Run Like A Kakapo Out of Control

January 30, 2009 2 Comments

foiledbyfolly

Two prisoners in New Zealand are facing fresh charges after their attempt to flee from police escort outside a courthouse ended in complete failure.

Interestingly enough, the best writeup of this wacky crime tale comes from the extremely snarky AP story:

WELLINGTON, New Zealand – It was less than a Great Escape. Two New Zealand prisoners who were handcuffed together as they fled a courthouse foiled their own getaway when they ran to opposite sides of a light pole, slammed into each other and fell to the ground. Jailers nabbed them as they struggled to their feet.

Their escapade on Wednesday was captured by a CCTV camera at Hastings District Court on New Zealand’s North Island. The footage shows the two men trying to make a break for it — but apparently forgetting they were joined at the wrist.

Hastings police Senior Sgt. Dave Greig said one inmate, Regan Reti, 20, had just been sent to prison for more than two years after being convicted of assault.

The other inmate, Tiranara White, 21, was in custody for allegedly stealing a car and violating parole.

“As they were being led from the Hastings police cells … they made a bolt for freedom,” Greig told The Associated Press on Thursday.

“They fell over and they were sprayed with pepper spray. But they got up and ran out of the court onto the street, across the road to a car park,” he said. “That’s where they met the pole — it was all over, rover.”

The pair were back in court Thursday, facing fresh charges of escaping from custody.

Police said Reti, who pleaded guilty to the charge, had a month added to his prison term. White did not enter a plea. He will remain in police custody while a psychiatric evaluation is carried out.

Grainy footage of the escapade shown on TV One News was billed as “one of the worst escape attempts ever seen.”

Here’s the video of the two prisoners’botched escape from a grainy CCTV feed – no audio required, this gigglefest is all in the visuals.

Smooth move, fellas. For their efforts, the two inept cons got facefuls of pepper spray, all kinds of bumps and bruises, and an additional month in jail.

These two are leading candidates to be further sentenced to Prison Prison once they get behind bars…

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Back away from the Mazda, goat-sorcerer!

January 23, 2009 2 Comments

goat2
Abracadabra, bitches.

This may LOOK like an innocent, humble goat to you.

But that’s because you aren’t privy to the sorcery-detection abilities of Nigerian vigilantes!

This is a story that’s rapidly making its way through the wacky news pipeline – we received it via link from Gchat buddy J. Ho. It’s pretty damn hilarious:

Vigilantes took the black and white beast to the police saying it was an armed robber who had used black magic to transform himself into a goat to escape arrest after trying to steal a Mazda 323.

“The group of vigilante men came to report that while they were on patrol they saw some hoodlums attempting to rob a car. They pursued them. However one of them escaped while the other turned into a goat,” Kwara state police spokesman Tunde Mohammed told Reuters by telephone.

“We cannot confirm the story, but the goat is in our custody. We cannot base our information on something mystical. It is something that has to be proved scientifically, that a human being turned into a goat,” he said.

Belief in witchcraft is widespread in parts of Nigeria, Africa’s most populous nation. Residents came to the police station to see the goat, photographed in one national newspaper on its knees next to a pile of straw.

To really get the bottom line, we tracked down the original article from Nigeria’s Vanguard newspaper:

Police Parade Goat as Robbery Suspect
Written by Demola Akinyemi

It was a shocking sight yesterday as men of the Kwara State Police Command paraded a goat as an armed robbery suspect.

The goat “suspect” is being detained over an alleged attempt to snatch a Mazda car. The mysterious goat, according to the Police Public Relations Officer, Mr. Tunde Mohammed, while briefing bewildered journalists at the Force headquarters, is an armed robber who attempted to snatch the said car, Wednesday night, and later transformed into the goat in a bid to escape arrest.

He explained that men of a vigilance group in Anifowose Ipata/Oloje areas of the state capital had chased two armed robbery suspects who wanted to demobilise the Mazda car with the intention of stealing it, and “while one of them escaped, the other was about to be apprehended by the team when he turned his back on the wall and turned to this goat. They quickly grabbed the goat and here it is.’’ Mohammed said.

The police spokesman said the goat “armed robbery suspect” will not be left off the hook until investigations into the case are concluded.

He also said that no fewer than five stolen vehicles have been recovered by the state Police Command while some suspects were also arrested. Among those arrested, he said was one Idowu Oni of Araromi area of Akure who escaped from Akure Prison.

He added that the escaped convict was arrested in Ilorin after stealing a Mazda 323 car belonging to Mrs. Henrietta Ayijesu.

