HOME |
RSS | 
The Buena Vista Museum in Bakersfield, California, was the scene of a burglary Wednesday morning. A window was broken and two stuffed animals -a leopard and a dingo- were missing. Two blocks away, police found 55-year-old Henry Silvers, who had a stuffed dingo with him.
“I was just bored and decided I wanted to be a cat burglar,” Slivers told 23ABC in a jailhouse interview. “So I kicked in the window and tried to steal the lion but it was too heavy, so I stole the cat.”
“I took the leopard to my hotel. I then decided I wanted the dingo so I went back and took it. I took it to Jack In The Box because I wanted to have breakfast with it.”
23ABC asked Slivers what he was planning on doing with the dingo and he replied, “I was going to take it around town with me.”
Slivers told 23ABC he hadn’t taken his medicine for over a week.
Police found the other animal, an African leopard, in Silvers’ hotel room. Link -via Arbroath
Peter Stevens of Cambridge, England, was in his car Friday when a thief opened up the back door and grabbed his laptop.
The 34-year-old runner and IT expert chased him and was surprised when he caught up with the thief after just 225 metres.
Realising the game was up, the puffed-out criminal dropped the laptop, allowing Mr Stevens to pick it up.
Mr Stevens said: “I was appalled by how unfit this guy was. I thought it would take a lot longer to catch up with him. If you are going to go into the snatch-and-run business at least try and get fit or at least play to your strengths and go for something less energetic.”
The thief, who Stevens believes is much younger than he is, has not been caught, but Stevens put his money where his mouth is.
The next day Mr Stevens made a donation to a charity which promotes fitness.
He said: “I made a small donation at Milton Country Park to Cambridge Parkrun to help encourage youngsters to get fit. They seem to need all the help they can get.”
Twelve tubas have been stolen from Los Angeles area schools in the past few weeks. In some of the robberies, thieves took only tubas. Why?
The thefts, band leaders say, are probably attributable to Southern California’s banda music craze and to the high prices the brass instruments fetch on the black market.
A new tuba can cost upwards of $5,000, while a used instrument can cost $2,000.
In the comments, suggest more absurd reasons why criminals would want to steal a large number of tubas.
Link -via Ace of Spades HQ | Photo: Flickr user Darin Barry
Thieves made off with 50 tonnes of corn taken from a moving train as it was traveling through an area 300 miles from Sao Paulo, Brazil.
Police reports state that the thieves greased the train track beforehand, causing the 54-wagon vehicle to slow down due to uneasy controls. The criminals then proceeded to use a tow truck to remove the containers of corn.
The a-maizing highjacking went smooth as silk, so it is believed the kernel of truth is that the thieves stalked the train ahead of time. Link -via Arbroath, whose commenters provided the puns.
Three men were arrested for theft from the Notcutt Garden Centre in Pembury, Kent, England. They broke two CCTV cameras, but did not see others that caught their movements.
In a scene straight out of the Special Branch files, police cars cut off all exits around the site after security staff reported the incident.
Officers then moved in – catching one thief attempting to escape, and finding two more hiding in bushes.
Officers then followed a trail of pine needles to the thieves’ van, where 138 Christmas trees of various sizes, as well as 48 boxes of Christmas lights and two wheelbarrows were found stacked nearby, ready to be loaded. The haul was worth almost £7,000.
The three Grinches who tried to steal Christmas later pleaded guilty to theft charges. Link -via Arbroath
Comments Off
The dog Kenzie cannot reach the pot at the back of the stove, so now he’s glad to have spent all that effort protecting his friend Queenie the cockatoo from the cat. Rodents aren’t the only pets who like spaghetti! -via Arbroath
Sean Faulkner of Ross Township, Pennsylvania was arrested for a bizarre theft that “seemed like a good idea at the time.” Faulkner was apparently tired of carrying a case of beer, so he took a forklift from a construction site. He drove about a mile to a sandwich shop, where he ordered a Reuben, but fled before paying for it.
“He said he was gonna go eat it in the corner and he ended up running out the front door, down the parking lot with the sandwich,” said Kelly Donatelli, who served him. “Just very bizarre. It was weird.”
That’s when he tried to make his getaway in a forklift. Ross Township police caught him.
“Apparently he was tired of walking and he saw the forklift with the keys in it and seemed like a good idea at the time,” Detective Brian Kohlhepp said.
Faulkner faces theft charges for both the sandwich (a misdemeanor) and the forklift (a felony). Link -via Breakfast Links
According to redditor Wylde_Guitarist, his boss found a way to keep the wire cutters from being stolen. Attach them to something heavy -with a wire. Link -via Boing Boing
Brian and Cece McCarthy of Pleasanton, California, were vacationing with their son Dylan at Lake Tahoe when thier car was stolen. They woke to suspicious sounds in the night, and saw from the window of their cabin that there was a bear in their car!
After the black bear climbed completely inside the car it apparently couldn’t get out. In its struggle, the bear hit the gear shift and the car rolled away for a wild, albeit short, ride down the McCarthy’s driveway, over several boulders, only stopping when it slammed into a neighbor’s front porch.
