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Other Categories => Clean Christian Humor => Topic started by: Sojourner on February 22, 2024, 03:24:38 PM
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We all get a chuckle from nefarious miscreants whose criminal antics end in buffoonery. So enjoy the following examples of crime converging with stupidity.
A would-be thief had obviously watched too much TV. While trying to break into his neighbor’s house using a bank card, he woke up the owner. In the thief’s haste to get away, the card snapped in half, leaving behind his name and account details. “The victim called up and read us the details off the card,” police said. “When we got to the burglar’s house, the other half of his bank card was on his kitchen table.”
A 40-year-old man walked into a bank, handed the cashier a threatening note that read: “Be Quick Be Quit [quiet]. Give your cash or I’ll shoot.” The bank teller obliged and handed him $400, and he made good his escape. The problem is the stick-up note he left behind had been scribbled on a piece of his pay slip. Detectives found the other half of the pay slip outside the bank – complete with the bank robber’s name and home address.
Dennis Hawkins, a 48-year-old man who tried to rob a bank in Pittsburgh, clearly didn’t get the memo about needing a disguise that allowed blending into the crowd following the crime. He chose a woman’s blonde wig, fake breasts and bright clown pants. He also neglected to shave his facial hair. If he wasn’t conspicuous enough, he drew even more attention to himself trying to steal a car from a nearby gas station, prompting the attendant to call the police, who apprehended Hawkins soon after.
In 2010, Albert Bailey and an unnamed juvenile accomplice decided to rob a bank in Fairfield, Ct. In an attempt to speed up the process of the crime, Bailey called the bank in advance to let them know that they were coming to rob it. His obvious intent was to give the bank plenty of time to get the money ready so he could just grab it and leave quickly. Well, as luck would have it, the bank decided to call the authorities and notified them of the robbers’ plan. The two men were arrested by police without incident.
In 2008, an 18-year-old man named Ruben Zarate attempted to rob a muffler shop in Chicago. After demanding money, he was told that most of the cash was stored in a safe that could only be opened by the manager, who wasn’t scheduled to come in until a few hours later. To save himself some trouble, Zarate left his cell phone number for the store to call him back once the manager arrived. Of course, the store first called the police and then called Zarate back. When he came back and noticed the police were waiting for him, he engaged in a brief shootout with the cops before eventually being arrested.
When you're planning a burglary, picking the right target is critical, preferably one devoid of occupants. The worst possible target would be a house full of police officers. Well, that's precisely the one Darren Kimpton inadvertently chose. Seems that house had been burglarized earlier in the evening, and police officers were still inside when Kimpton tried to break in. If that wasn't bad enough, he had previously tried to rob a separate house earlier, but cut himself badly and fled. The trail of blood he left between the two houses got him collared for both attempted robberies.
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In August of 1995, a man in Berlin decided to rob a bank with a handgun. The plan went smoothly until the tellers asked him “Do you need a bag?” to which Schmidt responded, “You’re damn right it’s a real gun!” This made it obvious to the tellers that the robber was deaf. With this new realization, they sounded the alarm which notified the police, with Schmidt none the wiser. In a funny twist, Schmidt later tried to sue the bank for abusing his disability.
Breaking into homes can be tiring work, but most criminals are smart enough to wait until they get home before taking a nap. Not Mark Smith. In 2007, Smith, under the influence of Valium and vodka, decided to break into a home and, since he was likely feeling the effects of the drugs and alcohol, curled up for a nap in the homeowner’s bed. He received a rude awakening by the local police and was later sentenced to 18 months.
In probably the most ill-conceived disguise in the history of crime, two men chose to draw on their faces with a permanent marker. While it may have made them hard to recognize during the crime, permanent marker is, as the name suggests, notoriously hard to remove, which left the men extremely easy to identify later when the police went looking for the culprits. The hare-brained idea earned the duo the nickname “dumb and dumber.”
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Planning is hugely important when committing a crime and is essential to its success. This was lost on Derrick Mosley, who took a baseball bat with him on his way to rob a gun store. As it is a gun shop, it’s not surprising that the manager pulled a gun on the would-be robber and kept him in the crosshairs until authorities arrived.
On a sunny day in March, a 17-year-old boy in Omaha, Nebraska, decided to stick a gun in the face of a woman who was taking her son to school, demanding that she give him her car. She, of course, obliged and the boy was about to take off when he realized the car had a manual transmission, which he was unable to drive. After fumbling a bit with the gear shift and clutch, he gave up and bolted on foot, but was caught by authorities a short time later.
British Andrew Hennells was caught after he boasted in a post on Facebook about his plan to rob a supermarket. The post included a selfie, a picture of a knife, and the words: "Doing. Tesco. Over." Police soon apprehended with the knife and £410 in cash stolen from a Tesco in King's Lynn, Norfolk. Last April, he was sentenced to four years.
