Dumb Criminal Stories:

After handing the teller a note of demands, Charles Robertson retrieved the money and began to flee. Realizing he had forgotten the note, Robertson rushed back to the bank and grabbed the incriminating evidence. Racing back to his getaway car, he discovered that he had left the keys at the bank. Managing to elude police, Robertson made his way home and told his roommate, whose car he had borrowed, that it had been stolen. Very upset, his roommate called and reported his car stolen. Less than twenty minutes later, Officer Mike Koch spotted the car just a block from the bank. The officer retrieved the keys that had been left at the scene of the crime. When the keys fit the car, the officers went to the address the car's owner had given and arrested Robertson.

In Belmont, New Hampshire a teenager robbed the local convenience store. Getting away with a pocket full of change, the boy walked home. He did not realize, however, that he had holes in both of his pockets. A trail of quarters and dimes led police directly to his house.

Dale Smith ordered another drink but the waitress told him that he had too much to drink and she refused to serve him. Smith became adamant and did not want to leave, so he pulled out a gun and pointed it at the employees. Although the gun turned out only to be a BB gun, the employees believed it to be real. While holding the employees at gunpoint, Smith, who had a prosthetic arm, and which was holding the gun, lost his arm and gun when his prosthetic arm fell off his body.

Two males walked into a Kenwood Stereo Factory Outlet Warehouse in Farmers Branch, Texas, and began looking around the store. One of them slipped into the back warehouse without the clerks noticing. The other one acted as the look-out. The suspect in the warehouse began filling his baggy pants full of speaker wires and stereo equipment. One of the store clerks entered the warehouse and noticed large bulges in the suspect's pockets. He asked him what he was doing. The suspect told the clerk that he was looking for the bathroom. The clerk asked the suspect what he had in his pockets. The suspect stood there with a dazed look on his face then pulled a large package of stereo wires from his pocket. "I was gonna steal this, but if I give it back, can I leave?" The clerks ran the two suspects out of the store. Just before the police arrived, the suspect came back into the store and to ask the clerk's permission to retrieve his car keys. "I left my car keys back there on the shelf where I was stealing that stuff. Can I go get them?" The clerks grabbed a broom and ran the suspect back out of the store.

A police officer went on a call of a breaking and entering of a mobile home. He requested a tracking dog. A trooper arrived with his tracking dog, and the dog quickly picked up the track. The dog followed the track across an open field. The officer had had dealt with the owner of this home many times. He was a likely candidate for the break-in at the nearby home. The handler allowed the dog to enter the residence. The dog quickly ran to the back of the home and stuck his head under a bed in the bedroom furthest back in the home. The officer stuck his stuck the barrel of his shotgun under the bed and said, "Come on out Woody." The reply, from under the bed was, "Woody ain't here."


A trio of brash men wanted for arson in TIfton, Georga accepted a ride to the county line from Thomas County deputy Don Allen. During the drive, Allen heard a "be-on-the-lookout" message on his car radio about three arson suspects, one with long, black hair. "It's a good thing one of you hasn't got long hair," Allen said. That's when one responded that he had just cut his hair, prompting Allen to draw his gun and pull off the road.

A man presented a check at a store made out to a trucking company called Roadway Express.
The clerk said, "Are you the owner or what?" "No," he said. "My first name is Roadway and my last name is Express." To prove it, the customer took out a photo ID, obtained through a private ID service, that listed his name as Roadway Express. He then completed a check-cashing application in that name and wanted his money. He was arrested.

A woman reportedly stole some checks, forged one for $100 and then brazenly presented it to a downtown bank teller to cash. Bad enough in itself, but amazingly, the bank teller happened to be the rightful owner of the checks, city police said.

Ronald Dean Cherry, 52, thought he would "win" some money from a casino without leaving his house. He phoned the Treasure Bay Casino in Biloxi, Mississippi and demanded they deliver $100,000 to his house or he would come to the casino and start shooting people. He then gave them his home address.

