Uncle John's Presents Book of the Dumb 2 (28 page)

Or so they thought. What they had actually done was rip out the antenna for the Caddie's XM satellite radio service. So while the Caddie could no longer get dozens of channels of CD-quality musical entertainment beamed to it from the cold, hard vacuum of space, it
could
still rat on Bud and Jan. Which is what it did and which is how police tracked down Bud and Jan later that same day.

David Clutts, executive manager of the dealership from which the Caddie was stolen, summed up Bud and Jan's problem to the local newspaper: “They're like most people who commit stupid crimes. They didn't know what they were doing.”

Source:
The Examiner
(Eastern Jackson County, MO)

 

R
ob” had decided he's had enough of the life
of a free man. He was broke, unable to find work, and to top it all off, abandoned by his wife. Depressed, he decided to end it all. Not by
dying,
but by robbing a bank in Yakima, Washington. See, back in California, Rob had three armed robbery convictions; he figured another one would trigger Washington state's “Three Strikes” law and then he would have to be sentenced to life in prison. While life in prison is generally understood
not
to be a big bundle of fun, Rob figured it was free room and board; at the very least, he wouldn't have to worry about what his social schedule would be like for the next several decades. So Rob went into that Yakima bank, robbed it, then took a seat, and waited for the cops to arrive. He figured he was a lifer for sure.

Guess again, Rob! It seems that thanks to a bizarre quirk in the way Washington's Three Strikes law works, Rob's California convictions only counted as one strike against him in Washington state. So even though Rob the Robber had robbed on four separate occasions (that we know about), in the eyes of the great state of Washington, they only counted as two strikes. So Rob's felonious gesture wasn't good enough for a lifetime of prison food and surly guards.

He had to content himself with a consolation prize—er,
sentence
—of “just” eight and a half years. But maybe if he's lucky the state will deny him parole! We can all hope.

Source: Associated Press

 

D
own in the Dallas, Texas, suburb of Garland,
members of two gangs of intemperate rapscallions—let's call them “The Ruffians” and “The Cads”—started taunting each other with rather nasty strings of messages on Internet chat rooms associated with their music heroes. Given the shocking profanity of the messages, we can't actually recount them here, so allow us to offer this re-enactment with language from a more gentle and civilized time:

Ruffian Member:
I say! It is well known among people of class and distinction that the members of The Cads are no more than errant knaves!

Cad Member:
Why, you base spouter of vile untruths! I shall strike you about the pate!

Ruffian Member:
Indeed you shall not, for I and my band of good fellows shall strike blows upon you, and cause you much shame and discomfort!

Cad Member:
'Tis not so, you conniving wretch! Name but a time and place, and The Cads shall be there and you shall receive your richly deserved thrashing!

And so it came to pass that The Ruffians and The Cads
did
decide to have a rumble, and used the Internet to pass along information about time and place. This came in handily after
the brawl when members of the Garland Police Department started looking online for information about the incident. Their investigations led them to the chat rooms where the gang members were sniping at each other; as some of the gang members had signed in with their own names, they were reasonably easy to track down.

Garland police eventually nabbed nearly three dozen people—most high school students—who were suspected of being present at the brawl, and charged them with a variety of offenses including riot participation and serious bodily injury, a felony that can get you up to twenty years. Additional evidence was supplied through a videotape one gang member made of the brawl. If you've gone through the trouble of announcing your brawl online, then why
not
tape it? As a bonus, you can stream the video afterwards!

Intemperate rapscallions!

Source: Associated Press

 

I
n the first
Book of the Dumb,
we recounted the tale
of a man who thought it would be fun to pretend to be a cop and pull people over on the road—and maybe it was, until he pulled over an off-duty cop who proceeded to show him what an actual cop thinks about the fake kind.

Sadly, “Josh,” of Hobe Sound, Florida, must not have been given a copy of the first book for a birthday or major gift-giving holiday, because he tried pulling the same stunt; one night off of I-95, Josh flashed the realistic-looking lights of his car to pull over a female driver. The bad news for him was that she happened to be an off-duty Palm Beach Sheriff's deputy; what was even worse news for Josh was that the female deputy had a male deputy friend following her in another car. So suddenly, there were three people with badges—but two of them had real badges, and Josh wasn't either of those two.

What gave Josh away? Well, for one thing, the lights on his vehicle weren't correct—a little detail that few outside law enforcement would have picked up. However, even the least aware people might have suspected Josh's badge was fake, as in addition to identifying him as “Miami Vice” (which if nothing else meant he was out of his jurisdiction), it also proclaimed him to be an inspector of the female reproductive system (although of course the badge described it rather less
politely). His badge number: “69.” Yeah, that's not a badge that exactly screams credibility.

What happens when you play at being a cop with real cops? They practice a little arrestitude on you: Josh was charged with impersonating an officer.

Source:
TheSmokingGun.com
.
TCPalm.com
, The
Palm Beach Post

 

T
here are three criminals in our story,
and the three of them ganged up on some poor fellow at the Solingen-Ohligs train stop in Düsseldorf, Germany, and forced the schmoe to give them his wallet. From said wallet they extracted cash. In a token gesture (of what, we don't know), one of thieves returned the empty wallet to the fellow they just robbed, perhaps to show that they weren't
complete
thieving jerks, or the better for him to fill it up again to be robbed at a later time (it's the miscreant's ATM!). A better strategy would have just been to take the wallet and hightail it out of there.