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Recently, a woman in Fresno, California, was detained at a DUI checkpoint for being inebriated. Cheerful and forthcoming, she told the officer, “My husband’s right behind me, and he’s even drunker than I am.”
As two men waited in line at a coffee shop to pay their bill, a third cut in front of them. He threw a drink at the clerk and demanded all the money from the till. Temporarily surprised, the men quickly recovered and handcuffed the crook. The would-be robber somehow failed to notice that the two men beside him were uniformed police officers.
Scottish shoplifter Aron Morrison was picked up after pinching a bottle of vodka from a liquor store. It wasn’t hard to find Morrison, though. His name and phone number were left with the clerk—after asking her out on a date.
Police in Ossining, New York were called to a mini mart, where they found Blake Leak, 23, trying to break in. They chased Leak through the streets until both cops took a tumble. Seizing the opportunity, Leak sought refuge on the grounds of a large building—which turned out to be Sing Sing Maximum Security Prison. Leak was promptly nabbed by a guard.
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A man walked into a liquor store, whipped out a gun and demanded all the money from the cash drawer. After the cashier put the cash in a bag, the robber saw a bottle of scotch behind the counter that he wanted. He told the cashier to put it in the bag as well, but he refused saying, "I don't believe you're 21." The robber insisted he was, but the clerk still refused to believe him. At this point, the robber took his drivers license out of his wallet and gave it to the clerk. The clerk looked it over and agreed that the man was in fact over 21 and put the scotch in the bag. The robber then ran from the store with his loot. The cashier promptly called the police and gave the name and address of the robber from off the license. They arrested him two hours later.
A robber held up a Li'l Cricket store in Spartanburg, S.C., and the clerk hit the silent alarm. A deputy's car pulled up outside, unnoticed by the holdup man. The clerk asked permission to go out and tell the "customer" that the store was closed. The robber agreed, allowing the clerk to get to safety and the deputy to make the arrest.
A man who robbed a convenience was quickly apprehended after cops followed his footprints in the snow to his nearby house.
A winning lottery ticket in Missouri would have been worth $100,000, except that it was one of hundreds stolen by Chastity Cromer from the convenience store where she worked. She might have gotten away it had she not reneged on the $2,000 bribe to a coworker to keep her mouth shut.
A woman reporting a stolen car mentioned that there was a car phone in it. The policeman taking the report called the phone, telling the guy who answered that he had read the For Sale ad in the newspaper and wanted to buy the car. They arranged to meet, and the thief was promptly arrested.
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Accused of selling drugs, Howard Jones's attorney sought to get his client's $150,000 bail lowered, insisting that Jones had ties to the community and no intention of fleeing. Moments later, however, Jones sprinted out of the courtroom and out the front door of the building. He was caught fifty minutes later, and his bail was raised to $500,000.
Dennis Newton was on trial for the armed robbery of a convenience store in a district court when he fired his lawyer. Assistant district attorney Larry Jones said Newton, 47, was doing a fair job of defending himself until the store manager testified that Newton was the robber. Newton jumped up, accused the woman of lying and then said, "I should have blown your head off." The defendant paused, then quickly added, "I mean, if I'd been the one that was there." The jury later took 20 minutes to convict Newton and recommend a 30-year sentence.
According to the Reuters news service, a 17-year-old burst into a Fort Worth, Texas, tanning salon, making the owner suspicious. He claimed that he was not being chased, but after assigning him a tanning bed, the owner called the cops. Police in pursuit of a bank robbery suspect in the neighborhood soon showed up and quickly identified the youth as their suspect.
After breaking into the basement window of a bank, a would-be thief realized that there was no access to the money from there. Unable to exit the window and bleeding severely from cuts from the broken glass, he took out his cell phone and called 911.
After leaving his gun at a holdup scene, a robber returned to retrieve it. Realizing he would be recognized, he cleverly represented himself as his twin brother.
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Having just broken out of prison, a man realized he had forgotten the phone number of the accomplice he was to supposed to rendezvous with. Finding a phone booth, he attempted to get the information by calling 411. He instead dialed 911, and hung up quickly when he heard the dispatcher. The police, responding to a 911 hangup, arrived minutes later, to find him still on the phone and wearing his orange jumpsuit.
After robbing a bank, Darryl Ellis of Gulfport, Mississippi was arrested for urinating in public. Police found the holdup note when they searched him.
Amy Brasher was arrested in San Antonio, Texas, after a mechanic found eighteen packages of marijuana packed in the engine compartment of her car. The woman, who had taken her car in for an oil change, said that she did not realize he would have to lift the hood to get the job done.
An Illinois man pretending to have a gun kidnapped a motorist and forced him to drive to two different automated teller machines. The kidnapper then proceeded to withdraw money from his own bank accounts.
