5 Dumb Crooks of the Day

Most cops have dealt with a few criminals who aren’t, well, you know, playing with a full deck. They’re not the sharpest knives in the drawers. One donut short of a full dozen.

Some of these intelligence-challenged folks, bless their hearts, go the extra mile on the dummy scale. For example:

Dumb Crooks of the Day

  • Douglas Kelly, a Florida resident, purchased and consumed what he believed to be methamphetamine, an illegal drug. Then, after consuming the meth he felt as if the drugs didn’t quite meet his expectations—didn’t deliver the high he’d hoped to achieve.

So he did what any level-headed person would do when they believe they’ve been cheated in a business deal—he called the local sheriff’s office to file a formal complaint. He asked to have the ILLEGAL meth tested for purity so he could file appropriate charges against the person who sold the drugs. Of course, deputies from the Putnam County Sheriff’s Office were more than happy to oblige.

They politely asked Mr. Kelly to bring the substance to the sheriff’s office, and he did, and the deputies there did indeed test the drug which, by the way, field-tested positive for methamphetamine. Therefore, Dumb Crook Number 1, Douglas Kelly, was arrested for possession of methamphetamine.

  • The title of Dumb Crook Number 2 goes to 25-year-old Ruddy Rodriguez, who was operating his ATV illegally and extremely recklessly on city streets. While driving at dangerously high speeds he maneuvered in and out of and around traffic. He even zipped through intersections when the lights were red.

To top off his careless behavior, this dummy of the day pulled up next to responding officers and actually laughed at them, then said, “You’ll never catch me or stop me!” Then he revved up his engine and took off, driving straight onto the sidewalk where he immediately crashed into a large concrete planter box. Karma…

  • Cops often throw a nice party when one of their fellow officers is about to retire. They’re lively affairs that often take place in a local bar or pub. Such was the case when a Baltimore County PD sergeant’s retirement party was held in a back room at Monaghan’s Pub in Baltimore which, by the way, is across the street from a police station.

Enter Dumb Crooks Number 3 and 4 who picked the absolute worst time in the world to rob Monaghan’s cashier at gunpoint. Both men were instantly placed under arrest, the hard way, as evidenced by the black eyes and bumps and bruises prominently displayed in their mugshots.

  • Dumb Crook Number 5 is one of my arrests. It started with a silent alarm triggered by a clerk working in a local convenience store. When I arrived the doors were locked and the clerk who’d set off the alarm turned the key to let me inside. She was shaken to core. He hands trembled, tears spilled down her cheeks, and words rolled off her tongue at 100 mph.

After a few minutes of “Officer Friendly” smooth-talking, her anxiety eased enough to allow her to describe what had taken place. She said a man entered the store and very slowly walked up and down each aisle while nervously glancing around the place. His gaze met hers a few times and once in a while locked in on the security cameras.

Finally, the man walked to the rear of the store where he opened a cooler door and withdrew a can of beer. Then he approached the counter. The clerk said she asked to see his ID, which he produced. She studied the driver’s license and saw that his date of birthplace indicated that his age as well above the legal limit to purchase alcohol. She also confirmed that the face in the ID photo matched that of her customer. She rang up the sale and he paid in cash. The clerk then placed the man’s ID on the counter and slid it toward him.

It was then when the man pulled a pistol from his jacket pocket and demanded that she give him all the money in the register. Well, apparently she wasn’t moving quickly enough so he grabbed the entire machine, snatching it free from its cables and mount, and ran out the door.

When she’d finished her narrative I started to go outside to grab my handy-dandy Sirchie fingerprint kit. On the way out I stopped to have a quick look at the countertop, and there it was, the robber’s driver’s license.

He’d not only shown the license to the clerk, providing her the opportunity to later identify him, he’d given me his name, date of birth, address, a nice photo of his face, and his social security number (Back in those days, Virginia used a person’s social security number as their driver’s license number. That is no longer the case).

So I hopped in my car, called for backup, and drove to the suspect’s home where we found both him and the stolen cash register. Oh, the gun was a pistol that had been stolen a few months prior to the robbery. And, we found crack cocaine on the stack of wooden pallets he used as a coffee table. I don’t believe he’d ever watched HGTV.

Believe it or not, this, the driver’s license thing at a convenience store robbery, also happened a second time but with a different dumb crook.

In another instance I found a driver’s license at the scene of an arson. Somehow the fire-starter dropped it on the ground. I found the ID while poking around the area as firefighters battled the blaze. He was from out of town so I enlisted the assistance of the local cops in that city to help me with the arrest. The firebug confessed to the arson after a lengthy interrogation session.

 

1 reply
  1. Pamela Beason
    Pamela Beason says:

    As a private investigator, I encountered the “I’m gonna report the theft of my drug stash to the police” situation more than once. Aren’t we lucky that most crooks are dumb? Thanks for the laughs today.

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