Why, do you ask? Well, because when the robber with a heart of gold handed the victim a wallet, it wasn't the victim's wallet—it was the robber's. That lovely billfold contained within it the robber's identification, just the kind of information the police love to have when tracking down a criminal! The thief was then quickly rounded up by the cops, who, after all, knew where he lived. His pals were picked up later. (No word if the victim actually ever got the right wallet back.) So thieves, keep your wallet on you or that might be the last mugging you'll ever pull.

Source: Ananova

 

Y
es, that's right. You knocked over that bank. Very nice.
However, if you're then spending like a swell an hour later, how does that look? Right, it looks like someone might try to get some reward money out of turning you in.

“Albert” held up a Wilmington, North Carolina, branch of the Bank of America. The robbery went as robberies do, and Albert exited the bank shortly after 4 p.m.
Just a few minutes later,
Albert pops up at a nearby bar, carrying a duffel bag, a bus ticket, and a bunch of $100 bills, that he uses to buy drinks, make big tips, and call a whole lot of attention to himself. Al's profligacy may have been a significant contributing factor to someone ratting him out to the cops a few hours later, once footage from the robbery made the rounds in the local media.

By the time the cops rolled into the bar, Albert had lit out—but later, the cops got a call about a home invasion, and it was our pal Al. Apparently he'd tried to placate the people whose house he had broken into by announcing “I've got money”; strangely, the people confronted with a stranger in their home were not impressed. Al then tried to hoof away, but he didn't get very far. He was charged with armed robbery and first-degree burglary and held under $100,000 bail. He should have just spent a quiet evening at home.

Source: Associated Press, Wilmington Police Department

 

Y
eah, okay, we'll admit it,
who
doesn't
like a grand, irrational gesture of defiance every once in a while? But as the Bible and The Byrds have told us, to everything there is a season: a time to laugh, a time to cry, a time to sow, a time to reap, a time to act foolishly and a time to wear a suit, stand in front of a judge and admit your foolishness in a grave and dignified manner. All right, they don't say that last bit
exactly,
but they
should.

“Lee” wasn't buying the dignified matter strategy. In front of Connecticut judge Patrick Carroll, he was supposed to plead guilty to armed robbery and conspiracy to commit robbery as part of a plea bargain. Judge Carroll told Lee to address him as “Sir,” and Lee, to his credit, did. But rather
not
to his credit, he did it in the context of saying, “Sir? Kiss my [insert salty expression for posterior here], sir!” and then dropping his pants and waving his cheeks at the now-affronted jurist.

It'll be a great story to tell in the prison yard, for sure. Judge Carroll made sure that Lee would get an opportunity to try it out as soon as possible: he slapped Lee with a six-month prison term for contempt of court. Oh, and that plea bargain? Yeah, Lee could forget about
that
too. In all, Lee's few seconds of cheek-flapping will probably cost him an extra five and a half years. It's not what we would call a good trade.

Source: Associated Press

 

K
evin” caught a break
that day he was pulled over for a traffic stop with drugs in his car. He was arrested; but then, a search warrant executed at his house found eight guns he, as a former felon, shouldn't have had and a meth lab. And you ask, so how is this lucky? Well, Kevin was held during all this without actually being charged with anything—and since he hadn't been charged within a specified period of time, he was sprung from jail before charges could be filed (which they later were—making Kevin a wanted man). The average crook would have seen this as divine providence and gotten out of Dodge before the authorities could catch up to him.

Not Kevin. He not only didn't run, he actually showed up at the courthouse about a week later. Why? Well, remember that traffic stop that was the start of his woes? Those charges were what he had come to settle. Perhaps he thought that if he could get those charges taken care of or dismissed, all the other stuff would go away too.

The sheriff's deputy recognized Kevin, who was arrested and charged this time with manufacturing methamphetamines and having a weapon under disability (which means having guns when you're not supposed to). Kevin shouldn't count on divine providence bailing him out a second time.

Source:
Times-Recorder
(Zanesville, OH)

 

V
ince” probably figured that no one was home
in that nice Jackson, Mississippi, house he planned to burgle. After all, there was no car in the driveway. No car at the house means everyone's gone, right?

Vince parked his own car in the driveway, went up to the front door, kicked it, and peered through the crack the kicks had opened. At which point he saw the owner of the house, a professional security guard, pointing and shooting a .38-caliber revolver at him three times. So much for the whole “no cars = no people in the house” theory.

It seems that being shot at and hit at least once turned his mind rather quickly from larceny to velocity. In all the confusion and gunfire, Vince fled so quickly that he quite forgot his still-running car parked in the driveway, a beautiful gift to the cops, for sure.

Later Vince showed up at a local hospital, claiming he'd just been walking down the street minding his own business when a bullet came out of nowhere and whacked his finger. The cops, on the case after the homeowner called in the breaking and entering, chose not to buy the “mysterious bullet” theory and issued a warrant for his arrest. That's what you get for sticking your nose—and head, and hands—into houses it doesn't belong. Truly, a lesson for us all.

Source:
Clarion-Ledger
(Jackson, MS)

 

A
nyone who steals is definitely taking their chances.
As the saying goes, there are no atheists in foxholes, so we bet that thieves can be a pretty pious lot at times too. Muttering a quick prayer right before a job might sway the Supreme Being to overlook a criminal act or two. So we can't for the life of us figure out why these two dolts decided to make the Man Upstairs angry. If you've ever read the Old Testament, you know you wouldn't like him when he's angry.