Arkansas was the home of a company named "Dewey Cheatham and Howe." Well, as you can guess, it wasn't a real company, but a fictitious name fronting a fraudulent scheme set up by 54-year-old Patrick Michael Penker, who apparently watched too many episodes of the Three Stooges. Apparently, many people missed those episodes, because his scheme netted him a million dollars before bank officer John Reed of the American State Bank in Lubbock, Texas got suspicious. The Lubbock Avalanche-Journal broke the story.
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Baltimore newspaper, The Sun, reported that Edwin V. Gaynor applied to become a police officer and truthfully reported on the application form that he had committed a carjacking and two robberies. He even had an outstanding warrant.
Barry Colbert was cited for driving while intoxicated and for driving with a suspended license. He actually got behind the wheel after a collision but before the police got there. The real driver was cited for driving without a license, driving without headlights, and running a stop sign. The reason he didn't have a license: seven-year-olds aren't allowed to have them! Colbert was also cited for allowing his youngster to operate a motor vehicle.
Belgian news agency Belga reported that a man suspected of robbing a jewelry store in Liege said he couldn't have done it because he was busy breaking into a school at that same time.
Charged with drug possession, Christopher Johns claimed that he had been searched without a warrant. The prosecutor said the officer did not need a warrant because a bulge in Johns' jacket could have been a gun. "Nonsense," said Christopher who happened to be wearing the same jacket that day. When he handed the judge the jacket, a bag of cocaine fell out. The judge required a five-minute recess so that he could regain his composure.
Clever drug traffickers used a propane tanker truck entering El Paso from Mexico. They rigged it so propane gas would be released from all of its valves even as the truck concealed 6,240 pounds of marijuana. The traffickers were crafty but not meticulous, as they misspelled the name of the gas company on the side of the truck.
David Posman, 33, was arrested recently in Providence, R.I., after allegedly knocking out an armored car driver and stealing the nearest 3 bags of money. The bags weighed 30 pounds each and slowed him to a stagger during his getaway so that police officers easily jumped him from behind. Turns out that instead of cash, each bag contained $800 dollars in pennies.
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I liked the story about the guy who decided to hold up his local Wells Fargo. He wrote his stickup note on the back of a deposit slip and waited in line to see the cashier. While waiting in line he was afraid someone might have seen him writing his note, so he crossed the road and went to the Bank of America. Again he waited in line, and presented his note to the cashier. Seeing the numerous spelling mistakes she figured he wasn't the sharpest knife in the drawer, so she told him that she couldn't accept his note because it was written on a Wells Fargo deposit slip and he'd need to either fill in a Bank of America deposit slip or take it to Wells Fargo. The man, dejected, left the bank and the cashier called the police. The man was arrested standing in line across the road at the Wells Fargo, still holding his stickup note.
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I read another story of a man who decided to rob a commercial building by climbing onto the roof and dropping in through one of the skylights. The problem was he didn't quite fit through the skylight, so he took off some clothes and tried again. He still didn't fit, so he took off some more clothes until he was stripped to his underwear, but he was able to drop in through the skylight. Sadly he had failed to consider his exit plan, and found himself stuck in the building with no way out and no clothes. Defeated, he called 911 and surrendered himself.
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Deputies responding to a 911 call discovered that Jeffrey Barber hadn’t actually shot himself as it appeared. He was playing a joke on his wife. The blood was fake, but the gun was real. Turns out Jeffrey, as a convicted felon, was unable to legally possess a gun, so the joke was on him, and got him fifteen years in prison.
A drug dealer in Anchorage, Alaska was arrested after selling cocaine to an undercover officer. A year later, he was arrested again for selling crack to the same cop.
A hapless criminal attempting to break into a corner store hurled a cinderblock at its plate glass window. The window, however, turned out to plexiglass, causing the cinderblock to rebound and knock the perp out cold.
56-year-old Leighton Deming and 42-year-old Thomas Marciano tried to sell a headdress, which they claimed had been worn by Geronimo, over the internet. Their ad included the wording "only serious candidates need respond because it is illegal to sell eagle feathers in the United States." Apparently, the FBI was a serious candidate.
"Guns For Hire," an Arizona company that helps moviemakers with the staging of gunfights, received a call from a 47-year-old housewife who it seems, wanted her husband rubbed out.
Having watched too many movies, and thinking that police would need three minutes to trace a call, fugitive Michael LaRock placed a quick call from Georgia to police back home in New York to rub it in. He was soon apprehended, thanks to Caller ID.
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A Holiday Inn in Anchorage, Alaska, was hosting a law enforcement training conference. That fact was boldly stated on the marquee outside and the large banners inside. Oblivious, Floyd Brown entered the building and tried to hold up the desk clerk. Thirty officers swarmed in and assisted in apprehending the criminal mastermind.
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In Kentucky, two men tried to remove the front of an ATM machine using a chain hooked to their pickup's bumper. Instead of the machine, the bumper yielded. The men fled the scene, leaving behind the machine, the chain, and the bumper--with the license plate attached.
