meat and tor­tillas to taco pods through­out the city. (Same rea­son we couldn’t put Por­til­los in the book).
2. It’s not fancy. Look, I love Lalo’s like every­one else, but clearly they’ve got the upper hand on any small-​​time taco joint within a two mile radius. It just isn’t fair. They have mar­garita glasses you can take a bath in; they have wait­ers; they have a band. That’s upscale. We’re talk­ing about a place where you can pull over and walk in in your oil stained cov­er­alls and get a taco and not get the hairy eye­ball glare of class distinction.
3. There’re Mex­i­cans. How do you know you’re in a good Sushi bar? Japan­ese peo­ple eat there. How do you know a good taque­ria? Mex­i­cans. There are a few dis­tinc­tions about our Mex­i­can broth­ers here in Chicago that are fair to make, chiefly in the area of employ­ment. Most of the most suc­cess­ful kitchens and land­scap­ing com­pa­nies are run by Mex­i­cans.  You like the deli­cious, authen­tic French food at Cafe Touche in Edi­son Park? Thank a Mex­i­can. If you hap­pen to find a taque­ria with three yard trucks parked in front of it and no one’s pulling weeds, you can bet your bis­tek it’s serv­ing really good, really authen­tic Mex­i­cana grub.
4. They make their own.. . Salsa, queso blanca, chorizo,  and/​or tor­tillas. Yeah. Queso blanca. Wis­con­sin has got­ten us to believe cheese mak­ing is a highly pre­cise, extremely tem­per­a­ture depen­dent art that, per­formed by ama­teurs, results in bubonic plague or tourette’s syn­drom; but cheese­mak­ing is some­thing that hap­pens all over latino com­mu­ni­ties (and Greek, and Ital­ian) and the cheese they make is that deli­ciously creamy, white, queso blanca. Mak­ing cheese is easy. You can do it on your stove. And some lit­tle taque­rias do exactly that. I’m not say­ing which ones, I’m just say­ing. Same goes for chorizo, which is just really good, really spicy, oily sausage. And tor­tillas which are just made out of fresh. .. tor­tillas. And salsa, for the love of all things holy, salsa is and should be a silent com­pe­ti­tion on par with the world cup. I know places where their home­made  salsa is so fresh, so piquant, so damn deli­cious you can drink it straight (if you want to cau­ter­ize your tongue).

So let us know: Who makes the best taco in Chicago and why.

Cast your votes. Being Chicago, you can cast more than one, and being Chicago, I’ll count them any way I want. We want to find what are the 7 best Ital­ian Lemon­ade stands.  I’d like to find some on the North­west side myself, because I think we live in a Ital­ian Lemon­ade “desert” up here. If you can’t remem­ber the name, tell us the loca­tion and Chris and I will go sample.

Serrelli’s
6454 West North Avenue
(773) 745‑3888?

The num­ber 1 choice of the Beat Cop’s Guide read­ers, as well as your two hum­ble authors, is Serelli’s.

A sta­ple of Chicago’s far west side for gen­er­a­tions, Serelli’s is the typ­i­cal Ital­ian gro­cery we talked anout in our Tony’s entry. In addi­tion to being a neigh­bor gro­cery, Serelli’s also has the best beef in the city. The way I’ve always liked it best was to buy it by the pound and heat it up myself at home. It’s an instant party, even when your fel­low par­ty­ers are a wife, three lit­tle kids, and a loud dog.

Serelli’s is the per­fect blend of taste and ambiance. The beef is always cooked prop­erly, and the gravy is just right, not over­pow­er­ing or watery.

Paterno’s
5303 N Mil­wau­kee Ave
(773) 631‑5522
www​.pater​nopizza​.com

Some peo­ple might accuse the Beat Cop’s Guide of being a lit­tle biased when it comes to Paterno’s. After all, it’s a neigh­bor­hood place, Paul Paterno is a great guy, and the bar doesn’t over­charge the beer or under­pour the scotch.

What’s great about Paterno’s is that every­thing is home­made. I think this includes the gravy in the beef sand­wiches, which has a more pep­pery fla­vor than some oth­ers I’ve had.

The sand­wich is called the “Incred­i­ble” and incred­i­ble it is. The bread is always fresh, and so are the pep­pers. At Paterno’s, I get the beef a lit­tle less wet than is my usual, because the bread is so good, and I don’t want the gravy to over­power it. Although it’s a bar, many fam­i­lies go to Paterno’s and eat in the sim­ple din­ing room.