Gut meets gat

George Vera, arrested for peddling bootleg CDs in Houston, Texas, had already spent a day in the city jail before being transferred to Harris County. On his arrival, Vera was searched again, signed in and was about to shower, when he told police he was packing. Being completely naked at the time, there weren’t a lot of places Vera’s gun could have been. Luckily for the officers on duty, Vera’s weight of nearly 560 pounds allowed for non-orifice options, and the 9mm handgun, along with two extra clips, was retrieved from Vera’s unsightly rolls of fat.

Former Harris County Detention Major Mark Kellar opined that the procedures, much like Vera’s digestive system, “didn’t work as they were designed to work.” Vera had already been searched three times, the gun going undetected under his formidable flab.

“We teach officers to lift up and look under,” Houston Police Officers Union president Gary Blankenship says, but concedes officers may be inexperienced with morbidly obese perps.

Vera, who will now also face the more serious crime of weapons possession, was freed on a bond of $10,000—enough to buy roughly 15,000 doughnuts.

by SCOTT SAXON