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The remains of would-be burglar Joseph Schexnider--missing for 27 years, were finally discovered lodged in a brick chimney at the Abbeville National Bank in Louisiana. The bones were found in May when the bank was renovating the second floor, which had long been used for storage, to make more office space.The identity of the body was confirmed this week through DNA.
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According to the Toronto Star, 26-year-old Gerald Dixon of Peterborough was sentenced to 6 years in prison for robbing a Bank of Montreal branch. He successfully pulled off the heist, but was arrested a few hours after the robbery, attempting to deposit the loot into his account at the same bank.
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In Modesto, California, Steven Richard King was arrested after trying to hold up a Bank of America branch without a weapon. King used a thumb and a finger to simulate a gun but failed to keep his hand completely concealed in his pocket.
In Summerton, North Carolina, a would-be robber in a car stopped an 80-year-old pedestrian, threatened him with a knife, and demanded money. The victim said his money was at home, so the perpetrator drove him to his house and waited outside, impatiently honking his horn, while the victim called the police.
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Stupid Criminal Awards may be awaiting Michael Anthone Jacobs who, in the course of committing several robberies in Mesa, Arizona, dropped and broke his gun, stopped to use his inhaler, locked his keys in the car, and drove at night without headlights, which got him pulled over and arrested.
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San Francisco police arrested career criminal Scot Beane, who had a bad habit of robbing banks while on drugs. It seems he dropped a Western Union receipt at the scene of one robbery and a copy of his resume at another.
Reuters News Service reported that a 17-year-old held up a Taco Bell in Ft. Worth and then ordered a chalupa. The police were there before his order was. Pointing what turned out to be a bb gun at the officers resulted in him being shot in the arm and in the leg.
Portsmouth, RI Police charged Gregory Rosa, 25, with a string of vending machine robberies in January. He fled from police inexplicably when they spotted him loitering around a vending machine. He later tried to post his $400 bail all in coins.
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R.C. Gaitlan, 21, walked up to two patrol officers who were showing their squad car computer equipment to children in a Detroit neighborhood. When he asked how the system worked, the officer asked him for identification. Gaitlan gave them his driver’s license, and they entered his info into the computer. Moments later they arrested Gaitlan when it was discovered he was wanted for a two-year-old armed robbery in St. Louis, Missouri.
Police detectives in L.A. had each suspect in a lineup repeat the words, "Give me all your money or I'll shoot!" When they came to the actual perpetrator, he objected, "That's not what I said!"
Police in Oakland, California spent two hours attempting to subdue a gunman who had barricaded himself inside his home. After firing ten tear gas canisters, officers discovered that the man was standing beside them, shouting pleas to come out and give himself up.
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Manchester Evening News told of a man entering a branch of the Royal Bank of Scotland wearing a heavy coat and hat. This drew immediate suspicion since it was during hot weather. After holding up the bank, he made his getaway . . . on a bicycle. When the red dye packet in the money exploded, it so startled him he dropped his loot. He stopped to pick it up, but then crashed into a curb and lost it again. A security camera recorded the entire fiasco, including him losing his hat and showing his face.
Jose Santiago of Gurnee, Illinois, wanted to impersonate a police officer, so he bought a Crown Vic and installed lights, but he failed to include important details like a uniform and a badge. Perhaps his biggest mistake, however, was whom he chose for his first "collar." He stopped and harassed Jeremy Gaughan, an off-duty policeman.
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Some time ago there was a TV show called "America's Most Stupid" that highlighted stupid criminals and their crimes. One of those was a man who robbed a deli. Police were able to apprehend him by following the trail of coleslaw that dropped from the tub he had taken.
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Police in Amherst, Idaho interrogated a dim-witted suspect by placing a metal colander on his head and connecting it with wires to a photocopy machine. The message "He's lying" had been placed in the copier, and a detective pressed the copy button each time they thought the suspect wasn't telling the truth. Believing the "lie detector" was working, the suspect confessed.
Knife-wielding James Boulder was caught in September 1993 when his pants fell down as he fled from a store in New Jersey he had just robbed. He then tripped over a fire hydrant and knocked himself cold.
A 24-year-old man was pulled over outside of Buffalo, NY, for driving at night without headlights. When the patrolman asked to see his license, the driver began nervously searching in the car, and eventually produced a handful of cards and papers. Among the various ID items, the patrolman found a note that read, “I have a gun. Put all the money in an envelope quickly”. The note was linked to a heist that occurred two days earlier in which the man and an accomplice robbed a Buffalo bank.
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A thief in Portland, Oregon, thought he had executed the perfect robbery in 2013. After going through every inch of the house he had broken into, opening all the drawers, and stealing everything of value he could find without leaving any fingerprints, he got thirsty. He grabbed a container of orange juice he found in the refrigerator and took a gulp directly from it, leaving it in the sink. The container was sent straight to the DNA testing unit at the Oregon State Crime Lab where forensic scientists found a match and the thief was identified and arrested.
