News in Brief

A man trying to heist a chicken at City Market last weekend was arrested after a store employee reported him trying to stuff the poultry into his pants.

According to a report from the Aspen Police Department, Ernst Kaltenbock may have noticed he was being watched as he tried to conceal the yard bird in his sweat pants, so he put it into his basket. The store worker told police Kaltenbock went to the front of the store and paid for all of the items in his basket, but he was stopped by store officials just after leaving the building.

The employee told police Kaltenbock removed two packages of cheese from his jacket pockets when they approached him. Kaltenbock allegedly told police he had been trying to figure out which of the cheeses was low-fat. He said he couldn’t read the label, so he stuck both packages in his jacket pocket to remind himself to ask a clerk at the register.

A police officer asked Kaltenbock why he hadn’t just put the cheese in his basket, but the suspect didn’t have an answer. He allegedly told police he had gone to the grocery store after being in the sauna at his gym and was feeling dizzy.

Police didn’t ask Kaltenbock about the chicken incident.

Kaltenbock is to appear in municipal court on Dec. 15, where he will face shoplifting charges.

Steven Horn, the man who was zapped with a Taser by a Carbondale police officer during a routine traffic stop in August, will get his three days in court in February 2005. He will argue that the officer over-reacted and is guilty of “police brutality.”

Horn’s attorney, Richard Dally, in an apparent effort to focus at least part of Horn’s defense on the cop who shot him with the Taser, is hoping to get access to that officer’s record with the department in one of the defense “motions for discovery” on file with the municipal court.

Municipal Judge John Collins has yet to rule on that and other motions for discovery.

Collins has granted Horn’s request, however, for an unprecedented three-day, daytime trial on charges that he ran a stop sign, refused to follow an officer’s instructions when stopped, and resisted arrest.

The officer, Jose Munoz, has claimed that Horn was acting erratically and aggressively and the use of the Taser was justified by Munoz’s fear for his own safety.

The trial will be heard by a jury of six beginning Feb. 23, 2005, at Carbondale Town Hall.