When I was at Fort Bragg there was a pizza guy who came around the barracks every evening. He’d yell out “pizza man” down the halls and anyone who wanted a pizza would come out and get one.
One night he gets rolled somewhere near, or maybe even right in front of, our building and the people involved took his pizzas and whatever cash he had on him and ran. He came into the building and talked to the sergeant on duty of the floor who then knocked on the doors. One female soldier came out dressed in all black and munching on a pizza.
We recently had an airman leave work (in Security Forces [military cop] on base, Federal property), go to his on-base dorm to change, then rob a credit union w/ a gun and go back to his dorm. How much more Federal of a crime can you commit? I guess he could have also kidnapped someone, that would have been even Feddier. He’s even in his uniform in the mug shot.
“Are the robber’s fingerprints in the system?”
“Yeah, you could say that.” :smack:
When I was living in Portland I always parked my car in a campus-owned parking garage. When I went to leave one morning I unlocked the door, got in, started it, and then noticed a piece of paper on the floor of the passenger footwell. I picked it up and saw that it was a receipt that had been in my glove box. I opened the glove box (which never had much in it) and noticed that the small notebook I used as a maintenance log was gone.
Whoever broke in had jimmied the lock (nothing was actually broken) and entered the car just to steal a 3”x5” notebook. They even locked the car when they left. Later I mentioned this to a police officer and he mentioned a lot of people keep emergency cash in little books like that in the glove box so the thief was probably hoping to find some money tucked away. I guess that’s as good an explanation as any, although whoever it was left the owner’s manual, a factory-supplied service record book, and an envelope full of warranty info for the tires, belts, and such. Had they spent an extra 30 second searching they would have discovered a tool bag with ~$200 worth of tools tucked under the back seat.
A few months back someone broke into my wife’s minivan while it was parked in the driveway. Unlike my car, her van has an alarm so our guess is she mistakenly left it unlocked. They took an umbrella, a pair of sunglasses that was sitting in the ashtray, a cellphone charging cord, a phone-to-stereo audio cord, and a tire pressure gauge. All together maybe $20 worth of stuff as all of it was cheap K Mart junk. She also keeps tools in the back of the car as well as jumper cables and other standard car things. They left all that stuff and instead took a cheap umbrella and some bits of wire.
Personally witnessed (for a certain value of “witnessed”):
I learned a few weeks ago that a family member was the newest guest at the local county jail. Apparently this guy had done something stupid last year and was sentenced to 10 days on a work crew. Well, Mr. Dumbshit only did 8 days, blowing off the rest in the apparent belief that the county wouldn’t care. Being the type of person who believes traffic regulations are merely suggestions and those suggestions don’t apply to him, it was only a matter of time before he would be pulled over. When that time inevitably came, the cop ran his license, found out about the truncated work crew attendance, and promptly arrested him. AIUI he had to do the full ten days of his original sentence—this time in jail.
I got hit with 30 hours of community service for walking across railroad tracks when the gates were down. Walking across, on foot, past a commuter train that was pulling away from tracks, next to an older lady who also got ticketed. Granted, there was a train on the same line that hit a bus a few years ago, so people were a little twitchy about that. I can see that.
I should have found something to do in the courthouse or something, but the fastest and easiest way to do it was work Saturdays with the local police. The cop was a little prickly but he also could tell the difference between a dirtbag and someone who may have just screwed up, so he gave the non-dirtbags nicer jobs when he could.
One Saturday we were standing around waiting to be released and we talk about the big crimes we’ve committed like walking across the tracks and speeding or whatnot. One guy is on the work detail because he kept getting caught driving without a license. If memory serves correctly, his car was also impounded. We all finally get released, he walks out to the parking lot, gets into the drivers seat of his buddy’s car, and squeals away.
Another real estate one: An agent with us had a part-time job at a bank. She was buying a condo through our office when she left our office.
A month later I’m going through the MLS activity for our office, and I find out the condo she was buying has been reported closed, and we are the selling office. Odd, since we did not get a notice or our commission check.
I call the closing attorney, who informs me that she came to the closing and picked up our commission check. I ask him to call me when his escrow account checking statement comes in.
I tell the broker, who calls the agent and asks what is going on with the closing. The agent pauses and then says “I don’t work through your office anymore.”
He points out the deal was made through our office, we are due a commission, and the closing check has to be cashed through our office and where the hell is it? She says she doesn’t have it.
Next day, the closing attorney calls me. It turns out the agent had closed the deal, added her last name to the escrow check, and gotten a person at her bank to cash it for cash. The attorney is so angry I can picture the steam coming out of his ears. “She fucked with my escrow account! SHE FUCKED WITH MY ESCROW ACCOUNT!!!”