One an officer arrested a subject for driving under the influence of alcohol. As the officer brought him into the booking room the subject asked to use the bathroom. He was escorted to the bathroom. When they returned to the booking area, which is video taped, the subject ran ahead of the officer and attempted to do a back flip and landed on his face. He picked himself, looked into the camera, and said, "I must be drunk because I can do that when I'm sober."

Detectives were left in stitches by security camera film of a robbery by two teenagers who forgot to cut eyeholes in their masks. Officers watched in astonishment as the pair repeatedly bumped into one another, demanded money from a shop wall, and failed to notice their newsagent victim dialing 999. They crashed into the shop counter. Finally, in frustration, they made the cardinal mistake of pulling off their masks to get their bearings in front of the security camera.

A woman who escaped from mall security guards with $900 of clothing from a Miami, Florida department store jumped into the parked car of two off-duty police officers in an ill-fated attempt to hide.

A pair of robbers in Germany dubbed Dumb and Dumber left their ID cards and the cash behind after a bank raid.

A Stratford, Ontario woman has learned that recording your crimes in a diary isn't a good idea.
The 37-year-old's entry into her diary detailing plans to steal a vehicle backfired when police who came to her apartment saw the open book. "Guess I'll get ready to see what kind of car I can grab today," police quoted the entry as saying. "Hopefully one with lots of gas and extra cash for gas."

Officers arrested a guy for stabbing his girlfriend . When they got to the station, one read him Miranda and asked him if he understood his rights. He said he did. Then the officer said, "Having these rights in mind, do you wish to make a statement about what happened?"He confidently said," No way, man...I ain't stupid. I ain't making no statement...I mean, I DID STAB HER, but I ain't dumb enough to make a statement about it."

The man who robbed the O'Reilly Auto Parts store may have escaped, but police already have a leg up on him. The bandit and his accomplice grabbed $50 in cash from a manager in the back of the south Kansas City shop, police say. But in the ensuing scuffle with the manager and a store mechanic, the robber lost his prosthetic leg. The robbery apparently was a net loss for the thief, however. The prosthetic device seems to be worth several thousand dollars.

Keith Atkins, 22, was arrested after he attempted to rob an off-duty deputy sheriff, police said

A woman was married in an exclusive, designer bridal gown. The ensemble was certainly beautiful, comprising an Ivory brocade 'riding style' dress and matching white silk top hat.
She, and her new husband, were so proud, they sent a wedding picture to be published in their local newspaper. A local shop owner took one look at the picture and spluttered "That's my dress".
From an alley, a burglar climbed to the roof of a convenience store. Thinking it would be a good idea to break in through the roof, he cut a hole for him to enter through. He botched the job, however, and fell through the ceiling on top of a coffee pot. The man had not realized that the store was opened twenty-four hours a day. A police officer was standing at the pot fixing a cup of coffee.

A 25-year-old Medford man pretending to be a 17-year-old high school student blew his cover last week when a suspicious teacher spotted him drinking beer at a pizza parlor after a basketball game last week.

A suspect was run through the LEIN system for a warrant check. The suspect had an outstanding warrant. Upon hearing the officers discuss these findings, the suspect then shouted out, "Wait a minute that wasn't me, this is my ID!" as he handed the officer another identication card. Again the suspect was entered into the patient database. The officers again entered the new information into the LEIN system. Wouldn't you know it, this time the suspects information came back with several outstanding warrants. With no other ID's in his pocket, this time the suspect could do nothing but wait to be transported to jail.

Brainy Burglar commits theft in police station
On November 7, 2000, Officers of the Ste. Genevieve Police Department were interviewing a suspect in several break-ins and two car thefts. An officer watched him. The officer had to come back into the office from the lobby to talk with another officer. Right after the officer left the lobby, the suspect broke into the display case and attempted to steal a one-hitter out of the case. What the suspect did not know, that there was an officer in the police department still watching him and witnessed the whole attempted theft.

