Awesomely stupid criminals and some of my former neigbours

Posted on | March 5, 2008 | Comments Off

I trawl through the news looking for stories that make me feel like a genius. I’m still congested and feel like crap so this called for a MONDO search of intensely stupid stories. Hey, I’m hanging onto my sanity by my bitty claws here folks – I’ll do anything to buck up my depleted moral.

Top of the list comes the man who claimed his date committed suicide by “stabbing herself 31 times”. Oh yes, I completely believe you pal. Uh huh, sounds plausible to me. This has to rank as the all time dumbest cover story invented by mankind. I suppose the poor woman also dumped herself into a remote woods after killing herself too!

Right up there with Mr. Genius, is a couple who robbed a convenience store. Nothing out of the realms of regular criminal activity there, until you find out the girlfriend filled out an entry form for a store contest, while robbing the store. Name, address and phone number were helpfully written down by Girl Wonder while the love of her life grabbed the money. Not sure who is dumber, the woman for supplying the information that made it so easy for the police, or the man for not thinking “hey that might not be such a good idea”. I can just imagine the look on the poor store clerk’s face as she/he watched the woman fill the entry form out. Don’t you wish they had this on video?

One of my personal favourites took place in Mexico City at an elementary school. Vandals broke into the school and trashed the place. I guess they were so proud of their criminal records they brought their mug shots to school with them to photocopy them. They left one of the copies behind. Didn’t take long for the police to track them down, once they had a good photo to work with.

One lesson that all would be criminals should learn is “always pay your bills”. That lesson was learned by an individual who was running a full scale drug lab out of a hotel room. When he refused to pay his room bill, the hotel clerk simply called the cops to evict the individual. Imagine their surprise when they opened the room door and found the drug lab in full speed! Making a fortune off of illicit drug sales and too damned cheap and stupid to pay a hotel bill.

Another tip for would be crooks – if you are going to commit a crime do not take your parole officer’s business card or your parole/probation cards. The newspapers are rife with tales of crooks who drop these items at the scene of the crime. For that matter, don’t take any ID with you at all. Right up there with dropping your probation ID, are crooks who loose their wallets at the crime scene.

I read a good one a few years ago, in a related vein, about a robber who used his truck to crash into a store front. His plan was to crash into it, dash in, grab the goods and take off. Can you see the little flaw in this plan? Number 1 flaw – you are going to be driving around with huge back end damage, thereby making it easier to spot you. Number 2 – you are going to leave a lot of paint and broken glass behind, thereby making it easier to match your vehicle to the crime. And Number 3 – you risk leaving your license plate behind – which is precisely what happened to this criminal mastermind. Actually, he left his entire back bumper behind, with the license plate attached. I’m sure the local police had no problems tracking him down, once they stopped laughing.

About 15 years ago, I lived on the second floor of an old 4 story building in downtown Hamilton, Ontario. We overlooked a gas station and a small alley way ran along the building. Bit narrow, but perfectly drivable. I was lying on my couch on a cold Friday night around 9pm when the entire building shook. Seriously, there was an awful WHUMP and the building shook. I got up and looked out the window and looked down. Someone had managed to drive into our building. Must have been doing one hell of a clip along the alleyway to shake the building. Soon the apartment resembled a gopher farm, heads popping out of every window and balcony. The car hit with such force it actually dislodged a bunch of bricks. Our driving master revved the engine for a minute trying to go forward, but damned if the apartment building wouldn’t get out of the way. The car door opened up and the driver pulled himself out of the car, beer cans tumbled to the ground. He staggered towards the wall to look at what he’d hit – I’m not sure he understood he had run into a largish, unmovable building. Beer cans scattered all over the place as he moved. He stood for a few moments and stared at his crushed front end. He staggered back to the car, with us hooting and hollering abuse at him, and he tried to back up. He backed into a pole, pulled forward, bumped the apartment again, backed up, bump, forward, bump until he managed to get free of the obstacles. He then continued to drive down the alley towards the street.

Well, of course we had called the police. It was fun to report “yea hi, a drunk driver just ran into my apartment building”. The 911 operator didn’t miss a beat, but I did detect a slight snicker from her when I told her the driver doesn’t seem to understand the building is not going to move out of his way. When the police arrived, we were still hanging out our windows, we could see the driver weaving down another alley way. One of the tenants shouted down to the cops “hey just follow the trail of car parts and you’ll find him”. Someone else shouted “He went that away”. We directed the cops towards him and off they went to corral one drunk idiot.

It wasn’t really a bad neigbourhood – it is unfortunate that it is the area that streetwalkers and pimps etc decided would be lucrative – a hard working class neigbourhood that had seen more prosperous days, with a very busy main road running through it. Every couple of weeks there would be an “Idiot’s Roundup” – police would sweep into the area, in force, about 2 or 3 in the morning and do mass arrests of the local hookers, drug dealers and all sorts of folks you never, ever want to meet. Everyone in the building would lean out their windows and watch. Some of the tenants would actually shout out to police where someone was hiding. “Hey COP! Down the third alley. Yea, sneaking into a backyard.” The police would raise their baton to the voice in a salute and off he/she would trot to capture the ‘dude’. It was very entertaining.

I’ll tell you more of the neigbourhood another day – laundry day was always an effort in sanity survival – don’t ever, ever cross a hooker who decides she wants YOUR dryer. The infamous riot that took place after the Hamilton Tiger Cats football team won the Grey Cup, occurred just down the road, and it was a full out riot. John’s parked in front of the big Catholic Cathedral, harassing anything that moved. The slimy landlord that kept cutting off the water in an attempt to force us out. Oh the stories I could tell.

I’ll also tell you about the next building I lived in – the RCMP, local cops, drug dogs, colossally stupid man who fought with his girlfriend and trashed the apartment. The threat to the police, the broken door, the broken police car, the rocking police paddy wagon, cop humour and more entertainment. Oh and I almost forgot about the man who used to keep meat in his closet and got upset with us for complaining about it. He claimed we just didn’t understand his culture – we countered he just didn’t understand refrigeration. And this was quite a nice building – honest!

Or I could tell you about night shift at the local 7-eleven Store. Tales to make your hair stand on end and why I can’t look at aftershave and lysol without thinking 7up mixer.

Then again, there was the time, when I lived in Kingston, Ontario as a student and I gave my rent cheque to the burglar who was in my super’s apartment. And the mugshots of people I knew from high school that I spotted while I was “downtown” looking through endless mugshot books ……..

… maybe another day.

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