He also said another armed robbery and rape suspect was in their custody, assuring that the suspects will soon appear in court.

Ten bucks says those “suspects” are a baboon and a llama.

mazda 323
Mazda 323: Common quarry of goat-sorcerer-thieves.

The BBC took a step back, in an attempt to figure out how on earth Nigerian police actually held a press conference to brag about arresting a goat.

The belief in witchcraft and the power to change shapes is common in Nigeria.

Police reform activists have condemned the “arrest”, saying it highlights the low education levels of many Nigerian police officers.

Nigeria’s Vanguard newspaper has a picture of the goat and reports that police paraded it in front of journalists in the Kwara state capital Ilorin on Thursday.

[...]

The BBC’s Andrew Walker in Abuja says communities often rely on ill-educated and badly prepared vigilante squads to fill the gaps where the police will not patrol at night.

Innocent Chukwuma of the justice reform group the Cleen Foundation, told the BBC that many Nigerian police officers were poorly educated.

“There are officers who don’t even have a secondary school education, and the police have a big job to do in finding these people and getting rid of them.”

He said in the past political leaders had allowed the police to be filled with incompetent and in some cases criminal officers so they could be easily bought to protect their own criminal activities.

Police have also been unable to stop vigilante squads from lynching suspects before they could investigate, he said.

Filed under Schadenfreude, Smiles Tagged with , , , ,

Fat Ninja is a Laughingstock Even in the Context of Other Ridiculous Wannabe Ninjas

January 13, 2009 Leave a Comment

fat ninja

Look out, Bernie Madoff victims! Another master criminal is plying his trade in the lap of luxury that many of you call home!

Police in Palm Beach, Florida are hunting a ninja.

A fat ninja who has yet to successfully pull off a crime!

One might go so far as to call him an anti-ninja. Pot bellies and failed ATM thefts are about the least ninja-like attributes one could imagine. WE are more ninja than this jackass.

Palm Beach County sheriff’s deputies are looking for a would-be thief who seems to think he is a ninja.

The unidentified man, who was dressed in a black ninja outfit with a hood that only shows his eyes, was caught on surveillance cameras trying to steal the ATM machines outside the Colonial Bank at 152 South State Road 7 on Dec. 29 and outside a Walgreens at U.S. 441 and Okeechobee Boulevard on Tuesday.

Sheriff’s spokeswoman Teri Barbera said she did not how the man tried to steal the machines, but that he was unsuccessful in both attempts.

fat ninja 2

The thief may be wearing a ninja outfit, but he does not appear to be of the same physical stature as martial arts legends Bruce Lee or Sonny Chiba. Surveillance footage shows the heavyset man has a noticeable pot belly.

Anyone with information regarding the attempted ATM robberies or can possibly identify this suspect, is asked to contact Detective McCranels at (561) 904-8273 or Crime Stoppers at 1-800-458-TIPS.

First of all, we estimate the over/under on prank calls to Detective McCranels at 50,000. And we’re taking the over.

Secondly, this fat ninja wannabe has nothing on the legendary ninja thief of Staten Island, whose 2007 crime spree made for dozens of hilarious NYC headlines.

STATEN ISLAND NINJA BURGLAR STRIKES AGAIN, VICTIMIZES ELDERLY COUPLE

[...]

Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said the burglaries appear to be linked to the Ninja Burglar because in one case he had crept through an open door.

“We caution people to lock their doors,” Kelly said. “Keep their windows locked as well.”

The Ninja has hit at least 18 homes since May 20. The last heist before this weekend came on Sept. 21.

“There had been enough publicity, and people were upset,” said Dr. Mohammad Khalid, president of the Iron Hills Civic Association. “He probably thought it wise to stop his activities.”

The suspect has entered through garage doors in the morning and second-story windows and skylights at night, cops said. He wears all-black, including a ski mask, and usually steals cash and jewelry.

In one incident, a resident stabbed the bandit after the intruder smacked him in the collarbone with his ninja sticks.

ninja crimes

Now THAT’S a felonious ninja you can respect! (A serious hat tip to the Daily News on adding the nunchucks to the graphic.)

NYC police ultimately pinned the ninja crime wave on some Albanian guy who was quietly deported (read: sent to a secret CIA prison for torture until he gave up his ninja techniques to interrogators).

We still think U-God had something to do with it. Honestly, does he have anything else going on? Besides making devils cower to the “Caucus Mountains,” of course.

We leave you with the legendary Afroninja. Also way better than Fat Ninja.

