"I've never personally heard the stories before, but do remember reading some of them in a column in a local weekly in Dallas. The column is written by Chuck Shepherd, PO Box 8306, St. Petersburg, Fla. 33738 or 74777.3206@compuserve.com". So if these are from Mr. Shepherd, thanks!
South Carolina: A man walked into a local police station, dropped a bag of cocaine on the counter, informed the desk sergeant that it was substandard cut, and asked that the person who sold it to him be arrested immediately.
Indiana: A man walked up to a cashier at a grocery store and demanded all the money in the register. When the cashier handed him the loot, he fled--leaving his wallet on the counter.
England: A German "tourist," supposedly on a golf holiday, shows up at customs with his golf bag. While making idle chatter about golf, the customs official realizes that the tourist does not know what a "handicap" is. The customs official asks the tourist to demonstrate his swing, which he does--backward! A substantial amount of narcotics was found in the golf bag.
Arizona: A company called "Guns For Hire" stages gunfights for Western movies, etc. One day, they received a call from a 47-year- old woman, who wanted to have her husband killed. She got 4-1/2 years in jail.
Texas: A man convicted of robbery worked out a deal to pay $9600 in damages rather than serve a prison sentence. For payment, he provided the court a check--a *forged* check. He got 10 years.
(Location Unknown): A man went into a drug store, pulled a gun, announced a robbery, and pulled a Hefty-bag face mask over his head--and realized that he'd forgotten to cut eyeholes in the mask.
(Location Unknown): A man successfully broke into a bank after hours and stole--are you ready for this?--the bank's video camera. While it was recording. Remotely. (That is, the videotape recorder was located elsewhere in the bank, so he didn't get the videotape of himself stealing the camera.)
(Location Unknown): A man successfully broke into a bank's basement through a street-level window, cutting himself up pretty badly in the process. He then realized that (1) he could not get to the money from where he was,(2) he could not climb back out the window through which he had entered, and (3) he was bleeding pretty badly. So he located a phone and dialed "911" for help ...
Virginia: Two men in a pickup truck went to a new-home site to steal a refrigerator. Banging up walls, floors, etc., they snatched a refrigerator from one of the houses, and loaded it onto the pickup. The truck promptly got stuck in the mud, so these brain surgeons decided that the refrigerator was too heavy. Banging up *more* walls, floors, etc., they put the refrigerator BACK into the house, and returned to the pickup truck, only to realize that they locked the keys in the truck--so they abandoned it.
(Location Unknown): A man walked into a Circle-K, put a $20 bill on the counter and asked for change. When the clerk opened the cash drawer, the man pulled a gun and asked for all the cash in the register, which the clerk promptly provided. The man took the cash from the clerk and fled-- leaving the $20 bill on the counter. The total amount of cash he got from the drawer? Fifteen dollars.
From Brian (WINTERB@enigma.rider.edu):
You may remember that several years ago, terrorists bombed the parking garage of the World Trade Center. They had planted the bomb in a rented van parked in the garage. The terrorists were apprehended when one of them returned to the rental agency and attempted to claim the deposit on the van.
I heard on WMMR recently that a man got busted when he tried to set up a drug deal by phone and dialed the wrong number. The person he reached was a police officer in the Narcotics Dept.
A college buddy told me this story about his uncle, who was a security guard at a bank. A thief burst into the bank one day wearing a ski mask and carrying a gun. Aiming his gun at the guard, the thief yelled, FREEZE, MOTHER-STICKERS, THIS IS A FUCK-UP!" For a moment, everyone was silent. Then the snickers started. The guard completely lost it and doubled over laughing. It probably saved his life, because he'd been about to draw his gun. He couldn't have drawn and fired before the thief shot him. The thief ran away and is still at large (ooh, scary). In memory of the event, the bank later put a plaque on the wall engraved Freeze, Mother-Stickers, this is a fuck-up!" My friend swears this is a true story.
From: Jalava Mikko (Mikko.Jalava@TT.Tampere.fi)
Denmark: A chap was breaking into a police car. Windows of the car was darkened, so he was not able to notice one little thing: there was three constables sitting inside the car...
From: Jack Cannon (cannonj@connecti.com)
Texas: Two petty thieves broke into a house and stole a TV,VCR, and a camcorder. When they went home they thought the camcorder was so neat, they decided to start filming one another, complete with names and even a shot of the house they lived in. After getting seriously drunk,they went to bed. The next day they decided to get a little cash so they took their ill-gotten loot to a pawn shop and sold everything. Only one problem, they left the tape in the camcorder! The trial is this summer.