At a bus station in St. Paul, Minnesota, a hot-tempered man named Justin John Boudin was involved in an argument with a woman whom he punched in the face. He also attacked another person who was standing there, which caused him to drop his folder on the ground. He didn’t retrieve the folder before he fled. The police officers, who arrived at the scene a few minutes later, tracked Boudin thanks to what was inside the folder: his anger-management homework.
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In a case where being dumb was matched by being oblivious, a thief invaded a Captain’s Galley restaurant in North Carolina, and absconded with the whole cash register. As he fled, he failed to notice a small but significant detail: the roll of cash register tape had fallen on the floor and he was leaving a trail of the white tape behind him. Following the trail to the thief’s apartment, the police found him still trying to figure out how to open the register.
Stephen E. Peterson of Fort Collins, Colorado was arrested for robbing the same 7-Eleven twice in one day. After the second hold-up, he told the clerk he’d be back in a few hours to clean out the place a third time. True to his word, Peterson returned and was arrested by the cops who waiting for him.
Cary L. Ryder was recently arrested for burglary in Illinois after police found him in a hospital. While trying to move a safe, it fell on his hand, and his glove was found trapped underneath it—which still contained the top portion of the thief’s middle finger. Said one officer, “He confessed. What else can you do if you’re finger’s found at the scene of the crime?”
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A desperate 18-year-old man with no options for a threatening weapon to use, walked into a store in Scotland and held a rat up to the clerk’s face, saying, “Give me all your money or I’ll sic my rat on you.” The clerk just laughed at him.
J. Douglas Creswell tried to rob a motel using a black trash bag as a disguise. The problem was he forgot to cut eye holes in the bag; attempting to poke the holes as he stumbled toward the door delayed his getaway, and he was arrested by police. His bufoonery cost him 25 years in prison.
John William Howard, 45 fled Maryland, where he was wanted on a sexual assault charge, and headed for Arizona. Passing through Brookshire, Texas, low on gas and money, he tried to sell his spare tire to raise some cash. A local merchant informed him of a police loan program for just such a predicament, so Howard went to the local police station to apply. A routine check however, revealed his fugitive status, and he was promptly arrested.
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In Mainz, Germany in April 1995, a robber thought he had successfully pulled off his heist until he checked out the loot he got away with. It seems rather than cash, the clerk surreptitiously filled the carrier bag with trash from a wastebasket, with the thief being none the wiser.
A thief made off with a crate of meat he snatched from the back of a delivery truck while the driver was in the store. Hoping he had scored a supply of steaks, he was bitterly disappointed to find he had instead heisted a crate full of beef rectums.
One thief in Sidney Australia got an unexpected surprise when he reached into the window of a parked car and snatched a bag. The bag belonged to professional snake catcher Brad McDonald, and yes, the bag contained a venomous snake McDonald had just recently captured. Imagine the thief's surprise when he reached into the bag to claim his prize.
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Some years ago a thief decided he was going to rob a grocery store. His plan was simple - to buy a few low value items, pay with a large bill and grab the cash from the till while the cashier was counting out his change. He executed his plan more or less perfectly, fled the scene and counted his loot only to find he had taken less than the note he used to pay.
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An 18-year-old burglar who vandalized a children’s campsite building got caught because he wrote his name on a wall at the scene. Peter Addison from Manchester, UK, and an accomplice smashed crockery and sprayed extinguishers. Apart from writing his own name in black marker pen everywhere on the building, he also left his gang’s name on the wall: The Adlington Massiv.
Using a wheelchair to flee following a robbery is generally a bad idea. However, a pair of inept thieves decided to give it a try. Noemi Duchene attempted a knife-point robbery at a jewelry shop while her accomplice, Luis Del Castillo, waited outside with the wheelchair. Duchene, who lived near the shop, was tackled by a customer before she and her friend departed in what might have been a low speed pursuit for the record books.
Blaming the family dog for eating one’s homework is a well-worn excuse for not turning in one’s schoolwork. But Reliford Cooper III took it to another level. While being handcuffed after leading police on a high-speed chase, he claimed his dog was driving the car. The claim was made even more ludicrous by the fact that there was no dog in the car.
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Not about criminals, just a dumb case....
In the early days of the internet (1995 here) you had to make a connection with the internet via your wired telephone. And often that went wrong and you had to retry or just wait for a better moment because the provider had not enough bandwidth or something else was wrong. At some moment I called the help-desk, answered all their questions and they concluded : we can not help you sir, please send us an email.
Right....
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In Tulsa, Oklahoma, suspected shoplifter Jacob Wise discreetly removed security tags from the clothes he was planning to steal from a store. However, the alarm went off anyway as he strolled toward the exit door with the stolen merchandise because he had put the discarded tags in his pocket.
