Tuesday, October 26, 2010 Beware the Naked African Guy with a Colicy Baby!

Here's a real WTF story from news.com.au:
11 jump from window fearing 'devil'

From correspondents in Paris
October 24, 2010 4:13AM


ELEVEN people were injured when they jumped out of a second-storey window near Paris early on Saturday, thinking a naked man tending his crying baby in the night was the devil, the local prosecutor said.

"Thirteen people were in an apartment on the second floor when, around 3am, one of the occupants heard his child crying," the deputy prosecutor in Versailles, Odile Faivre, said.

"The man in question of African origin, who was completely naked, got up to feed his child, at which point the other occupants took him for the devil," Ms Faivre said.

"He was seriously wounded in the hand after being stabbed with a knife before he was thrown out of the apartment, via the door."

The naked man then tried to get back into the flat in the town of La Verriere west of Paris, population 6000.

"That's when the other occupants tried to escape by jumping out of the window, panicked by a fear of the devil," Ms Faivre said.

Police have questioned the would-be devil, aged 30, and another man who jumped from the window with a two-year-old girl in his arms.

Seven of those injured were taken to hospital for emergency treatment.

Investigators are trying to clarify a number of issues surrounding the case, including whether everyone jumped voluntarily or if some were forced to do so, Ms Faivre said.
I'm pretty sure these people weren't trying to get away from the actual Devil, but from watching the M. Night Shyamalan movie of the same name. Which would explain why they wouldn't take the elevator down.

Seriously, though, what the hell is the thought process here? You're sharing an apartment with a dozen other folks. Someone starts walking around in the middle of the night. And you go straight past the logical conclusion that one of your flatmates has to take a leak to the assumption that a major mythological figure has appeared to kill you all. I mean, I've shared sleeping quarters with a large number of people on several occasions, and not once did I mistake someone staggering about in the dark to see if there's any more pizza left on the coffee table for a sudden manifestation of Belial, Bringer of Hellfire.

UPDATE: I hear via rpg.net that French-language sources have followed up on the story. It appears to have been a domestic dispute, in which the naked man was tossed out the window only after he went on a bit of a knife-wielding tantrum. The only person involved pushing the devil story is the gentleman in question. So there.

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