STUPID PEOPLE IN THE NEWS
Seattle: When a man attempted to siphon gasoline from a motorhome parked on a
Seattle street, he got much more than he bargained for. Police arrived at the scene to
find an ill man curled up next to a motorhome near spilled sewage. A police
spokesman said that the man admitted to trying to steal gasoline and plugged his hose into
the motorhome's sewage tank by mistake. The owner of the vehicle declined to press
charges, saying that it was the best laugh he'd ever had.
Tennessee: A man successfully broke into a bank after hours and stole the bank's
video camera. Since it was recording remotely, (that is, the videotape recorder was
located elsewhere in the bank), he didn't get the videotape of himself stealing the
camera.
Louisiana: A man walked into a Circle-K, put a $20 bill on the counter and asked for
change. When the clerk opened the cash drawer, the man pulled a gun and asked for
all the cash in the register, which the clerk promptly provided. The man took the cash
from the clerk and fled, leaving the $20 bill on the counter. The total amount of
cash he got from the drawer? $15 (If someone points a gun at you and gives you
money, was a crime committed?)
Florida: (Uh, pardon our English) A thief burst into the bank one day wearing
a ski mask and carrying a gun. Aiming his gun at the guard, the thief yelled,
FREEZE, MOTHER-STICKERS, THIS IS A FxxK-UP!" For a moment, everyone was silent.
Then the snickers started. The guard completely lost it and doubled over laughing.
It probably saved his life, because he'd been about to draw his gun. He couldn't have
drawn and fired before the thief got him. The thief ran away and is still at large. In
memory of the event, the bank later put a plaque on the wall engraved, "Freeze,
Mother-Stickers, this is a fxxk-up!"
Arkansas: Seems this guy wanted some beer pretty badly. He decided that he'd
just throw a cinder block through a liquor store window, grab some booze, and run.
So he lifted the cinder block and heaved it over his head at the window. The cinder block
bounced back and hit the would-be thief on the head, knocking him unconscious. Seems the
liquor store window was made of Plexiglas. The whole event was caught on videotape.
New York: As a female shopper exited a convenience store, a man grabbed her purse
and ran. The clerk called 911 immediately and the woman was able to give them a
detailed description of the snatcher. Within minutes, the police had apprehended the
snatcher. They put him in the cruiser and drove back to the store. The thief
was then taken out of the car and told to stand there for a positive ID. To which he
replied "Yes Officer ...that's her. That's the lady I stole the purse from."
Newark: A woman was reporting her car as stolen, and mentioned that there was a car
phone in it. The policeman taking the report called the phone, and told the guy that
answered that he had read the ad in the newspaper and wanted to buy the car. They arranged
to meet, and the thief was arrested.
Ann Arbor: The Ann Arbor News crime column reported that a man walked into a Burger
King in Ypsilanti, Michigan at 7:50am, flashed a gun and demanded cash. The clerk
turned him down because he said he couldn't open the cash register without a food order.
When the man ordered onion rings, the clerk said they weren't available for breakfast. The
man, frustrated, walked away.
Kentucky: Two men tried to pull the front off a cash machine by running a chain from
the machine to the bumper of their pickup truck. Instead of pulling the front panel
off the machine, though, they pulled the bumper off their truck. Scared, they left the
scene and drove home ...with the chain still attached to the machine. With their bumper
still attached to the chain. With their vehicle's license plate still attached to the
bumper.
AT&T fired President John Walter after nine months, saying he lacked intellectual
leadership." He received a $26 million severance package. Perhaps it's not Walter
who's lacking intelligence.
Police in Oakland, California spent two hours attempting to subdue a gunman who had
barricaded himself inside his home. After firing ten tear gas canisters, officers
discovered that the man was standing beside them, shouting, "Please come out and give
yourself up!"
An Illinois man pretending to have a gun kidnapped a motorist and forced him to drive to
two different automated teller machines. The kidnapper then proceeded to withdraw money
from his own bank accounts.
A 9-year-old boy in Manassas, Virginia received a one-day suspension under his elementary
school's drug policy last week - for Certs! Joey Hoeffer allegedly told a classmate that
the mints would make him "jump higher."
A student in Belle, West Virginia was suspended for three days for giving a classmate a
cough drop. School principal Forest Mann reiterated the school's
"zero-tolerance" policy (not to be confused with the
"zero-intelligence" policy).
Fire investigators on Maui have determined the cause of a blaze that destroyed a $127,000
home last month - a short in the homeowner's newly installed fire prevention alarm system.
"This is even worse than last year," said the distraught homeowner, "when
someone broke in and stole my new security system."