A gate officer for Tulsa Housing Authority was at one of the projects when a gentleman drove up. As he was checking him in, he had a bad vibe on the subject, so he asked him pointblank if he had anything illegal on his person. e said, "just this" and handed him a large bag of marijuana.

A guy was on trial for nicking a mobile phone from a handbag. Apparently,the owner of the phone realized it was missing, rang it and asked who was speaking. The thief foolishly told the woman his name. He was arrested five minutes later.

After placing the suspect in my car and completing a quick search of the suspect vehicle, an officer drove north on US-1 with my suspect to the county jail, while the tow truck with the suspect's car headed south. The suspect then asked him if anything would be disturbed in the car, and he said, "no, it will be secured until you pay the tow bill." He then replied in a relieved tone, "Good. I mean, the DUI I can handle, I'm just glad you didn't find all the cocaine in my car."
Ironically, the fact he made such a stupid admission to the officer was used as evidence in his impairment for DUI!

A few months ago, an off-duty police officer was driving eastbound on Ramon Road in Palm Springs, California, approaching Gene Autry Trail. On the south side of the road, he saw a hand-painted sign that read "Meth for sale." In other words, some idiot was actually selling dope and advertising that fact on the sign the PSNTF investigator later seized. It now proudly resides at the PSPD station.

SAN JOSE - An inmate at Elmwood Correctional Facility in Milpitas broke out of a medium-security dorm at dawn last week, officials said, only to hop the wrong fence and end up next door at the women's jail.



A man stole a truck, but noticed it was running low on fuel about five miles up Bold Camp RD. He pulled into the nearby driveway at 9622 Bold Camp Road and saw a man in the yard. He yelled to the stranger, "My truck's almost out of gas. Can I borrow some?" One thought was running through the mind of the man in the yard: "Hey! That's my truck!"

A somewhat intoxicated man parked a stolen U-Haul at a West Phoenix Circle K. The manager of the U-Haul facility from which the truck was stolen spotted the vehicle and confronted the man as he left the store. The thief tossed him a set of about 40 truck keys, also stolen from the U-Haul station, and jumped the nearest fence. He was immediately chased by an angry guard dog and jumped the next fence. This time, he landed in the training yard of a martial arts school. In 5 seconds flat, the man was knocked down and pinned to the ground by a student and one of the instructors. The police were called and the man was taken into custody by a couple of amused police officers.

A couple months ago, the police got a call from a family in Tacoma saying that someone had broken into their house - and was still stuck in the bottom of the chimney. The burgler said that "it was getting tight as I went down," and was eventually wedged at the bottom.

Several days after an alarm was installed, lot attendants of a shopping center saw robbers walking toward the booth and they hit the alarm. Two police officers were dispatched to the lot. Driving separate cars, we came in from different directions and caught the two knife wielding robbers. While putting a suspect in my car I became aware of a vehicle driving around the back area of the lot. Wondering out loud I said, "I wonder who that is?"
The suspect with me said, " Oh, that's our driver."

A Lubbock, Texas, man admitted to creating an identity theft and money-laundering scheme using the name of the Three Stooges fictional law firm, Dewy Cheetum and Howe.
The joke became his undoing, however, when a bank executive became suspicious.
Patrick Penker pleaded guilty Monday to stealing $1 million from casinos and credit card companies over the past four years.
He used fake identities to get more than 100 lines of credit from credit card companies and casinos.
One of his fake names turned out to be a knuckle-headed idea, however. Penker, under the alias Alvin Cheatham, incorporated a company called DC&H Inc., in Nevada, and used various combinations of the name Dewey, Cheatham and Howe.

Edmiston turned around to go after the black Honda CRX.
The driver flicked on his left turn signal, indicating he was going to turn left into the Highland Recreational Complex.
But instead, he steered to the right.
"I think he was trying to lose me," Edmiston said later.
It was a brilliantly evasive move, except for one minor detail.
The driver turned right into the Largo Police Department parking lot.

