The news in milk

There were 2 weird news stories last month that deserved a pairing:

Milk villain
4/26/11
Jonathan Payton, 18, was arrested in Stafford County Virginia, on Tuesday and released on a misdemeanor summons to appear in court. He was apprehended by police after attempting to steal 26 gallons of milk from the Garrisonville Walmart. He was dressed as a cow at the time (see unauthenticated booking photo here). He entered the store in costume on all fours, loaded up a grocery cart with gallon jugs, wheeled it past the security guards, and began handing it out to passersby outside the busy store. Afterward, the thief was seen “skipping down the sidewalk,” according to sheriff's department spokesman Bill Kennedy. “This is probably one of the most unique efforts of shoplifting I’ve seen. It might’ve been a prank that went wrong," said Kennedy, who noted that there was no surveillance video of the theft, but it would have been interesting to see. The thief was taken into custody at the nearby McDonald's. The costume was in his car.

Milk hero
4/10/11
Michael Coyle was hauling milk to Lakeland Dairies in a tanker truck as usual in Co. Fermanagh, Northern Ireland, when he collided with a car (photo of the accident scene here). The vehicle caught fire, trapping the 2 young men, who had both been seriously injured. Coyle had the presence of mind to maneuver his truck so that he could extinguish the blaze with the milk from a valve at the rear of the tank. Once they responded, it took the fire department more than 2 hours to free the driver and his passenger from the car. The station commander said he had never seen such a thing in his 28 years of service. Coyle's boss described him as an "easy going man and...never in a hurry."