Alligator found at NJ motel was there to film music video: police

Published August 30, 2017

A 3-foot-long alligator found at an Atlantic City, New Jersey, hotel earlier this month was part of a rap video filmed there, according to authorities.  (REUTERS/Jorge Adorno, File)

It's not quite "Crocodile Rock." 

A 3-foot-long alligator that stumped police after being found at a hotel in Atlantic City, New Jersey, earlier this month was actually part of a rap video filmed there, investigators now say. 

The reptile was discovered Aug. 15 during a raid at the Bayview Inn & Suites.

Police had been looking for an Egg Harbor Township man wanted for a drug-induced death and other offenses, NJ.com reported. 

Stolen items found during the raid led to the Tuesday arrest of 25-year-old Bashawn Whitted-Scott, of Atlantic City, and 31-year-old Sean Temple, of Mays Landing, who were both part of the rap video, the Press of Atlantic Cityreported.

Whitted-Scott and Temple robbed homes in two nearby towns in the days before the alligator was found, authorities said.

The two men are facing multiple charges -- unrelated to the music video.

Animal control workers safely lifted the alligator from the hotel pool and it's now at a zoo in Cape May County. Officials have said they plan to move it to a reserve in Florida.

Someone broke into his home, ignored the electronics and stole Legos — $7,000 worth

BY GREG HADLEY

GHADLEY@MCCLATCHY.COM

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“Help! My entire LEGO collection was stolen!”

It may sound a little silly, but for Michigan man, it’s anything but, as a thief managed to take thousands of Lego pieces — and only Lego pieces — from his home, likely while his family slept upstairs.

Brian Richards, of Grandville, Michigan, has been collecting Legos since he was 5 years old, he told WXMI. Over time, he kept accumulating the little plastic figurines and bricks, so much so that they dominated an entire room in his basement. He, his wife and their children played with them together, according to Inside The Magic.

At some point this week, however, almost his entire collection, which he values at $7,000, vanished. On his personal website, Richards said he believed they were taken sometime between midnight and 9 a.m. on Monday. In a post on his site, Richards says the thief bypassed television monitors, microphones and woodworking tools and just took Legos.

As to why someone would want his Legos so badly, Richards told WXMI that he believes the thief knew about his collection beforehand and either wanted to add to his or her own collection or sell off the sets. He told Inside The Magic that he is keeping an eye on eBay and other sites to see if any of his sets pop up for sale.

Grandville police confirmed to WXMI that they are investigating the robbery. In the meantime, Richards told the station that he is installing security cameras, changing locks — and trying to stay positive.

“The first (silver lining) is we get to relive some of these memories,” Richards said. “But the other is the fact that they left all the instruction booklets so that we can find all of them again.”

That’s right. The thief or thieves forgot to take a cardboard box with the instructions for every set. Richards says that will hurt their ability to sell the sets to collectors.

While Richards’s loss of Legos was very personal to him, he’s far from the worst victim of Lego theft. In 2012, a Florida master shoplifter, Ignatius M. Pollard, was charged with stealing and re-selling Legos. Authorities claim he made $2 million from the scheme.

In May, a man in Sydney, Australia, nabbed $8,500 worth of Legos from a toy store, and in 2015, Portland, Oregon, police arrested a man in an undercover sting after he tried to sell them stolen Legos. The toys are such popular items for thieves that Vice ran an article in 2016 explaining “Why Stealing Legos May Be the Perfect Crime.”

“Legos are a hot item due to their popularity and relative cost from retail markets,” a police officer was quoted as saying in the story. “Virtually untraceable — no serial numbers — and easily sold.”

An NCAA football team lost 98-0 in its season opener on Saturday.

Streeter Lecka/Getty Images

Brian Stultz

 @brianjstultz

Posted 5 days ago

How do you solve a problem like St. John’s football?

That is exactly what St. Scholastica and its assistant coach, Sister Lisa Maurer, is asking after getting knocked around by the Johnnies to a score of 98-0.

The score could have been a lot worse, though, as the Johnnies stopped trying to score with 10 minutes left.