An accused car thief in Woodbury committed the cardinal sin of thievery last week by returning to the scene of the crime.
But 20-year-old Derrick Lee Spillman of Minneapolis put his own unique twist on the blunder -- he returned to the scene after he had been arrested and the car had been returned.
Posing as his "identical twin" brother.
Asking for the return of the .38-caliber handgun he had left in the car.

When an officer approached the man and asked why he was walking around naked, the man reportedly said that he felt like it so he just did it. An officer writing the man a ticket for indecent exposure then asked the man what he did for a living, and he allegedly said he grew marijuana.
According to a police report, the man then asked for the officer's help in harvesting the crop. The officer said he was too lazy to help but offered to go look at the man's operation, and the naked man agreed
The man's wife told police she had never been inside her husband's shed, but that was where her husband did his artwork and practiced with his yo-yo.

Dorothy Marie Livingston has been accused of passing a fake $1 million bill at a bank -- and the teller, apparently, didn't see anything strange about the transaction.

Norwegian thieves smashed an electronic store's window to steal a video camera not realising it was wired up to a separate recorder.
It is reported they smiled into the £1,200 digital camera at the shop in Tromso before taking it.
Police are searching for the duo with close-up footage of the whole incident.

Gaynor showed up at Baltimore's police headquarters promptly at 9 a.m. yesterday to fill out an application to join the city force, officials said. Then, he came across a simple question: Have you ever committed a crime?
Gaynor checked "yes," police said - and a few hours later, he was spending the night with the type of people he once hoped to arrest.
City police were told in vivid detail that he had carjacked a woman and then robbed five people in two incidents this year in Texas, said Maj. George Klein of the city's warrant apprehension task force.

- Police arrested a Ukrainian cat burglar after he became stuck in a garbage chute, a newspaper reported on Tuesday.
The suspect and an accomplice had abseiled down the side of a building to enter neighbours' flats at night, but on Monday a watchman spotted them.
He attempted to escape by using the chute to get down to the basement, but became stuck on the sixth floor where the chute narrowed to less than half a square metre.
It took a rescue team with jackhammers and metal shears four hours to open a hole in the reinforced concrete wall to extract the suspect.

A suspected bank robber had all three items with him in his vehicle as he tried to come into Canada through the Coutts Alberta border crossing Sunday.
The 39-year-old suspect was carrying a .380-calibre handgun, the wig and clothing, and the holdup note written on the back of a bank cheque.

When I was Luzerne County DA (in Pennsylvania) three county inmates decided to escape by using sheets to go out a second floor hall window. The inmates assumed the window went out to the street and they would walk away. That was their first mistake. Their second mistake was sending the heavy inmate first, he weighed over 200 pounds and the sheet broke. He landed on his butt....in a courtyard inside the prison where guards were sitting on break. One of the inmates was due to be released in a few months. All three were charged with escape, a felony, and got three additional years in prison.

It concerns an acquaintance of mine who is not too big in the brain department, being known to many as "Goofy." Anyway, after trying numerous times to obtain a driving permit, he finally got his license. As he was driving home from the motor registry he went to put a BeeGees tape into the console but ended up dropping it onto the passenger side floor. As he reached down for it he forgot about steering and ended up plowing through the front brick fence of a house.
Quickly scanning the area he saw no one, and promptly drove away, thinking he got away scot free. Needless to say he was quite surprised when a NSW
Police officer arrived at his front door around an hour later, with my acquaintance's bumper bar, license plate attached, under his arm

A man who authorities said unwittingly boasted about the quality of his marijuana to a police officer over an open telephone line remained in Cumberland County Prison on Tuesday under $25,000 bail.
After a few minutes, apparently still unaware that an officer was on the line, Smeltz picked up the phone and tried to make a call, authorities said. The officer said hello and engaged Smeltz in a conversation.
"Randy told officers to listen to this and inhaled deeply, stating this was good marijuana," police said in a news release about the case.