“All of the sudden we look out the window again and the car is gone, the bear is down the driveway – we have this steep driveway coming out of our cabin – he’s down the driveway across the street,” said Cece McCarthy.
The car was ripped open on impact, and the bear escaped. The Prius was a total loss, and a sheriff’s deputy wrote the incident down as “a bear burglary.” Link -via Arbroath
Charlotte Baker had a flat tire and pulled off to the side of the road between Byfield and Boddington in England. While the 28-year-old Baker, who is nine months pregnant, called her boyfriend for help, two men stopped and began to change the tire on her Porsche 911
But to Miss Baker’s disbelief, once he had finished he pushed past her, jumped into the front seat and drove off behind his friend in the white van.
She was left alone and distressed at the side of the road until an elderly man stopped and offered her a lift.
Miss Baker said: “The shock is starting to fade but now I am just reeling. It’s absolutely disgusting, these men have no morals.
A series of thefts has been solved at the Toledo Police Memorial Garden. Officers had noticed small flags went missing over several days, but found no clue as to the identity of the perpetrator. On Wednesday, two policemen saw who was doing it. One of them snapped a picture of a squirrel in the act of grabbing a flag and a pink flower from the garden! The squirrel fled the scene and took the loot to his nest, which was discovered to be already festooned with stolen flags. No arrest were made, and the suspect is still at large. Link -via Arbroath
(Image credit: Toledo Police Lieutenant James Brown)
Being a tortoise, he couldn’t make a quick getaway, so the barbecue was eventually recovered by its rightful owners. -via Arbroath
Comments Off Neatoramanaut Naimul brings us video of an event that happened at his workplace, WCG in San Francisco. A thief brazenly cuts through a bike chain and takes off on the bicycle, right in front of the office windows. The first one out the door is a designer named Kristen.
People have complained that we didn’t beat him up, but the truth is, it was pretty scary—the guy was kinda big, and when we called office security on him, he pulled a knife on the security guy (the dude in the shorts with the badge that walks down at the end of the video). We obviously didn’t know the guy had a knife, but living in SF you hear stories about deadly bike thieves.
I think stopping the theft was enough bravery for the day. -Thanks, Naimul!
If you leave a camera sitting in the open and drive off, you shouldn’t be surprised when someone makes off with it. Photographer Roger de la Harpe laid a running camera down when he retreated from a pride of lionesses in Tswalu Kalahari Game Reserve in South Africa. There was a happy ending for de la Harpe, although the lioness is presumably off in search of something tastier than a digital camera. Link -via The Daily What
Tuesday morning, Eric Ford’s girlfriend found that a window had been broken and her multimedia system had been stolen from her vehicle. Several iPods and some money were also taken. Ford then went to his job installing car stereos at Mobile Audio Designs in Lincoln, Nebraska.
From there, the story goes where one might expect it to go.
Anthony Trang, 21, 2912 Beacon Hills Circle, asked Ford to install some cables to a DVD player in his car.
“Yeah, man, just bring the DVD player in here,” Ford said he told him.
Trang did, and there was the Clarion NX501 deck Ford had told police was stolen Tuesday morning.
Ford’s reaction: “You gotta be kidding me.”
Ford called police, who arrested Trang on suspicion of theft. Link
(Image credit: Clarion)
A grocery store in Hamilton, New Zealand opened its doors automatically without any store employees present on Friday morning. The store’s computer system opened the doors at 8AM, and shoppers came in as normal. Some bought groceries and used the self-checkout, while others just left without paying.
Supermarket owner Glenn Miller was initially furious over the incident, fearing that thousands of dollars of groceries might have walked out the door. But after reviewing the shop’s security footage during the weekend his mood had mellowed.
“I can certainly see the funny side of it … but I’d rather not have the publicity, to be honest. It makes me look a bit of a dickhead.”
The security footage showed shoppers were not aware that there were no staff in the supermarket, Mr Miller said.
“They weren’t in for a free-for-all. They were doing their normal shopping and then got to the checkout. Half of them paid and the other half thought, `this is a good deal’ and walked out.”
Customers’ choices were recorded on closed-circuit TV, but Miller says he will not prosecute those who left without paying. Link to story. Link to video. -via Arbroath
Not quite a smooth as Czech President snatching a pen and much, much dumber: here’s a videotape of an Ohio man stealing a gavel from a magistrate’s bench. Ooh, the nerve!
“That’s a motivated thief to steal from a courtroom,” Cook said, although he added that Collins probably didn’t realize there were video cameras in the courtroom.
Cook said he didn’t notice the gavel was missing until Monday when he was having a hearing and reached for it. The last time he recalled having it was during a hearing on March 29, the day before the theft.
Cook and his staff reviewed the video and recognized the man who was with the 39-year-old Collins and police then began checking the other man’s criminal history and linked him to Collins, according to a Lorain police report.
Police arrested Collins, who confessed to stealing the gavel, the report said.