The attorney had to issue a new check. We reported the agent to the commission, and she lost her license. The story got out and no real estate office would hire her anyway. The bank fired her and the person who cashed the check for cash.
I left my car unlocked in a shopping center parking lot while I ran into a store to pick up something. When I came out, missing from the passenger seat was the small shopping bag from an exclusive, expensive downtown store. It contained … a fecal sample jar that I was going to drop off at the hospital lab.
Another time, I was recovering in the hospital after emergency hernia surgery, and the senior nurse told me about an incident with some of her student nurses. The hospital had a dorm for nursing students, located about a block away, through a wooded path alongside the river. One night, as they were walking down this path to go back to the dorm, 2 of her young nursing students were confronted by a man who jumped out of the bushes and flashed them. Now these students were doing their rotation in the hernia surgery ward, and had spent most of their day shaving & disinfecting mens’ groins prepping for hernia surgery. That flasher certainly didn’t get the response he wanted – one nurse just said “I’m off duty.” and the other just laughed.
Your “Get him girls!” is missing a comma! Upon first reading, I totally took this to mean “Help that guy acquire several girlfriends!” – either because his behavior was so pathetic and the coach felt sorry for him, or because his “package” was so impressive the coach thought various girls should enjoy the privilege of the guy’s company.
A friend who is a bank teller has been held up twice in her career, both times by the same person!
She was held up and the guy was caught and convicted. After serving his sentence, he returned to the same bank, same teller, and tried again on the same day he was released. He didn’t even bother to change clothes (they had video of him being released).
Oops! I suppose it would.
Actually, they tacked him in the street and kept him “subdued” until the cops arrived. The girls told me he quite very relieved to see the cops. I’m sure he still has some 30 year old scars from their soccer cleats.
Not so much dumb as ironic. When I was in seminary one of the required courses was ethics. One of the textbooks for the course was Situation Ethics by Joseph Fletcher. I left my copy in the classroom one afternoon and when I came back to get it, it was gone.
This was a term I was unfamiliar with until now. Wish I could say the same.
I didn’t witness the crime but the aftermath. About 10-am one Saturday I went to my favorite model railroad hobby shop. Parked in front of the store were two cop cars. Since the shop was in a strip mall with a liquor store next door, I thought nothing of it but on entering the shop, from way way people were standing around in knots talking quietly, it was apparent that’s where the cops were. Before I got an answer to my “What’s going on?” a young guy in handcuffs was frog-marched out of the office along with a backpack being carried by one of the officers.
Turned out that at one of the hobby shops about two miles away a guy dropped his wife off at the back about 7-am to do the books. When he passed by the front of the store, he noticed the big window was smashed. Concerned for his wife he stopped and stuck his head through the empty frame which is when the stupid burglar alarm finally went off. The police and owner were called and the only thing taken was a G-scale (large) trainset on display. The owner called all of the railroad hobby shops in the vicinity with a description.
Sure enough, shortly after my shop opened at 9, in walks this kid who hauls out a loose G-scale trainset out of his backpack and asks if the shop would like to buy it. “Sure. Lemme take it in the back to show the boss so’s he can set a price for it.”
Kid waited for more than twenty minutes before the cops showed up.
I bought the CRC Handbook of Engineering Tables while I was at electronics school. It was the full book with physics and chemistry. Huge. Weighed at least 12 lbs. I was planning ahead for engineering school. Which never happened.
I never used it. It took up closet space for 15 years. I donated it to the physics Dept at my local university. They set it up (on a stand) in one of their labs. A Nice reference book that all the students can use.
Someone stole it within a week.
I always wondered why. A book like that has very little practical use.
Pretty sure this is the CRC that I had. 2670 pages. Except mine was from 1979.
We were about to graduate from this 2 year course with an Associate degree in Electronics. The teacher said we could order the book at a discount. At least half the graduating class ordered one. We had no idea how big it was or how specialized a book it is.
I had the 1986 or the 1987 CRC Handbook for Chemistry and Physics. Used it a lot in college. Moved that sucker to grad school with me. Never moved it again.
When I was in college, I had a hunk-of-junk 1979 Datsun 210 parked on the street. It had cheap “sheepskin” seat covers that I bought at a head shop over the seats. Lacking a clock or radio, I’d duct-taped a $1 drug-store digital watch to the dashboard. I had about a buck fifty in loose change in the cup holders.
Some jackass stole the seat covers and watch, and left the change. :smack:
Someone broke into my apartment and stole (among other things) a box made of cherry wood that probably looked like it contained jewelry. Instead it contained the ashes of my late dog Zoe.
Zoe was always full of tricks when she was alive. We like to imagine the surprised faces of the thieves opening the box. We call it “Zoe’s last prank.”
