Strange story of the day-only in Detroit

[faba]

Boy, 12, Sticks Gum on $1.5M Painting

By Associated Press

document.write(getElapsed("20060301T004040Z"));Tue Feb 28, 7:40 PMUPDATED 13 HOURS 28 MINUTES AGO

DETROIT - A 12-year-old visitor to the Detroit Institute of Arts stuck a wad of gum to a $1.5 million painting, leaving a stain the size of a quarter, officials say.

The boy was part of a school group from Holly that visited the museum on Friday, officials say. They say he took a piece of Wrigley's Extra Polar Ice gum out of his mouth and stuck it on Helen Frankenthaler's "The Bay," an abstract painting from 1963.

The museum acquired the work in 1965 and says it is worth about $1.5 million.

The gum stuck to the painting's lower left corner and did not adhere to the fiber of the canvas, officials told the Detroit Free Press. But it left a chemical residue about the size of a quarter, said Becky Hart, assistant curator of contemporary art.

The museum's conservation department is researching the chemicals in the gum to decide which solvent to use to clean it. The museum hopes to make the repair in two weeks and will keep "The Bay" on display in the meantime, she said.

"Our expectation is that the painting is going to be fine," Hart said.

Holly Academy director Julie Kildee said the boy had been suspended from the charter school and says his parents also have disciplined him.

"Even though we give very strict guidelines on proper behavior and we hold students to high standards, he is only 12 and I don't think he understood the ramifications of what he did before it happened, but he certainly understands the severity of it now," said Kildee.

[Verde]

What do you think his parents did when they got that phone call? LOL

OY!

[stormshadow19]

Holly (the city where the kid is from) is over an hour from Detroit. Damn suburbs making the city look bad again.

[Mavrik]

That's funny. I had actually just been talking to my parents about going there for field trips when I was a kid.

[The Gun Of Bavaria]

Holly (the city where the kid is from) is over an hour from Detroit. Damn suburbs making the city look bad again.

That $hithole doesn't need surburbians to look bad. The guy wasting his girl in church last Sunday and the 12 year old gunned down because the $hitbags shooting at another guy and missing are enough to let them do it all on their own.

Save a state, nuke Detroit.

By the way, the DIA is a dump anyways, a piece of gum gives it flavor.

Speaking of which did anyone see the painting? 1.5 M for that? If that's the case I'm giving my 17 month old some paints and a canvas.

[The Gun Of Bavaria]

Oh I forgot to add the two Detroit Police officers shot last weekend to the list too. Don't forget the city council choosing to shut the zoo down rather then turning it over to the zoological society.

[The Gun Of Bavaria]

http://www.clickondetroit.com/news/7573665/detail.html

Teacher Robbed Inside Elementary School

Police Search For Robber

POSTED: 8:19 am EST March 1, 2006

A teacher was attacked by a gunman inside an elementary school on Detroit's west side Wednesday morning.

The gunman was already inside Owen Elementary School when the teacher arrived, Local 4 reported. The robber held a gun to the woman's head and took her purse, the station reported.

The man fled on foot, the station reported.

A janitor was also inside the school at the time of the robbery, the station learned. The teacher and janitor were unharmed.

Police are searching for the robber. A description was not available

[DHJF]

Yesterday in lovely Long Island...

From Newsday:

Boy is witness to parents' killings

Boy, 6, is found uninjured after he tells 911 dad shot mom and was about to shoot himself, cops say

BY JENNIFER SINCO KELLEHER

STAFF WRITER

February 28, 2006, 5:13 PM EST

Alexander Astashkevich was a man of logic and reason, a temperament carried over from years of studying complex forms of mathematics, a friend who went to college with him in Moscow said Tuesday.

Astashkevich, 37, went through life with a calm nature, not at all fitting the image of a man who would murder his estranged wife in front of their 6-year-old son and then turn the gun on himself, said Igor Pak, who had known him for 15 years.

Pak and Astashkevich studied math together in their native Russia at Moscow State University. While Astashkevich was earning his doctorate at Massachusetts Institute of Technology from 1992 to 1996, Pak was doing the same nearby at Harvard University. After MIT, Astashkevich did post-doctoral work at University of California at Davis for three years and then moved to Long Island to work as a researcher for Renaissance Technologies, Corp., said, Pak, 34.

Astashkevich never showed any violent tendencies toward his wife, Olga Sadikova, 31, who was from his hometown of Tomsk, Siberia, Pak said. Although they had been having marital problems for about four years, Astashkevich never expressed any anger, Pak said. Astashkevich moved out of their Port Jefferson home several years ago, but lived in an apartment in the area to be near their son, Arthur.

It was in the front doorway of the Port Jefferson townhouse, in an upscale complex on Pinnacle Drive, where Astashkevich shot his wife Monday afternoon, Suffolk police said. Using the same shotgun, he then killed himself in a downstairs bathroom, while their son hid in a bathtub upstairs.

Homicide Squad Det. Lt. Jack Fitzpatrick said the boy surely witnessed his mother's shooting because he told a 911 operator he was unable to leave because her body was blocking the front door and that his father shot her.