From: "James F. Hooper, M.D." (jhooper9@ns1.onramp.tuscaloosa.al.us)
Alabama: I know of 2 guys who were here in Alabama, finishing their prison terms in a minimum security farm. With 2 weeks left on a 5 years sentence, they decided to have some fun, so they escaped, stole a car, and crossed into Mississippi. They then found a drug store, and used sledge hammers to break in the back wall. After climbing inside, they realized they had entered the sporting goods store next to the drug store, so they broke though the interior wall, got some narcotics, and left; with the alarm screaming. They had to climb back out of the original hole, and were seen by a truck driver, who called the police. The police folled the trail of plaster and brick shards to a McDonalds, where the two sat eating Big Macs, with a bag of narcotics on the table beside them. Remember, they were two weeks from release.....
From: Baloog123@aol.com
Georgia: I was reading your stupid criminals page and I then later looked in my newspaper and read this, I hope you will get a laugh from it. Two men went into a bank. They had ski masks and shotguns. They took $3,000. When they got out of the bank they went across the street to a wal mart still with the ski masks and shotguns and start buying things they felt they needed. They both got 5 years.
From Andy Schanke (schank83@potsdam.edu)
A drunk man tries to break in to a drugstore by forcing the front door open using a crowbar. In broad daylight. While the store is open.
A man goes to his local police department to file a report on his stolen marijuana plants, and is immediately arrested.
From Craig Johnston (cjohnston@kanservu.ca)
I read this in a Shooting Times magazine a couple of years ago.
A man in a trench coat went into a corner store and wandered around suspiciously for a few minutes then approache the attractive young lady at the cash register with a can of soup. When she began ringing in his purchase, he opened the coat and placed his penis on the counter, The clerk grabbed the can of soup and smashed it down on the offending member. (ouch) The moral of the story is: If you are going to flash in a grocery store, Buy Bread.
From Myrlin (myrlin@frii.com)
I just visited your page, and was very amused by the comedy section. While reading your section on the intelligent impaired criminals, I was reminded of a show that airs weekly on my cable system called Dumb Criminals. I will here include two stories from afore mentioned show.
One such story is about a bank robber, who after getting the money from the teller, proceeded to put the money down the front of his pants, not realising that it was a paint bomb. He ran out of the bank, around the corner. At this point, the paint exploded, and he staggered a few steps, the collapsed.
Another act of stupidity was a bank robber who took the money, left the bank, and saw what he thought was a large group of cops. In truth, it was a shooting of the show NYPD Blue. These actors realized what was happening, and held the criminal until the real police arrived.
From chsmith (castor@crosslink.net)
In Richmond, Virginia, a convenience store clerk was killed in a robbery which was recorded on the stores surveillance camera. The murderer was wearing a distinctive plaid coat, and the police executed several search warrants on premises frequented by the suspect without success in locating the coat...until the suspect wore it to court for his arraignment.
From Lynn Flewelling (lynnf@spatial.maine.edu)
At the 1994 annual awards dinner given by the American Assoc. for
Forensic Science, AAFS president Don Harper Mills astounded his
audience in San Diego with the legal complications of a bizarre
death.
Here is the story:
On 03/23/94, the medical examiner viewed the body of Ronald Opus and concluded that he died from a shotgun wound to the head. The decedent had jumped from the top of a ten-story building intending to commit suicide (he left a note indicating his despondency). As he fell past the ninth floor, his life was interrupted by a shotgun blast through a window, which killed him instantly. Neither the shooter nor the decedent was aware that a safety net had been erected at the eighth floor level to protect some window washers and that Opus would not have been able to complete his suicide anyway because of this.
Ordinarily, Dr. Mills continued, a person who sets out to commit suicide ultimately succeeds, even though the mechanism might not be what he intended. That Opus was shot on way to certain death nine stories below probably wouldn't have changed his mode of death from suicide to homicide. But the fact that his suicidal intent would not have been successful caused the medical examiner to feel that he had a homicide on his hands.
The ninth floor room whence the shotgun blast emanated was occupied by an elderly man and his wife. They were arguing and he was threatening her with the shotgun. He was so upset that, when he pulled the trigger, he completely missed his wife and pellets went through the window striking Opus. When one intends to kill subject A, but kills subject B in the attempt, one is guilty of the murder of subject B.
When confronted with the charge, the man and his wife were both adamant that neither knew that the shotgun was loaded. The old man said it was his long standing habit to threaten his wife with the unloaded shotgun. He had no intention to murder her - therefore, the killing of Opus appeared to be an accident. That is, the gun had been accidentally loaded.
The continuing investigation turned up a witness who saw the old couple's son loading the shotgun approximately six weeks prior to the fatal incident. It transpired that the old lady had cut off her son's financial support and the son, knowing the propensity of his father to use the shotgun threateningly, loaded the gun expecting that his father would shoot his mother. The case now becomes murder, on the part of the son for the death of Ronald Opus.
There's a final exquisite twist. Further investigation revealed that the son, one Ronald Opus, had become increasingly despondent over the failure of his attempt to engineer his mother's murder. This led him to jump off the ten-story building on March 23, only to be killed by a shotgun blast through a ninth story window.
The medical examiner closed the case as a suicide.