Dumb Crooks Roundup

BETTER HOLD ON TO THOSE PANTIES...THEY COULD COME IN HANDY


A repeat offender got a life sentence for a small-time shoplifting caper in
Jupiter, Florida. The man stole $49.73 worth of boxer shorts, panties, a sports
bra and some cigarette lighters from a Wal-Mart store. His fatal mistake was
flashing a knife at a security guard -- which turned his petty theft into a
felony. Since the man had been released from prison less than three years ago,
Florida's repeat offender law required the judge to send him away for life
without the possibility of parole.


INSULT TO INJURY


An unemployed sanitation worker in Miami is also facing life in prison -- for
shooting himself in the privates. In a drunken stupor, the man reached for a
pistol he had hidden in his pants. The gun went off, and the bullet struck the
man in the... nuggets. At first, he told officers someone else had shot him, but
changed his story after paramedics found the shell casing in his underwear. Cops
ruled the shooting accidental, but the man was charged with a concealed weapons
violation and possession of a firearm by a convicted felon. The maximum sentence
for those crimes is normally 15 years but, because the man has a record as a
violent career criminal, a Miami prosecutor is asking the judge to send him away
for life. The man's public defender calls that "ridiculous," and says the man's
injury is punishment enough.


HEY -- WHAT ABOUT MY ACCOMPLICE?


A luckless thief pleaded guilty to the attempted robbery of a convenience
store in Detroit Lakes, Minnesota. The thief told a passerby he was going to rob
the store, gave the man a dollar, and asked him to go inside and buy a scarf to
hide his identity during the crime. The bystander took the dollar, went inside
the store... and called the police.


OOPS! OF THE WEEK


A thief in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina has learned a valuable lesson: if
you're going to steal restaurant equipment, be sure to remove pictures of the
original owner's grandchildren before setting the stuff up in your own
restaurant. John Ubbing, owner of Giovanni's Pizzeria in Calabash, North
Carolina, lost an assortment of pizza-making equipment in a March robbery. A
refrigerator stolen in the heist later turned up inside the Myrtle Beach
restaurant -- where cops found pictures of Ubbing's grandchildren still stuck to
the side of it. The owner of the second restaurant was arrested.


I TOLDJA COMPUTERS WERE RUINING AMERICA!


During a high school break-in in Plymouth, North Carolina, two burglars found
a camera in one of the classrooms and amused themselves by taking pictures of
each other committing the crime. When they couldn't figure out how to get the
film out of the camera, they concluded it wasn't loaded and left it behind. The
men apparently didn't realize they'd been fooling around with a digital camera
that stores pictures on a computer disk. Investigators downloaded the snapshots
to a computer and got a complete photographic record of the break-in. The
suspects were quickly arrested.


I THOUGHT THIS'D BE THE LAST PLACE THEY'D LOOK...!


A Nevada fugitive wanted on fraud charges was arrested in Connecticut after he
blew his cover by applying for a job... as a police officer. The Connecticut
cops discovered the man's fugitive status during a standard background check. He
had passed both the written and agility tests before being found out. Police
called the man in to headquarters under the guise of getting his fingerprints,
and served him with an arrest warrant instead.


AND FINALLY...


Admitting his 0-4 records are not impressive "on paper," trainers announced
that Lucky, a German shepherd guide dog for the blind in Wuppertal, Germany, is
available for his fifth owner. Lucky led his first owner in front of a bus,
killing him. Then he led the second off the end of a pier, drowning him. He
nudged his third owner off a railway platform in front of an express train,
killing him. And he walked his fourth owner into heavy traffic, abandoning him
to be hit and killed. The new owner won't be told of Lucky's record -- the
trainers say the dog might sense nervousness "and do something silly."