Stupid Criminals
- 45 year-old Amy Brasher
was arrested in San Antonio, Texas, after a mechanic reported to police
that 18 packages of marijuana were packed in the engine compartment of
the car which she had brought to the mechanic for an oil change. According
to the police, Brasher later said that she didn't realize that the mechanic
would have to raise the hood to change the oil.
- Portsmouth, R.l. Police
charged Gregory Rosa, 25, with a string of vending machine robberies in
January when he (1) fled from police inexplicably when they spotted him
loitering around a vending machine and (2) later tried to post his $400
bail in coins.
- Karen Lee Joachimmi, 20,
was arrested in Lake City, Florida for robbery of a Howard Johnson's motel.
She was armed with only an electric chain saw, which was not plugged in.
- The Ann Arbor News crime
column reported that a man walked into a Burger King in Ypsilanti, Michigan
at 7:50am, 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.
The man, frustrated, walk away.
- David Posman, 33, was arrested
recently in Providence, R.I., after allegedly knocking out an armored car
driver and stealing the closest four bags of money. It turned out they
contained $800 in PENNIES, weighed 30 pounds each, and slowed him to a
stagger during his getaway so that police officers easily jumped him from
behind.
- The Belgium news agency,
Belga, reported in November 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 the same time." Police then arrested him for breaking
into the school.
- Drug-possession defendant
Christopher Johns, on trial in March in Pontiac, Michigan, said he had
been searched without a warrant. The prosecutor said the officer didn't
need a warrant because of a "bulge" in Christopher's jacket could
have been a gun. Nonsense, said Christopher, who happened to be wearing
the same jacket that day in court. He handed it over so the judge could
see it. The judge discovered a packet of cocaine in the pocket and laughed
so hard he required a five-minute recess to compose himself.
- Dave so-and-so of Anniston,
Alabama, was injured recently after he attempted to replace a tubelike
fuse in his Chevy pickup with a 22-caliber rifle bullet (used because it
was a perfect fit). However, when electricity heated the bullet, it wet
off and shot him in the knee.
- Police in Wichita, Kansas,
arrested a 22-year-old man at an airport hotel after he tried to pass two
(counterfeit) $16 bills.
- A man in Johannesberg, South
Africa, shot his 49-year-old friend in the face, seriously wounding him,
while the two practiced shooting beer cans off each other's head.
- A company trying to continue
its five-year perfect safety record showed its workers a film aimed at
encouraging the use of safety goggles on the job. According to Industrial
Machinery News, the film's depiction of gory industrial accidents was so
graphic that twenty-five workers suffered minor injuries in their rush
to leave the screening room. Thirteen others fainted, and one man required
seven stitches after he cut his head falling off a chair while watching
the film.
- The Chico, California, City
Council enacted a ban on nuclear weapons, setting a $500 fine for anyone
detonating one within city limits.
- A bus carrying five passengers
was hit by a car in St. Louis, but by the time police arrived on the scene,
fourteen pedestrians had boarded the bus and had begun to complain of whiplash
injuries and back pain.
- Swedish business consultant
Ulf af Trolle labored 13 years on a book about Swedish economic solutions.
He took the 250-page manuscript to be copied, only to have it reduced to
50,000 strips of paper in seconds when a worker confused the copier with
the shredder.
- A convict broke out of jail
in Washington D.C., then a few days later accompanied his girlfriend to
her trial for robbery. At lunch, he went out for a sandwich. She needed
to see him, and thus had him paged. Police officers recognized his name
and arrested him as he returned to the courthouse in a car he had stolen
over the lunch hour.
- Police in Radnor, Pennsylvania,
interrogated a suspect by placing a metal colander on his head and connecting
it with wires to a photocopy machine. The message "He's lying"
was placed in the copier, and police pressed the copy button each time
they thought the suspect wasn't telling the truth. Believing the "lie
detector" was working, the suspect confessed.
- 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 still refused, so the
robber called the police and was arrested.
- A Los Angeles man who later
said he was "tired of walking," stole a steamroller and led police
on a 5 mph chase until an officer stepped aboard and brought the vehicle
to a stop.