Stupid Criminal Tricks

[Glenn E. Meyer]

Anyone post this:

http://abc13.com/news/robbery-suspec...y-car/1803635/

Victims run him over and as he is hit, he shoots himself in the noggin.

[Stephanie B]

EDWARDSVILLE, Pa. — Authorities say a man mistakenly sent a text message to a Pennsylvania prosecutor indicating that he wanted to trade marijuana for heroin.

Luzerne County prosecutors say Assistant District Attorney Jill Matthews received a text Nov. 2 using drug lingo that they called an “obvious text for a drug deal.” They say she later received a photo of a plastic bag containing a green substance on a scale.

Authorities said 29-year-old John Raimondo, of Plymouth, was arrested at the supposed drug swap outside a shopping center in Edwardsville, about 100 miles northwest of Philadelphia.

The idi^H^H^H defendant FTA'd a hearing, so now there's a warrant out for him.

[Stephanie B]

From Print

Arson: 700 block N. Homewood Ave., Homewood, Feb. 17, 2:56 p.m.
Officers responded to the area for a blue Chevrolet Impala on fire. Pittsburgh Bureau of Fire extinguished the fire. Detectives determined that the fire was intentionally set and was the result of a domestic. Detectives arrested a 28-year-old male from Wilkinsburg.

That should be good for a few years in the State Rest Home for the Criminally Inclined.

[Stephanie B]

Haven't posted anything from my sister's paper for a bit, so:

Notable Arrest: 500 N. Murtland St., Homewood South, May 29, 12:12 p.m.
Officers conducted a traffic stop on a vehicle with a suspended registration plate. As officers approached, they could smell the odor of marijuana coming from the vehicle. The 21-year-old male driver, of East Liberty, is known to Zone 8 officers and claims to be a member of a group known as "sovereign citizens". The driver refused to give officers any required information but instead provided homemade documents to officers, informing then that he does not recognize state for federal law. Unfortunately for the driver, the United States and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania feel differently. The driver was placed under arrest for multiple vehicle code violations, drug offenses, and giving false information to police.

There was another one where a perp tried to do a carjacking. The driver ran away. The car was one of the keyless kind, so when the driver ran away, with the fob in his pocket, the car wouldn't start. The perp carjacked another car, the driver called OnStar and the cops nabbed him.

[Stephanie B]

Another from my sister's newspaper:

STOLEN VEHICLE: 6231 Penn Ave. (Target), East Liberty, Oct. 17, 4:05 p.m.
Victims reported that they parked and locked their Mercedes-Benz station wagon in the Target parking garage. When they returned from the store, their car was missing. Officers and loss prevention staff from Target viewed the security video and saw a man enter the vehicle and drive off. Unfortunately for the thief, staff recognized him as he had just dropped off a job application at the store. Officers will be obtaining an arrest warrant for the 43-year-old male of Swissvale. The vehicle was recovered the next day in Edgewood Borough.

[Hemiram]

My local paper used to have a "Police News" section, where they had some hilarious stuff about incidents around town. It was very popular, and I looked forward to it coming every week just for that alone. One day, it came and it had a huge part of it devoted to the hijinks of one of the richest families in town, where the son came home drunk and got into a fistfight with his dad, who won big. The kid left, came back with a bowling ball and he tossed it through the huge picture window into the living room. He got arrested after a struggle with the cops and it was really funny. Everyone who lived near that family knew who it was. Then came the "Mystery Caller", a really twisted evil genius type who would call women, usually middle aged ones, tell them their husband wanted to talk to them, supposedly put them on the phone, and then the "husband" would yell into the phone, "Honey, I'm in big trouble, do whatever they say!". The caller would know all sorts of personal info about these women, their bra size, kid's names, pet's names, and he would order them to do humiliating stuff, telling them if they didn't obey, they would never see their husband again, and the kids would disappear too. The paper had a lot of details about this creep and between his antics tormenting the wife of another big shot and the reporting on the family above, the paper got word the big shots didn't like the police section having all that detail, so it was changed to a very cut and dry type of thing and eventually it faded away.

[Stephanie B]

Where the Worst Criminal and Darwin awards overlap:

A man was apparently crushed to death while trying to steal wheels from a van in Homewood Tuesday morning, according to Pittsburgh police.

The unidentified man was found dead around 8:50 a.m. Tuesday in the 7100 block of Kelly Street.

Police believe the van fell on him, spokeswoman Sonya Toler said.

[PhillySoldier]

I used to be a corrections officer; plenty of dumb criminal stories out of there. One I remember is this guy comes into the prison lobby and goes up to talk to the CO at the desk and says that he used to be an inmate and when he was released he never got his jacket and personal items back. When they looked him up in the system they saw that he had previously escaped

Had another time where two inmates went of the max security wall, ran across the street and then down the hill and a short dash from there to the woods. CO in the tower took a few shots at the fleeing escapees, missed but managed to punch out a lot of car windows on the street. Meanwhile inside the prison we gathered a bunch of CO's and exited to go search for the inmates. We get across the street and at the bottom of the hill (never made it to the woods) were the two inmates, the one on top of the other punching the crap out of him and screaming "there real bullets - you told me they had blanks"

[Chance]

Man Suspected of Stealing $300,000 Ferrari Arrested After Asking For Gas Money. That's the actual headline. From CBS News:

A Southern California man suspected of stealing a $300,000 Ferrari was arrested after asking for gas money, authorities said.

Santa Ana police arrested Israel Perez Rangel on Nov. 1. He pleaded not guilty to car theft.

Authorities say the 458 Spider was brought into a Costa Mesa service center and stolen in October after a worker left the key on a passenger seat.

Security video showed a man in a Ferrari jacket walking onto the lot and taking it.

Santa Ana police Cpl. Anthony Bertagna said officers subsequently responded to a report of a Ferrari driving erratically and stopped at an intersection, and to another call that the driver was asking for gas money.

The exotic car was spotted at a gas station, where the driver ran off and was found and arrested behind bushes near a Holiday Inn, police said.

The Los Angeles Times says the car was trashed, with emblems torn from the body, cracked fins and a destroyed gearbox.

The Times said insurers paid the owner, who used the money to buy a 2018 Lamborghini Huracan.

[Stephanie B]

Guy shoplifts and posts the stuff he boosted on Snapchat:

https://dailyjournalonline.com/news/...bc9407b26.html