Brickbats: August/September 2026

Police in Davie, Florida, arrested Demarquize Dawson under a state law criminalizing the concealment of license plate information because the frame on his rental car covered the first S in Sunshine State. Dawson spent a night in jail and suffered a panic attack. In April 2026, state lawmakers passed a new law clarifying that only the plate number and registration sticker must be uncovered.

The Russian government caused a major disruption to the country’s online financial services while attempting to tighten internet censorship. In an effort to stop citizens from using VPNs, the government’s filtering systems accidentally interfered with encrypted data used by financial institutions, causing widespread glitches in banking apps and online payment services. The technical failures were reportedly so severe that cash became the only reliable means of payment for goods in many areas, including the Moscow Metro.

A Miami-Dade County sheriff’s deputy threatened to arrest a reporter for asking Mayor Daniella Levine Cava a question at an event in a public park. Jeff Weinsier of WPLG Local 10 News tried to ask the mayor about a series of electric buses, costing taxpayers more than $80 million, that kept breaking down and were taken out of service. But Deputy Lester Aguilar stepped in and pushed him, saying if Weinsier didn’t back off, “You will go to jail.”

Alecia Lindsay froze to death in Anchorage after a 911 dispatcher failed to send help for over an hour. When a witness called to report Lindsay behaving erratically, as in speaking incoherently and lying in the snow, the operator said help was on the way but logged it as a disturbance, not a medical emergency. When the witness called back over an hour later, the dispatcher sent police, not paramedics. The responding officer was the first one to alert emergency medical services. Lindsay died of hypothermia shortly after arriving at the hospital.

Masked thieves burglarized an Australian couple, stealing valuables and driving off with their car. The couple said police did not respond to the incident for over a month, though they did receive a 6,258 Australian dollar ($4,500) fine because a traffic camera recorded someone driving their stolen car without wearing a seat belt.

A Minnesota court found Anthony Israelson guilty of two misdemeanors for driving a school bus drunk. In 2024, a bar patron called police to say Israelson had been drinking heavily the night before work. When police went to his house in the morning, he said he was not working that day, but when officers checked his route, they found him driving erratically, with more than a dozen children between kindergarten and 10th grade on board. He registered a blood alcohol level of 0.161, more than four times the limit for commercial drivers. Israelson received 364 days in prison, with all but one day suspended, plus home monitoring and two years of probation.

A sheriff’s deputy in Palm Beach County, Florida, issued a $116 citation to a woman for using a cellphone while driving. He said he saw her holding the phone in her right hand—though as she pointed out in a video of the stop posted to TikTok, she does not have a right hand.

In Watauga, Texas, a 911 dispatcher was formally reprimanded after making an inappropriate remark during an emergency call. A mother called for help because her daughters were fighting and one had kicked a hole in the door. “OK,” the dispatcher replied. “Do you want us to come over to shoot her?” He later apologized, saying the comment was wrong and meant as a joke.