A man walked in to a Topeka, Kansas Kwik Shop, and asked for all the money in the cash
drawer. Apparently the take was too small, so he tied up the store clerk and worked the
counter himself for three hours until police showed up and grabbed him.
In Medford, Oregon, a 27-year-old jobless man with an MBA blamed his college degree for
his murder of three people. "There are too many business grads out there," he
said. "If I had chosen another field, all this may not have happened."
Police in Los Angeles had good luck with a robbery suspect who just couldn't control
himself during a lineup. When detectives asked each man in the lineup to repeat the words,
"Give me all your money or I'll shoot," the man shouted, "That's not what I
said!"
A bank robber in Virginia Beach got a nasty surprise when a dye pack designed to mark
stolen money exploded in his Fruit-of-the-Looms. The robber apparently stuffed the loot
down the front of his pants as he was running out the door. "He was seen hopping and
jumping around," said police spokesman Mike Carey, "with an explosion taking
place inside his pants." Police have the man's charred trousers in custody.
A man spoke frantically into the phone, "My wife is pregnant and her contractions
are only two minutes apart!" "Is this her first child?" the doctor asked.
"No, you idiot!" the man shouted. "This is her husband!"
In Modesto, CA, Steven Richard King was arrested for trying to hold up a Bank of America
branch without a weapon. King used a thumb and a finger to simulate a gun, but
unfortunately, he failed to keep his hand in his pocket.
I am a medical student currently doing a rotation in toxicology at the poison
control center. Today, this woman called in very upset because she caught her little
daughter eating ants. I quickly reassured her that the ants are not harmful and there
would be no need to bring her daughter into the hospital. She calmed down, and at the end
of the conversation happened to mention that she gave her daughter some ant poison to eat
in order to kill the ants. I told her that she better bring her daughter in to the ER
right away.
Seems that a year ago, some Boeing employees on the
field decided to steal a life raft from one of the 747s. They were successful in getting
it out of the plant and home. When they took it for a float on the Stilliguamish River,
they were quite surprised by a Coast Guard helicopter homing in on the emergency locator
that is activated when the raft is inflated. They are no longer employed there.
I worked for a while at a Wal-Mart store, selling
sporting goods. As an employee of Wal-Mart you are sometimes required to make store-wide
pages, e.g.,"I have a customer in hardware who needs assistance at the paint
counter." One night a tentative female voice came over the intercom system with the
(I kid you not) following message: "I have a customer by the balls in toys who needs
assistance."
A police officer had a perfect hiding place for
watching for speeders. But one day, everyone was under the speed limit, the officer found
the problem: a 10 year old boy was standing on the side of the road with a huge hand
painted sign which said "RADAR TRAP AHEAD." A little more investigative work led
the officer to the boy's accomplice, another boy about 100 yards beyond the radar trap
with a sign reading "TIPS" and a bucket at his feet, full of change.
Police in Wichita, Kansas, arrested a 22-year-old man at an airport hotel after he tried
to pass two (counterfeit) $16 bills.
A man in Johannesberg, South Africa, shot his 49-year-old friend in the face, seriously
wounding him, while the two practiced shooting beer cans off each other's head.
A company trying to continue its five-year perfect safety record showed its workers a film
aimed at encouraging the use of safety goggles on the job. According to Industrial
Machinery News, the film's depiction of gory industrial accidents was so graphic that
twenty-five workers suffered minor injuries in their rush to leave the screening room.
Thirteen others fainted, and one man required seven stitches after he cut his head falling
off a chair while watching the film.
The Chico, California, City Council enacted a ban on nuclear weapons, setting a $500 fine
for anyone detonating one within city limits.
A bus carrying five passengers was hit by a car in St. Louis, but by the time police
arrived on the scene, fourteen pedestrians had boarded the bus and had begun to complain
of whiplash injuries and back pain.
Swedish business consultant Ulf af Trolle labored 13 years on a book about Swedish
economic solutions. He took the 250-page manuscript to be copied, only to have it reduced
to 50,000 strips of paper in seconds when a worker confused the copier with the shredder.
A convict broke out of jail in Washington D.C., then a few days later accompanied his
girlfriend to her trial for robbery. At lunch, he went out for a sandwich. She needed to
see him, and thus had him paged. Police officers recognized his name and arrested him as
he returned to the courthouse in a car he had stolen over the lunch hour.
Police in Radnor, Pennsylvania, interrogated a suspect by placing a metal colander on his
head and connecting it with wires to a photocopy machine. The message "He's
lying" was placed in the copier, and police pressed the copy button each time they
thought the suspect wasn't telling the truth. Believing the "lie detector" was
working, the suspect confessed.
