Taxi Driver Shoots Man in Bin Laden Mask

[indigobusiness]

Taxi Driver Shoots Man in Bin Laden Mask

Tue Dec 14, 3:03 PM ET


SAN JOSE, Costa Rica - Osama bin Laden (news - web sites) take note: You wouldn't be safe in Costa Rica. A startled taxi driver shot and wounded a jokester wearing a plastic mask of the al-Qaida leader, police said Tuesday.

Leonel Arias, 47, told police he was playing a practical joke by donning the Bin Laden mask, toting his pellet rifle and jumping out to scare drivers on a narrow street in his hometown, Carrizal de Alajuela, about 20 miles north of San Jose.

Arias had startled several drivers that way on Monday afternoon. But when he jumped out in front of taxi driver Juan Pablo Sandoval, the motorist reached for a gun and shot him twice in the stomach. He was hospitalized in stable condition.

"For me and I think for anybody else at a time like that one thinks the worst and so I fired my gun," Sandoval told Channel 7 television.

Police declined to detain Sandoval, saying he had believed he was acting in self-defense.




http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=817&u=/ap/20041214/ap_on_fe_st/costa_rica_bin_laden_mask_1&printer=1

[arcos]

1. wow, I just posted the same on LBN...

hehehehe

[indigobusiness]

3. It needed to be in the lounge, too.

I figured I wouldn't be first, but I didn't see it elsewhere.

[indigobusiness]

8. Hey, I was first.

By one minute.

My most distinguished victory of the day. Maybe for the week.

[arcos]

9. congrats!

I thought I was going to be first because I didn't see it either.

Do I smell fraud? ;)

[Rowdyboy]

2. We're looking a a future Darwin Award winner.....

I'm sure this fool won't survive much longer...

[indigobusiness]

4. Gutshot in San Jose....not pretty.

Well, ok...Alajuela to be exact. That's out by the airport. Lots of weirdness goes down out there.

[nine23]

5. I thought stuff like this...

only happened in backwards, gun-crazed third-world places full of ignorant, uninformed dickheads who carry concealed weapons and violently act out on a whim...places like Texas.

[indigobusiness]

7. I've lived in both places, have you?

More gun toters in Costa Rica than Texas, proportionately.

More dickheads wherever the hell you are.

[nine23]

10. I've spent time in both, esp. Costa Rica

I prefer Costa Rica. At least the taxi driver thought he "saw Bin Laden", unlike immediately post-9.11 where any brown-skinned convenience store owner was fair game in Texas.

[indigobusiness]

13. Nobody really thinks someone in a Bin Laden mask is actually Bin Laden...

except maybe Frenchmen that hate Texans.

[nine23]

15. I don't hate Texans, and I'm not French

Nice try on the French thing though, kind of a "shootin' from the hip" type of answer a certain segment of the US population likes to use ad nauseum...

None of it changes the fact that I feel much safer in Costa Rica, have never noticed an overt violence problem, and I'd consider retiring there. Unlike Texas, we're I've had my car keyed simply for having Canadian license plates.

[indigobusiness]

16. It was a joke, to see if you had a sense of humor.

Bad things happen to everybody, everywhere. Texas has its assholes, and they can be real big ones, but so does everywhere else.

Stereotyping, in all forms, is bigotry.

[indigobusiness]

17. Actually, I'm honor bound to take you on after what you said.

But I am sympathetic to your pov. It's just too bad you never experienced the better side of Texas.

Violence in Costa Rica is a reality, but very much different. Never let your guard down there, or you will wind up a statistic. Less so outside of the Central Meseta. Stay out of Limon and Puntarenas.

[arcos]

11. I saw an investigation on TV last Monday, about guns here...

And I honestly didn't think it was that way... I don't know one single person who owns a gun here, but yet stats say there are quite a few!

[indigobusiness]

14. Owning is not the same

as packing.


on edit- Oh, I see you're in San Jose. I thought you said that about Texas. Yeah, man. You'd be surprised how man Saturday Night Specials
are tucked into boots and bras down there.

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

6. This probable Darwin Award nominee had a friggin' PELLET RIFLE!

Oh, but it was because of the mask, all right. :eyes:

[arcos]

12. The mask is what makes it actually funny...

if it had been a local "celebrity", it wouldn't make the news outside of the country, but a worldwide known figure will :P