Weird Rewind: Weird Iowa: Liquor for Kids, Exploding Pills, 'Civil War' Shooting and Ridiculous Road Rage

Editor's Note: Each weekend Patch brings you the top weird, or strange news from around Iowa. Here's a quick recap on what you may have missed last weekend.

Let's start this week of Weird where we usally end up: with crime.

And let's start in Cedar Falls, where there's a lesson to be learned: If you're going to explode pill bottles in a parking lot, don't pretend to be a police officer while you clean things up. You'll only get in more trouble.

That's what police said happened last week in the parking lot of Driving Loyalty, where they arrested a local man on charges of impersonating a public official. Police said the man was cleaning up exploded pill bottles when an employee asked what he was doing.

Displaying a police badge on his belt, the man allegedly said he was investigating the pill bottles. The real police were called and it was off to the clink.

In Johnston, teens went on a ridiculous vandalism spree, not that any vandalism is paticularly smart. Three male juvenile runaways from Youth Homes of Mid America allegedly went on a vandalism spree Oct. 8. Police arrested several runaways from the facility on charges they damaged 32 statues and then busted up the windows of a storage building and a TV, all to the tune of $5,050. 

In Urbandale, police were busy not with what kids were busting up but with what underage people were pouring down: alcohol.

Employees at five Urbandale businesses were cited Oct. 9 for selling alcohol to an underage person as police checked to see who was following sales laws. And what's so weird about that? One of the businesses was a florist.

More crime, this time from West Des Moines: A Pleasant Hill woman told police her 2011 Mitsubishi Eclipse was rammed from behind several times by a driver who had road rage as she drove east on Interstate 235 early Friday evening. 

She told West Des Moines police that after the other driver pulled around her, she sped up and chased him to get his license number, which she provided to police. Authorities have attempted to track down the suspect, a 35-year-old Des Moines man, who faces possible assault with a dangerous weapon charges.

Finally, our last item is more tragic than anything, but still very strange.

A former Johnson County Board of Supervisors candidate, who often participated in local parades wearing period garb, was shot and killed Tuesday by Van Buren County Sheriff's deputies. According to the Iowa Department of Public Safety, deputies were sent to the area of Highway 2, east of Cantril near the Iowa and Missouri border, after receiving reports of a man wearing a military uniform and walking west carrying a rifle. He was reportedly making rude gestures to cars as they passed.

Van Buren County Chief Deputy Brad Hudson and Deputy Jon Tharp encountered the man, Robert "Mike" Dooley, 59, of Brighton, at the scene. They asked Dooley to drop his weapon several times, but he reportedly did not comply, instead pointing the rifle at the officers, according to the release. As a result, Tharp fired at Dooley.

More Weird:

Weird Iowa: Constipated Cow, Totally Indecent Exposure and Losing is the New Winning

Weird Iowa: Dad Invades Soccer Game; Dad Calls Cops on Son; King Explains Comparing Immigrants to Dogs

Weird Iowa: Mother's Day Brawl; Stranger Danger; Reward Offered for Vandals; WWII and WWI Artifacts Stolen from Museum