When two service station attendants in Ionia, Michigan, refused to hand over the cash to
an intoxicated robber, the man threatened to call the police. They still refused, so the
robber called the police and was arrested.
A Los Angeles man who later said he was "tired of walking," stole a steamroller
and led police on a 5 mph chase until an officer stepped aboard and brought the vehicle to
a stop.
PHILADELPHIA, Pa. - A woman is suing the pharmacy
that sold her a popular contraceptive jelly - because she ate the stuff on toast and got
pregnant anyway. And, incredibly, many legal experts are saying she's got an excellent
chance of collecting! "The woman is a complete idiot," said one attorney who
asked that we not use his name. "How bright can you be if you think eating a vaginal
gel will prevent conception? "But certain aspects of the case involve truth in
labeling and false advertising issues. She may not collect but she'll make a lot of noise
and trouble. People are down on lawyers anyway. They think we waste time and money on
frivolous lawsuits. This isn't going to help our public relations any." A spokesman
for the unnamed mom-and-pop drugstore says he's shocked and angry that such a case could
ever be taken seriously. "All she has to do is open the box and read the
directions," says the spokesman. "Next thing you know someone will come after us
because they couldn't stick things together with their toothpaste. "I can just
imagine some moron saying: 'It's paste, isn't it? Why can't I glue these papers onto my
bulletin board?' " But attorneys for Mrs. Chyton say she was swindled and lied to by
implication and they intend to make the pharmacy pay $500,000 for the hardship the woman
will have to endure. "It says right on it 'jelly,'" says Mrs. Chyton, a former
model who was once a cheerleader for a popular professional basketball team. "And
they kept it on the shelf just two aisles from the food section. I know, now, that the
directions say it should be used vaginally with a condom. "But who has time to sit
around reading directions these days especially when you're sexually aroused? "The
company should call it something else and the pharmacy shouldn't sell it without telling
each and every customer who buys it that eating it won't prevent you from getting
pregnant." As bizarre as it sounds, the pharmacy could wind up losing the lawsuit.
"It's hard for businesses to avoid troublesome lawsuits," said another attorney.
"With the courts bending over backwards to please consumer groups, the temper of the
times is perfect for these crackpots to bring legal action against businesses - even a
moronic legal action like this."
True Story From San Francisco, California:
It seems a man, wanting to rob a downtown Bank of America, walked into the branch
and wrote "This iz a stikkup. Put all your muny in this bag." While standing in
line, waiting to give his note to the teller, he began to worry that someone had seen him
write the note and might call the police before he reached the teller window. So he left
the Bank of America and crossed the street to Wells Fargo. After waiting a few minutes in
line, he handed his note to the Wells Fargo teller. She read it and, surmising from his
spelling errors that he was not the brightest light in the harbor, told him that she could
not accept his stick up note because it was written on a Bank of America deposit slip and
that he would either have to fill out a Wells Fargo deposit slip or go back to Bank of
America. Looking somewhat defeated, the man said "OK" and left the Wells Fargo.
The Wells Fargo teller then called the police who arrested the man a few minutes later, as
he was waiting in line back at the Bank of America.
A Queensland (England) driver, 63, (with his significant other, 64) crashed into the
side of a 600 meter long wheat train at a level crossing. His Volvo became wedged between
the two last carraiges. It was dragged sideways by the oblivious train for 1 km, before
crashing into a trackside pylon. The crash dislodged the car from the train. This happened
just beyond an unfenced bridge with a 10 metre drop. The car spun off the train several
times and came to rest just short of another gully precipice. Miraculously both passengers
suffered only minor brusies, and freed themselves from the car. Our nominee, however, set
off back down the RR track to seek help. He slipped off the bridge, and fell to his death.
Miami FL - Motorist Alvin Sims didn't realize his truck had narrowly missed crashing
into a utility pole. Worse yet, he had no idea that his passenger was DEAD! Police pulled
him over for DWI. His girlfriend, Donna Richardson, was hanging her head out the window of
the truck, vomiting, when the truck nicked the pole. She died instantly, and the truck
lost a right mirror as well. Sims told police he was looking for a hospital, as his
passenger seemed "very sick" (This is like last year's German nominees who
fractured each others skulls driving oppositely thru a thick fog with their respective
heads out the window!)
A Renton WA (Seattle area) man tried probably his first attempt at robbery. His target
was H&J Leather & Firearms, a gunshop. It was filled with customers at the time,
in a state where a substantial fraction of the adult population are licensed to carry
concealed firearms. In addition, to enter the shop, he had to step around a marked King
City Police patrol car parked at the entrance. The uniformed officer was standing at the
counter. Upon seeing the officer, the robber announced loudly a hold-up. He then
fired a few wild shots. The officer, and a clerk. promptly returned fire....removing him
from the gene pool. Several other customers also drew their guns, but didn't fire.
