Betrayed by a flatulent dog (and other News of the Weird)

[thewayne]

In February, two girls (aged 12 and 13) ran away from home in Cleveland, headed by bus for Minneapolis, along with Bambi, one girl's family dog (represented to the driver as a "guide dog"). However, the girls overfed Bambi on junk food, and the dog became so flatulent as to cause a commotion on the bus, which eventually drew police officers, who then discovered the girls were runaways. [Plain Dealer (Cleveland), 2-15-06] (Orlando), 3-30-06]

Inexplicable: Phillip Williams, 47, for some reason approached two uniformed police officers in Tampa, Fla., in March to ask their opinions of whether the substance he had just purchased for the crack pipe he was holding was indeed cocaine. After examining the pipe, the officers suspended their then-current investigation of a burglary and put the cuffs on Williams. The month before, in Orlando, Michael Garibay, 34, approached a sheriff's deputy in a marked patrol car and asked him if he was "straight," which, as Garibay proceeded to explain to the befuddled officer, meant, "Do you want to buy cocaine?" After Garibay pulled out a baggie of white rocks, he was arrested. [Tampa Tribune, 3-22-06] [Orlando Sentinel, 2-3-06]

Recurring Themes: In March, Gary Brunner became the latest person to go to a police station and ask naively if there were any warrants on him, only to find the answer to be yes and that he was under arrest (for drug possession, Carmel, N.Y.). And Bryan Palmer, 21, and Peggy Casey, 31, were interviewed by police investigating a burglary in South Windsor, Conn., in March, but were released. Detectives changed their minds, though, and were futilely searching for them when the pair showed up at the police station to innocently ask how the investigation was going. [Journal News (White Plains, N.Y.), 3-16-06] [Manchester Journal Inquirer, 3-13-06]

In March, Deputy Fire Chief Leroy Johnson, 52, of Mesa, Ariz., announced his retirement after becoming possibly the highest-status person in the country in recent years to be allegedly witnessed having sex with a barnyard animal (a lamb). Another possible record-setter was Kimberly Du, 36, who was charged in February in Des Moines, Iowa, with faking her December death to avoid prosecution on several traffic tickets, which might be the pettiest criminal charge anyone has ever tried to avoid by faking death. [Arizona Republic, 4-1-06] [KCCI-TV (Des Moines), 2-28-06]

Comments

[cardigirl.livejournal.com]

You'd be surprised... or no, actually you wouldn't be... by how many people come into the library looking to find out what warrants are out on them. Or the woman, yesterday, who wanted to find out what (and how) the police "found out about her."

[thewayne.livejournal.com]

Actually, I was initially a little surprised. But one thing that I definitely learned while working for the police department: it's amazing the number of criminals who are arrested due to the criminal's sheer stupidity.

[cardigirl.livejournal.com]

Could it be, in part, because the ones with two working braincells are *less* likely to get caught?

Not that you have to exactly pass an IQ entrance exam to join the ranks of the criminally inclined.

[thewayne.livejournal.com]

That's about it. The smarter the person, the less likely they'll leave clues. Especially if you commit a crime only once, if you do the same crime more than once, or commit multiple crimes, then patterns begin to be observed. And if you do something that brings in the FBI or other Federal agency, then the really serious analysis begins.

But smart people get busted too. There are plenty of smart people who go to great lengths to hide clues or place red herrings, and they also get nailed, sometimes because of over-doing their prep and clue prevention.

[cardigirl.livejournal.com]

No question that smart people get busted too -- I've also heard that, too often, reasonably intelligent criminals overthink something and blow it that way. My only point was that those who *aren't* bright enough to *not* ask the police station if they have warrants out will have a higher percentage collar rate than others. Granting that the asking-class category has GOT to be scraping the bottom of the brains-barrel, I think.