Dumb Criminals!

[Sojourner]

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.

[Sojourner]

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.

[Sojourner]

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.

[Sojourner]

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.

[Sojourner]

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.

[Cloudwalker]

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.

[Sojourner]

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.

[Sojourner]

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.

[Sojourner]

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?”

[Sojourner]

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.

[Sojourner]

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.

[tango]

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.

[Sojourner]

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.

[ProDeo]

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....

[Sojourner]

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.