What’s worse than a dumb criminal? How about a dumb criminal who’s also unlucky. That is how one would describe a 57-year-old man from Richmond, Virginia who stole a bicycle and unwittingly sold it on Craig’s list to the owner he stole it from. When the police officers came to his house, they discovered more than 10 bicycles, 57 bicycle tires, 24 bicycle wheels, 26 bicycle wheels with tires, 21 bike seats, 4 bicycle frames, a gun, and ammunition.
In 2001, a thief from Boston named Zachary Tentoni snatched $40 from a woman. In his haste fleeing the scene, he left behind a couple of bags, one of which contained a letter from his mother–and, oh yeah, his birth certificate. Not surprisingly, police had no trouble tracking him down and arresting him.
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One day in 1995, a middle-aged man robbed two Pittsburgh banks in broad daylight. He didn’t wear a mask or any sort of disguise. He also smiled at surveillance cameras before walking out of each bank. Later that night, the cops arrested a shocked MacArthur Wheeler. When they showed him the surveillance tapes, Wheeler stared in disbelief. “But I used the juice,” he mumbled. Apparently, for some strange reason, Wheeler believed that rubbing lemon juice on his face would make him unrecognizable to the cameras. (Must have read it on the internet).
When Frank E. Blake’s second and third wives both showed up to visit him while he was serving time in a Virginia jail, police realized that he hadn’t divorced his second wife before marrying his third wife. After doing some research, they found out that Blake hadn’t even divorced his first wife. The polygamy ended up adding additional time to Blake’s sentence.
Andy Warhol predicted that in the future, everyone will be famous for 15 minutes. In 2012, Michael Baker from Jenkins, Kentucky, chose an inglorious means of achieving his own fame. He posed for a picture of himself siphoning gas from a patrol car, while smiling and giving the middle finger—which he then posted on Facebook. The photo went viral, being viewed by thousands of people. Among the viewers were the police, who soon thereafter paid him an unpleasant visit.
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Albert Jackson Dowdy tried to break into a home by smashing a glass door with a can of paint. Unfortunately for him, the can bounced off and broke open. Dowdy eventually got inside but all he collected was a can of tuna fish and a box of oatmeal. On his way out, he stepped in the spilled paint. Officers later followed the paint footprints to a nearby motel and arrested Dowdy he was enjoying his lunch: tuna fish with oatmeal.
Karen Lee Joachimmi, 20, was arrested in Lake City, Florida for the attempted robbery a Howard Johnson motel. Strangely, she was armed with only an electric chain saw, which was not plugged in.
Kristopher Huie was arrested in Johnson County, Texas on felony theft charges. The object of the theft? A fully loaded freight train. He was apprehended shortly after he radioed the dispatcher asking how to release the brake.
Mark Fisher's girlfriend didn't buy the kind of vehicle he wanted her to, so he set fire to her new car while it was parked in a multilevel parking garage. He made his getaway by leaping over a wall, falling two stories, and landing himself in the hospital.
Linda Harris, the director of a program to reduce drunk driving in New Mexico, came to the group's picnic drunk. And yes, she drove herself there. Police were able to raise awareness at that event by administering the appropriate tests and making the arrest in front of the attendees.
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Mark Fisher's girlfriend didn't buy the kind of vehicle he wanted her to, so he set fire to her new car while it was parked in a multilevel parking garage. He made his getaway by leaping over a wall, falling two stories, and landing himself in the hospital.
New Jersey Trooper Glenn Lubertazzi stopped a car for speeding and began asking the three passengers routine questions. When of them nervously retrieved a pack of cigarettes from the glove compartment, the officer noticed that a marijuana joint was visible in the pack. A subsequent search of the car turned up several pounds of marijuana. $32,000 in drug money
The Ann Arbor News crime column reported that a man walked into a Burger King in Ypsilanti, Michigan at 7:50 a.m., flashed a gun and demanded cash. The clerk turned him down because he said he couldn't open the cash register without a food order. When the man ordered onion rings, the clerk said they weren't available for breakfast. Frustrated, the would-be thief walked away.
The Daily Camera reported that a very bad counterfeiter, Douglas Ryan Oeters attempted to pay the Boulder, Colorado Humane Society a pet adoption fee using $20 bills. The problem was the phony bills were clearly photocopies printed on yellow paper. Employees stalled Oeters while the police were notified, and when they arrived , he claimed that the bills had come from his bank. A search of His wallet turned up two genuine $20 bills and 42 yellow photocopies.
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The Nashville Tennessean reported an incident in which two armed robbers held up a pizza delivery man. One of the holdup men hit the delivery man him on the head with his gun, though he was not seriously injured. However the blow to the head caused the gun to discharge, killing the other holdup man.
The Tallahassee Democrat told the story of 20-year-old Alonzo Lamar McMillian, who illegally parked in a handicapped space. Officer Greg Tucker's attention was drawn to the car because its stereo was so loud. McMillian refused to move, claiming he would "only be there a minute." Officer Tucker ran a license check, and discovered that the vehicle had been stolen. In addition to charges of grand theft auto and illegally parking in a handicapped space, McMillian earned himself charges for drug possession and battery on a law enforcement officer. Officer Tucker said of McMillian, "he's not exactly a criminal mastermind."
