Man Shoots Annoying Kitchen Smoke Detector With Shotgun

We get how annoying smoke detectors are, even though all they seemingly want to do is save your life. Especially the ones in the kitchen. They always go off at the most inopportune moments, usually when you're right in the middle of cooking something major. Then you have to find a broom and/or stepladder to get the thing to stop squawking, once you've calmed down your pets and kids and whatever was boiling/smoking/scalding over. When they were just battery-operated, they were a little easier to dismantle, but now that many of them are hardwired, they are harder to shut up.

All that said, we still think 68-year-old Leroy Mason, of Barton, Vermont, took things a little too far. After Mason called in a few false alarms, the Associated Press reports the man became "upset fire crews wouldn't relocate it so he 'took it upon himself to relocate the smoke detector, and shot it with the shotgun,'" accordingly to police. Seems like a bad way to relocate a smoke detector; the shots wound up hitting the adjoining wall of an occupied apartment. Mason then also made the mistake of pointing a gun at the emergency personnel who showed up after the shooting.

After his arrest, Mason pleaded not guilty, and his attorney unsurprisingly declined to comment. Maybe he'll find a sympathetic judge who also hates their smoke detector.