Dumb Crooks
Even more proof that crime doesn’t pay. (This article was first published in Uncle John’s Triumphant 20th Anniversary Bathroom Reader .)
Next Time, Take off the Blinders
“In November 2006, Derek Pierson tried to rob a Shreveport, Louisiana, convenience store. He walked in, looked directly at the clerk and told her to ‘give (the money) up.’ What he didn’t notice was that a member of an armed robbery task force—wearing a shirt marked ‘Shreveport Police’ on the front and back as well as ‘Police’ on the sleeves—was standing in an aisle 10 feet away. The agent, who had stopped by on a routine check, pulled his gun and arrested Pierson without incident. The officer described him as looking ‘like a deer caught in the headlights.’ ‘I guess I picked the wrong place,’ Pierson told police. He faces up to 10 years in prison.”
—Shreveport Times
Talking Trash
“Minutes after getting a report of two men trying to break into a parking meter, police began looking for suspects. It wasn’t hard. Witnesses say one of the suspects wore an all-black outfit, while the other was dressed in a bathrobe. Police located one likely suspect near the scene of the crime. They began searching the neighborhood for a second suspect when they were attracted to a garbage dumpster by the sound of a ringing cell phone. When officers lifted the lid of the bin, they found the second man inside. Both suspects were taken into custody without incident.”
—Halifax Daily News
Ignoring the Rule of Thumb
“A robbery at a Git-N-Go Convenience Store on the south side of Des Moines was called off for lack of convincing theatrics. ‘Well, I could tell he didn’t have a gun,’ said Terry Cook, a clerk at the store. ‘I knew it was his finger. I could see his thumb sticking out of his coat pocket.’ The would-be robber, who acted tough and even inserted a harsh expletive in his demand for cash, wanted to argue. ‘It is a gun,’ he told Cook. ‘No it isn’t,’ Cook replied. The frustrated suspect left the store but paused a moment in the parking lot, perhaps to go over in his mind the argument he’d just lost. He left the scene just before police arrived.”
—DribbleGlass.com
Thief-Tracking Made Easier
“Kurt Husfeldt, 46, and two others were arrested in Lindenhurst, New York, in January 2007 in possession of 14 stolen electronic devices that they apparently assumed were cell phones. However, they were global positioning devices from a nearby municipal facility, and police had followed their signals to Husfeldt’s home.”
—News of the Weird
Googled
“Kevin Fitzpatrick, 32, was arrested in connection with a 2005 bank robbery after leaving a trail of cyberclues. Police said Fitzpatrick was staying with a woman at the time of the Norwich robbery and spent a great deal of time on her computer. He borrowed her car the day of the robbery and returned with a lot of cash, claiming he won it at a casino. Police say Fitzpatrick walked into a Liberty Bank branch and handed a teller a note demanding money. A week later, the woman friend contacted police, saying she recognized Fitzpatrick from a surveillance photo on a newspaper Web site. A police search of the computer revealed numerous searches concerning bank robberies, including one for ‘Norwich bank robbery’ and another for ‘how to rob a bank.’”
—Associated Press
Banks For Telling Me
“A would-be robber was arrested after he tried to hold up his local town hall, mistaking it for a bank, Austrian police said. Wearing a mask and waving a toy pistol, the unemployed man burst into the town hall in the village of Poggersdorf and shouted, ‘Hold-up, holdup!’ The building has a sign indicating there is an ATM on the outside wall, police said. He realized his mistake when an employee explained to him where he was, and then fled to a nearby woods. The 34-year-old man was arrested when he came back later to pick up his motorbike, which he had parked outside the town hall.”
—Reuters
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