Link | YouTube Clip – via AOL News
Police in Lincoln, Nebraska arrested William Logan Jr. on a misdemeanor theft charge. Logan was caught on a surveillance camera using a vacuum to suck change out of coin laundry appliances.
Photos show a man entering the laundry room with a backpack, which contained a vacuum. The man pries open the coin tray, plugs in the vacuum and sucks out the change.
On Tuesday morning, detectives said they made contact with William Logan Jr., 40, and his father at the residence they share. Logan’s father immediately recognized his son in the surveillance images, according to Lincoln police.
Authorities said Logan was able to get about $20 in quarters from the machines at an apartment on Holdrege Street. According to police, Logan no longer has the vacuum.
Logan was previously convicted of stealing a Christmas tree from the Salvation Army. Link -via J-Walk Blog
Theft from such suitcases is astonishingly easy; the locks on the zippers are irrelevant.
And, as the audio commentary indicates, sometimes the problem is not theft of items from your suitcase, but material placed surreptitiously inside in order to have you inadvertently serve as the “mule” at the border.
Via Metafilter.
Paris Hilton celebrated her 30th birthday with a party last week. Los Angeles musician Paz crashed the party and made off with one of the cakes that wasn’t eaten. Many doubted his account, but the baker later confirmed the theft. Hilton never mentioned the theft, but the bakery wanted to know what Paz thought of the cake. Now we have the rest of the story: what happened to the cake.
“I regret that I have but 3 tiers of frosted red velvet to give for my country,” spoke the doomed confection.
And with that, he was carved into 125 delicious slices, and served to the homeless of downtown Los Angeles on white paper plates.
For those who cannot access Facebook, here are screenshots of the beginning and end of the story.
Michael Elias of San Antonio, Texas has been arrested several times for a string of burglaries over several months. His latest arrest was for two burglaries, one in June and the other in November.
Police said they recovered fingerprints from both locations that later proved to be Elias’s.
The affidavit shows that after his arrest, Elias told investigators how he had learned to commit burglaries using a crow bar to gain access to homes.
Elias also told investigators he had to keep committing the burglaries so he could afford to pay his attorney a $150 weekly fee to keep him out of jail.
Most people keep themselves out of jail by not committing crimes. Link -via Arbroath
(Image source: San Antonio Crimestoppers)
A thief stole a laptop computer belonging to a professor at Umeå University in Sweden. The computer contained 10 years of research which he had not bothered to back up. A few days later, he received a USB flash drive in an envelope containing his data:
About a week after the theft, the professor returned home to find an envelope containing a USB memory stick which had been taken along with the computer.
The professor was shocked to discover the thief had copied all the documents and personal files from his laptop to the memory storage device, a process which likely took hours.
All things considered, the professor is delighted at the outcome, despite the loss of his computer. He hopes, however, that other thieves can learn to be as compassionate.
Link via Glenn Reynolds | Photo by Flickr user Ambuj Saxena used under Creative Commons license
James Gordon Watson was upset that someone had stolen one of his marijuana plants, so he called the RCMP to report the theft. The police responded by confiscating his other four plants. There is no word on any investigation into the theft. -via Arbroath
A man burglarized a house in Redhill, Surrey, England Saturday and stole a telephone and a package of bacon. That’s all he took.
Det Con Knowles said: “This is a very peculiar burglary as the suspect placed a rasher of bacon over a door handle before leaving the property.
“The victims are at a loss to understand why someone would break in to their house and steal a packet of bacon and we are equally stumped as to who this potentially peckish suspect is.”
The telephone was recovered. The bacon is nowhere to be found. Can you imagine why anyone would steal wonderful, delicious bacon? Police have released this CCTV image of the suspect. Link -Thanks, Steve Piercy!
If you go into some Japanese stores, the clerks have fist-sized orange balls behind the counter. No, the are not for sale. They’re balls of paint that clerks throw at robbers so that police can more easily identify them:
The orange orbs you observed are called bohan yo kara boru (anticrime color balls). Basically, they’re paint balls — plastic spheres filled with brightly colored liquid pigment. But unlike the fun-and-games variety, these balls are kept on hand in case of a stickup. The idea is to lob one after a robber and mark him to improve the chance of an arrest.
Inspired by the armadillo, designer Marc Graells Ballve made this retractable armored shell for his scooter to protect it from theft. Do you think that it will work?
via OhGizmo! | Designer’s Website | Image: Marc Graells Ballve
A car stolen from Lapua, Finland was examined for evidence that might lead to the identity of the thief. A mosquito found inside was send to the lab and the human blood inside the insect had DNA that matched a man whose DNA was on file!
Finnish police said it was rare for them to use insects to solve crimes, although they are interested in everything found at a crime scene.
“It is not usual to use mosquitoes. In training we were not told to keep an eye on mosquitoes at crime scenes,” Palomaeki said, laughing.
“It is not easy to find a small mosquito in a car, this just shows how thorough the crime scene investigation was,” he added.
The suspect has been questioned and insists that he rode in the car when he was picked up hitchhiking, but did not steal the car. Link -Thanks, Geekazoid!