Maj. Randy Schalburg said Gabriel John Lajoye, 25, recently ran into an acquaintance who is a Carmel police officer.
Schalburg said Lajoye, of Indianapolis, allegedly told the officer that if he came across a large amount of cocaine during a traffic stop or in the police evidence room to get some of it, and that Lajoye could sell it out of state.
The officer arrived in uniform and was in his patrol car, Schalburg said.
"This guy pulls up, gets in the police car, gives our officer a couple hundred bucks for the coke and tells him he will pay the rest when he gets done selling it," Schalburg said. "He said, 'Thanks,' hopped out of the officer's car and, needless to say, was arrested."

Three teenagers in Chile tried to rob a bus without realizing one of their mothers was sitting a few rows back.
When she saw the driver threatened with knives and a baseball bat, she shouted at her son to behave himself and get off.


The thieves made off with what appeared to be six 1125ml bottles of gin, bourbon and vodka. However, there will be no hangovers in store for the offenders as the bottles were filled with water and cold tea and used only for display

Jack Schreiner, 30, of 85-02 89th Ave., allegedly stopped at the Chase Manhattan Bank branch at 84-01 Jamaica Ave. in Woodhaven on Monday and passed a note to a teller that read, "This is a holdup. I have a gun."
He demanded $50s and $100s, and the teller gave him $7,791, cops said. The robber wore a baseball cap to shield his face and apparently took care not to leave any fingerprints he demanded his note back before he fled.
On Friday, Schreiner returned to the branch and attempted to open a savings account and a checking account, with deposits of $150 in each, police said.
A teller recognized him from the video footage of the holdup, and asked the teller who had been robbed to look at him, police said. That teller identified Schreiner as the thief.
The police were called

Deputies say Jason Frank Bennett planned to burglarize an Eckerd on Little Road Tuesday night by staying in the drugstore's bathroom while it closed.
But he couldn't find a way out, deputies said.
Bennett called 911 saying he had been locked in the store.
The deputy then spotted Bennett inside
Police say that two men accused of peddling drugs to Belton students made it easy for detectives who wanted a phone number to set up an undercover purchase.
They allegedly handed out business cards.

I work plain clothes enforcing alcoholic beverage laws. I was in a bar trying to find the owner. I was standing at the bar and asked to speak to the owner. I stated in a loud voice so as to be heard over the jukebox & patrons, "I am a Police Officer and need to speak to the owner." I also had my badge out to identify myself. Approximately five feet away was a man who was obviously intoxicated. After I had stated who I was, the drunk man staggered over to me and asked, "Would you like to buy a joint?"
I was still holding my badge in my hand when he asked this, so I had another Officer hook him up and take him to the jail. Now you know why they call it dope.

A Sarnia, Ontario man, who gave a whole new meaning to the game of hide and seek when he hid in a manure pile to try and escape a police tracking dog, was sentenced to nine months in jail.
Court was told Cleve Lincoln Jackson, 26, was found hiding under a pile of cow manure in a farmer's field.

Hunger won out over intelligence on New Year's Day when two crooks were lured back into the fast-food shop they'd just tried to rob by a clerk promising them free sandwiches.
The clerk, who asked to remain anonymous, said two men came into his Subway outles and ordered two sandwiches.
But while they were being prepared, one of the men pulled a knife and demanded cash.
Instead of handing over the money, the clerk locked the till and set off an alarm while wrestling the knife away from the man. The pair bolted from the store but the clerk ran after them, shouting that he would give them free food if they came back.
Police arrived not long afterward and arrested the pair as they patiently waited for their sandwiches.

Ernest Michaelson, 45, was discovered behind the United Bank on Saturday, moments after it had just been robbed. Police said Michaelson was counting the stolen money when police arrived and was quickly arrested.

Upon arriving I noticed that the sergeant was talking to two males and two females. Their vehicle was parked in a visitors parking spot. The subjects had stolen beach furniture from a private club about 200 yards north on the beach and carried it to our police department parking lot to load it into their vehicle. Subjects were arrested and charged with theft.

An armed robber who planned to steal cash from a Prince William County bowling alley was caught Monday after he held up a delivery-truck driver with a sawed-off shotgun and ran off with a bag full of mop heads, police said.