Why Crooks Get Caught

During my years working as a news reporter, before the invisible wall went up between “us and them,” I used to be allowed to read the daily police logs. And once in a while I picked up a few unexpected gems that made very funny news stories.

Among the most memorable stories: The detective who was in such a hurry to participate in a police raid on a suspect’s home that he accidentally shot himself in the foot while un-holstering his weapon, the girl who claimed she came face-to-face with a “bigfoot” in the family barn and the district judge who witnessed a large cigar-shaped UFO floating over his house.

Hilarious police and court stories are still making headlines. To brighten your day I offer a collection of some of the best in my collection, pulled from various news publications around the world. They make us wonder, however, if the general mentality of the human race has been in decline.

Police in Iran arrested a man who walked into a bank and began snatching money right out of people’s hands and from open tills. When he appeared in court the man explained that he had paid a fake sorcerer five million rials for a set of spells that he was promised would make him invisible. All he had to do was tie the spells, written on paper, to his arm and nobody could see him. The sorcerer convinced him that the spells would work and that nobody would see him while he freely robbed banks.

Of all the strange things offered for sale on the Internet, David Charles, 21, of Marion County, Indiana, advertised the stolen brains from dead mental patients. Police said he had about 60 brains in his collection, all packed in jars and obviously preserved in formaldehyde. Police said he stole them from a warehouse at the Indiana Medical History Museum. The brains were put in storage following autopsies performed on mental patients who died in the 1890s. Amazingly, people were buying them.

Joseph Smolinsky, 36, of Port Richey, Florida, was jailed on a charge of assault after his girlfriend said he threw a banana at her. When police answered the woman’s 911 call, Smolinsky said the woman threw the banana at him. Deputies said they believed the woman’s story because there was a reddish mark on her face where she said the banana struck her. The alleged weapon was found in a smashed state in the garbage. The story did not say whether police confiscated the banana as evidence.

When Dee Ann Sanders, 53, attempted to rob a Grand Rapids bank tellers said they had to ask her if she was actually committing a robbery. She had approached the window with a note that read: “I need $2,500 for my bills and grandkids. Keep hands on counter. Sorry and thank you.” The story did not mention a weapon so Sanders was probably not armed. She apparently got out of the bank with a little over $1,000 in cash. She was sentenced in federal district court to three and a half years in prison.

Police in San Luis Obispo, California, sent the bomb squad to Chorro Street near Pismo Street after someone reported a suspicious object wrapped in black electrical tape lying on the street. Officers arrived, closed the streets in a one-block radius and brought in the bomb task force robot. The robot removed the object via a special containment vessel and carried it to a secure location. When examined, it was discovered that the tape was wrapped around a dildo.