A would-be holdup man entered the store he had chosen as his target wearing a transparent bag over his head. While this obviously afforded him a full range of vision, with his face clearly visible, it made for a lousy disguise.
The Times of London reported the case of Roland Tough, a 22-year-old robber who dropped off film to be developed at a local Tesco supermarket--the same Tesco he helped rob just two weeks earlier. Store employees recognized the men in one of the photos, and police met him when he came to pick up his prints. The magistrate gave him six years.
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In Leicester, Massachusetts, a shoplifter tried to block a security camera at a local retailer using Play Doh, then fled the scene, leaving the Play Doh behind. Turns out the soft clay is an excellent medium for retaining fingerprints, which police used to identify him. The Leicester Police Department was apparently very amused by the incident and posted the story on their Facebook page.
Wanting a sure way to make himself stop drinking, a man in Stockholm, Sweden offered to serve a friend's jail sentence for driving while intoxicated. He borrowed the friend's ID and showed up to be incarcerated. A couple of weeks later the false identity was discovered, and the result was both men serving time: the original convict for the original crime and the would-be substitute for perjury and impersonation.
What do you do when your getaway driver panics and leaves you stranded? Bank robber Eric Davis decided he would just carjack the first available vehicle. Unfortunately for him, that vehicle was an unmarked police car occupied by two plainclothesmen. Davis was arrested and had two counts of kidnapping added to his robbery charges.
After robbing a bank in Swansea, Massachusetts, Paul Benier’s getaway was adversely impacted when he realized he had locked the keys in his car. He was quickly caught and arrested while attempting to flee on foot.
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When 22-year-old Norman Hardy was arrested for selling drugs, he pleaded not guilty, and requested a public defender. On the form he had to fill out, under “occupation,” Norman wrote, "selling drugs."
When two service station attendants in Ionia, Michigan, refused to hand over the cash to an intoxicated robber, the man threatened to call the police. They steadfastly refused, so the robber called the police--who promptly arrested him.
A bumbling robber decided to disguise himself by covering his face in shaving cream. With no gun and looking ridiculous, he was told by store employees to get lost before they called the cops. Disappointed, he stumbled into the door face first on his way out, leaving most of his “mask” behind on the door glass.
After a London couple were awakened by strange sounds in their home, the man of the house, armed with a golf club, investigated. Finding nothing, he was just about to return to bed when he heard a muffled fart coming from a nearby closet. Snatching the closet door open while wielding the club, he discovered a hapless intruder, cowering among the hanging coats, and held him until the police arrived.
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A 19-year-old convenience store employee put tape over the security camera, emptied the till, then called police to report a robbery. When the police arrived, they found the camera covered in transparent tape, watched the surveillance video, and subsequently arrested the employee.
Inept burglar Pedro Cardona tried to break into a house by squeezing through the doggy door. Unfortunately, his girth not only hampered his break-in, but also got him hopelessly stuck about halfway in. First responders had to cut the door in half in order to get him out.
A miscreant in a small Iowa town planned and executed a bank robbery, pulling it off without a hitch, and fled with the money. However, he didn’t flee far enough, and was arrested the next day at a motel near the state line, less than 20 miles away. When asked why he stopped so close to the scene of the crime, he explained he was on parole and couldn’t cross the state line without permission from his parole officer.
Kidnappers abducted Gildo dos Santos near his factory in a suburb of Sao Paulo, Brazil, and demanded $690,000 dollars ransom, but Santos was able to escape. The next day, Santos received a call asking for $11,500 to defray the expenses of the kidnapping. After negotiating for half that amount, Santos called the police, who were waiting when Luiz Carlos Valerio, one of the kidnappers, showed up to collect payment.
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A Kwik-Fill gas station attendant in Syracuse, New York stole $300 dollars from the till, then covered his crime by calling the police to report a robbery. His plan was foiled however, when the description he gave of the robber was a perfect description of himself.
Ronnie Darnell Bell, 30, was arrested in Dallas for attempting to rob the Federal Reserve Bank. According to police, Bell handed a security guard a note that read, “This is a robbery of the Dallas Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, give me all the money. Thank you, Ronnie Darnell Bell.” The guard pushed a silent alarm while an oblivious Bell chatted amiably, revealing to the guard that minutes earlier he tried to rob a post office but that, “they threw me out.”
Bank robbers usually grab the money and run. Not Jeffrey Thomas. Thomas, 35, walked into the Signet bank in Baltimore, Maryland and handed the teller a note demanding money. When police arrived and asked which direction the robber fled, employees pointed to a man counting cash near a teller’s station. It was Thomas, tallying up his take. Unarmed, he was taken into custody without incident.