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“Stanley’s Christmas List”

December 30, 2008 Leave a Comment

Something to consider when one of your deadbeat friends is crashing at your place and won’t leave…if you kick him out, he just might hide in your attic while conducting raids on the living spaces of the other people in your building…

Anyway. That’s what happened in Wilkes-Barre, PA:

WILKES-BARRE, Pa. – A family did not realize they had an unexpected Christmas guest until a man who had been in their attic for days emerged wearing their clothes, police said.

Stanley Carter surrendered Friday after police took a dog to search the home in Plains Township, a suburb of Wilkes-Barre about 100 miles north of Philadelphia. He was charged with several counts of burglary, theft, receiving stolen property and criminal trespass.

“When he came down from the attic, he was wearing my daughter’s pants and my sweat shirt and sneakers,” homeowner Stacy Ferrance said. “From what I gather, he was helping himself to my home, eating my food and stealing my clothes.”

Police said the 21-year-old Carter had been staying with his friends, who are Ferrance’s neighbors in a duplex. But when they told him to leave, he apparently accessed the shared attic through a trap door in a bedroom ceiling.

The friends said Carter went missing on Dec. 19 and they filed a missing person report a few days before Christmas.

duplex

Easily the best part of this story is the fact that Carter kept an itemized list of all the things he was purloining from the Ferrance household…and titled it with comic genius.

Ferrance said she had heard noises but thought they were caused by her three children. She notified police on Christmas Day when cash, a laptop computer and an iPod disappeared, then called police again the next day when she found footprints in her bedroom closet, where the attic trap door is located.

Carter kept a list of everything he took, said Plains Township police Officer Michael Smith.

“When we were going through the inventory of what he did take, we found a note labeled ‘Stanley’s Christmas List’of all the items he had removed from the residence and donated to himself,” Smith said.

Carter was in jail Sunday at the Luzerne County Correctional Facility with a preliminary hearing set for Jan. 5. It was not immediately clear if he had a lawyer.

If you feel like killing some brain cells you can read the comments on this story at Newsvine, where a variety of intellectual giants find a way to blame this story on “Hillary, Obama and Schumer.”

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We’ve heard of push polls, but this is ridiculous

December 22, 2008 Leave a Comment

moe

Once upon a time, prank callers were safely hidden behind a veil of anonymity, allowing a variety of troublemakers to dial for jollies…

Nowadays, Caller ID and the criminalization of particularly obnoxious calls have really put a damper on the process. While this will never dampen our enthusiasm for Bart Simpson’s phone calls to Moe’s or the greatest prank call of all time (“I see OJ, and he looks scared!“), we won’t be picking up the phone to cause mischief anytime soon.

However, some prank callers are still undeterred. Like 50-year-old construction worker John Brady of Staten Island.

He doesn’t just call people up, shriek “Diarrhea!” and hang up. Nope.

He convinces them to maleejreejheej themselves.

Loyal reader Lombardicus sends along this gem from the STATEN ISLAND ADVANCE:

A Staten Island man would pick a name out of the phone book at random, say he was from the “doctor’s” office, and ask the person on the other end of the line to perform a rectal exam over the phone, according to authorities.

And at least one person went along with it.

Authorities say John Brady, 49, a construction worker from the borough’s Oakwood community, convinced a 34-year-old woman to give herself a self examination over the phone in January of 2007.

After the phone call, though, the woman realized Brady “did not represent a medical establishment,” court papers allege.

After an investigation by the Staten Island District Attorney’s NYPD detective squad, Brady was arrested Tuesday and charged with second-degree aggravated harassment.

Brady laid out his prank call strategy in a statement to a detective, court papers allege.

“I would go through the phone book and pick random numbers and make telephone calls,” Brady allegedly said. He’d ask them personal questions about their digestive system, then try to get them to follow his instructions, court papers allege.

Brady had already been arrested in September on aggravated harassment charges in connection with two other telephone calls, one from June 2007 and another from 2008, public records show, but it’s not clear if he’s accused of pulling the same prank during those calls as well.

If convicted at trial of second-degree aggravated harassment, he could face up to a year in jail.

John Brady might seem like the most brazen prank caller around, but that’s probably because you’ve never heard of David Stewart:

On November 30, 2000, the caller persuaded the manager at a McDonald’s in Leitchfield, Kentucky, to remove her own clothes in front of a customer whom the caller said was suspected of sex offenses. The caller promised that undercover officers would burst in and arrest the customer the moment he attempted to molest her, said Detective Lt. Gary Troutman of the Leitchfield Police Department.

Or as the good folks at Wikipedia call it, the “Strip Search Prank Call Scam.“

As long as people are stupid enough to fall for this mess, these crazy dudes will keep dialing.

Answer with care.

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