No one else was hurt.
Moscow, Russia: A drunk security guard wondered if his bullet proof vest was also knife
proof. He asked his partner to stab his vest. The vest didn't work against the knife. He
died of a stab wound to the heart.
Derrick Richards was charged with 3rd-Degree Murder in Minneapolis, after the shooting
death of his beloved cousin, Ken. According to police, Derreck suggested a game of Russian
Roulette. Instead of using a 6 - shot revolver, he used a semiautomatic pistol. [Shoulda
tried it on himself, first!]
[Engineering Special Award?] Kia Motors admit there's a strange defect in their 1997
Sportage sports utility vehicle. Tapping the car in the right spot will disengage its
security system and unlock the doors.......without even blowing its horn. KIA says they
will not issue a recall, since "the problem is not a 'safety issue'"
Wyoming: A man was arrested on burglary charges. He turned up to be someone with a
rather long "Rap Sheet". Somehow, he managed to escape from the poice while
handcuffed. As a token of his freedom & to add insult to the police department, the
man mailed the cuffs back to the police. As we were all taught in school, he included his
return address on the package!!
Pasadena MD - Darwin Coates, 21, shoved a .22 caliber handgun into the waistband of his
pants. It accidentally went off and shot him in the groin. He then went to his
girlfriend's place to call for help. While waiting for the ambulance, a friend, Gregory
Johnson, 32, showed up. He took the tiny pistol and stuck it in his back pocket. It went
off again and shot him in the buttock. Both men required extensive medical treatment.
Fortunately the police were able to recover the gun without shooting themselves.
The Univ. of Minn is seeking more "specialists" to work on its 3-yr.,
$390.000, program to set an "oder emissions rating system" for regulating the
state's 35,000 animal feedlots. According to a Minneapolis Star Tribune story, having
judges, or govt. officials, go sniff the feedlot apparently would give insufficient due
process of law. A panel of sniffers are developing objective standards on the types of
odors and their strength. Some 35 nosy people are already employed, and have begun
sniffing the nearly-200 chemical components of cow and pig manure in order to formally
categorize them in the state stench test.
In rural Carbon County, PA, a group of men were drinking beer and discharging firearms
from the rear deck of a home owned Irving Michaels, age 27. The men were firing at a
raccoon that was wandering by, but the beer apparently impaired their aim and, despite of
the estimated 35 shots the group fired, the animal escaped into a 3 foot diameter drainage
pipe some 100 feet away from Mr. Michaels deck. Determined to terminate the animal, Mr.
Michaels retrieved a can of gasoline and poured some down the pipe, intending to smoke the
animal out. After several unsuccessful attempts to ignite the fuel, Michaels emptied the
entire 5 gallon fuel can down the pipe and tried to ignite it again, to no avail. Not one
to admit defeat by wildlife, the determined Mr. Michaels proceeded to slide feet-first
approximately 15 feet down the sloping pipe to toss the match. The subsequent rapidly
expanding fireball propelled Mr. Michaels back the way he had come, though at a much
higher rate of speed. He exited the angled pipe "like a Polaris missile leaves a
submarine," according to witness Joseph McFadden, 31. Mr. Michaels was launched
directly over his own home, right over the heads of his astonished friends, onto his front
lawn. In all, he traveled over 200 feet through the air. "There was a Doppler Effect
to his scream as he flew over us," McFadden reported, "Followed by a loud
thud.". Amazingly, he suffered only minor injuries. "It was actually pretty
cool," Michaels said, "Like when they shoot someone out of a cannon at the
circus. I'd do it again if I was sure I wouldn't get hurt."
Some not too smart gangsters decide to rob a bank. After several days of planning they
agree on the best plan. The next day they get to work and are able to get into the bank
relatively easy thanks to their planning. Once inside the main vault they discover one
wall is full of safety deposit boxes and start to work on them immediately. They drill and
pry open the first box only to find a small container of vanilla pudding inside. The Head
Gangster says "Okay, well, at least we can eat it." So they eat the pudding.
They drill and pry open up the second Safety deposit box and there sits another pudding.
They decide to devour it too. Determined to find the goods, the process continues for the
rest of the night until all the safety deposit boxes have been opened. They didn't find
any money or jewelry in any of the boxes. Disappointed the head gangster said "Well,
at least they left something for us to eat" The next day, while listening to the news
they hear: "Yesterday the largest sperm bank in the USA was robbed by an unknown
group of people - Submitted by Brett Moffatt
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