BRIDGEPORT, CT—Local police officials are "utterly baffled" by a bottle-shaped paper bag that local resident Jimmy Kilty held while sitting on an East Side strip-mall bench Monday.

The mysterious paper bag that has confounded Sgt. Ted Vittorio (inset) and other police officers.


"It's a real mystery," said Sgt. Ted Vittorio of the Bridgeport Police Department. "Judging from the way he kept putting the paper bag up to his mouth, you'd think he was drinking something out of it. But obviously he wasn't, since paper can't hold liquid. It would soak right through instantly."

Vittorio said he was making his normal patrol of the area when he noticed Kilty clutching the strange bag.


"It's part of my job to monitor for loitering and public intoxication, so when I spotted Kilty sitting on the bench, I slowed down to survey the scene," Vittorio said. "I thought maybe he was drinking, but, as it turned out, he was just repeatedly putting a paper bag up to his face. Such behavior may be strange, but it's certainly not illegal, so I moved on."

Kilty, 32, who remains on the bench as of press time, reportedly spent his first three hours greeting passersby. At approximately 4:15 p.m., he was joined by two male companions, who intermittently held the paper bag and took turns disappearing behind the thick hedges that border the parking lot.


With so few leads, police can only speculate as to what the bag contains.

"Whatever's in there, it's got to be pretty heavy, because otherwise why would the men need to take turns holding it?" police chief Edgar Rudolph said. "And we know it's not liquor, because everyone in town is well aware of Bridgeport City Ordinance Title 9, Chapter 4, Article 4, which clearly states that it is unlawful for any person within city limits to possess any alcoholic beverage in any public place, or to transport any alcoholic beverage upon any public street, sidewalk, pedestrian mall, alleyway or thoroughfare where such alcoholic beverage is in a receptacle which has been opened, or the seal of which has been broken, or the contents of which have been partially removed."


"Besides," Rudolph continued, "just for the sake of argument, let's say that those men were willing to risk arrest and a $110 fine for public drinking. They certainly would have taken the extra 10 seconds to make it a little less obvious by simply pouring the alcohol into a soda can or paper cup or something. No one could be that stupid."