On several break-ins Ronald Bradley of Dade County, Florida was careful to wear gloves. Unfortunately for him however, they were golf gloves, which leave the fingertips exposed. Needless to say, he left prints at all of the crime scenes, was arrested and served 3 years.
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Suspected purse-snatcher Dreese Delon Waddell of suburban Minneapolis stood on a police lineup so the 76-year-old victim could have a look at him. When police told him to straighten his ball cap with the bill facing forward, so as to be presentable, he protested, “No, I’m gonna leave it on backwards. That’s how it was when I took the purse.”
In 1993, 24-year-old David Bridges stole a television so he could watch a Dallas Cowboys game. He was arrested when he went back to the house to get the remote.
Brandon Lamont Dawson, 20, was captured after police found a pager he’d left in his car following a homicide. They traced it to Dawson, called him on the phone, and asked him to come in and retrieve the device. He was arrested when he walked into the Panama City police station.
Tony Brite appeared in court in Virginia Beach, Virginia like he was supposed to, then left with two companions after his preliminary hearing. Detective Gary Nelson followed Brite outside and watched as the three got into a new Volvo with New York license plates. Suspicious, he ran a check on the plates and was told they belonged to a Mercedes. The Volvo had been reported stolen the day before from a Virginia dealership. Nelson followed the Volvo into a convenience store parking lot across the street from Virginia Beach’s First Precinct, where all three were arrested without incident.
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(This one's more about a dumb victim than the criminal). A convenience store clerk reported to police that a man robbed him, and then made him accompany him when he left the store on foot so he couldn't call the police. He went on to tell the police that, as they walked along, the thief had difficulty counting the cash while holding his gun, so he asked the clerk to hold the gun until he finished counting. The clerk did so, after which he obediently handed the gun back to the robber. Not sure if I'm more amazed by the fact he returned the gun or that he admitted it. (You almost wonder if the clerk held the gun on himself while in possession of it).
In July 1979, in Wandsworth, England, a man burst into a small grocery store, shouting to the cashier, “Give me the money from the till, or I’ll shoot!” Perplexed, the cashier asked, “where’s your gun?” After an awkward silence, the would-be thief admitted he didn’t have one, but if the clerk gave him any trouble, he’d go and get one and come back. After a few moments without a response, the disappointed crook turned and quietly walked out.
Raymond Cuthbert and an accomplice entered a drug store in Vernon, British Columbia and announced that they would be returning in half an hour to rob the place. After they left the store, an employee called the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, who arrested the criminal masterminds when they returned as promised.
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Terry Johnson, of Chicago, Illinois had no trouble identifying the men who burglarized her apartment on August 17, 1981. All she had to do was write down number of the badge one of them was wearing, and the identity number on the fender of the squad car they left in. The two officers—Stephen Webber, 33, and Tyrone Pickens, 32, were dressed in full uniform when they committed the crime and used police equipment. (Well, this is Chicago we’re talking about).
In May 2020, a camera store owner was walking to his Riverside, California shop when 25-year-old Johnny Angel Robles asked if he wanted to buy “several hundred dollars worth of camera equipment”. The store owner said no, but when he got to his shop and noticed signs of a break-in, he quickly called the police. Robles, who was on probation, was still in the area when the squad car arrived. He ran but didn’t get far. In short order, the camera equipment went back on the shelves, and Robles went back to jail.
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Vinny Marks was driving in Napoleonville, Louisiana one night in June 2020, when he began flashing his headlights at the car in front of him. When the car pulled into a parking lot, Marks blocked it in, got out, and flashed a badge at the other driver. One problem: Marks was not a cop. Another problem: the other driver was, and knew Marks wasn’t a cop because he recognized him from a recent domestic incident he investigated. Marks was later charged with false imprisonment and impersonating a police officer.
In November 2021, residents in a Manitoba, Winnipeg neighborhood called police to report a break-in at a vacant house. They also reported a gas leak coming from the same house. Officers went in and found a man and a woman, both in their forties, passed out on the floor next to the furnace they were trying to steal. Officers carried the couple outside, waited until they regained consciousness, then arrested them. A neighbor turned off the gas.
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A man in Brighton, England jumped out of a taxicab and fled without paying—leaving a bag of marijuana behind. Amazingly, he called the cab company about the pot, and was told it had been turned over to the police. So, he immediately hustled on down to the police station to claim his property.
In another case of a criminal being both dumb and unlucky, a thief broke into a home and stole several low value items, but also found a checkbook. He filled out one of the checks, making it payable to him, and forged the signature of the account owner. Visiting the bank that issued the checks, he proceeded to a teller window to cash the check. Against astronomical odds, the teller he picked turned out to be the owner of the checks. Things did not go well for him.
A Tampa, Florida burglar decided to rob a convenience store, not realizing it was open 24 hours a day. He scaled the back of the store, and cut a hole in the roof--through which he fell through and landed on top of the coffee maker—just as a very surprised cop was about to get a cup of coffee.