A Suspect Learns: Always Clean Up Car Before Trading It In
For our latest episode of Stupid Criminal Tricks, we offer the guy who tried to steal a new Mercedes in Agoura Hills but couldn’t figure out how to start the car, according to the Star News, an L.A. County Sheriff’s Department publication.
The inept intruder escaped in a Land Rover, which was pulled over a short time later. Turns out that he had succeeded in stealing that car. In fact, much to the deputies’ delight, the Rover contained mail addressed to the real owner.
Here’s the best part: The Rover had been taken a week earlier. That just wasn’t enough time to enable the suspected thief to remove those incriminating letters.
Firing back: “The following comments were taken from actual police car videos around this great country of ours,” writes Deputy Mike Ascolese in the Star News:
* “Relax, the handcuffs are tight because they’re new. They’ll stretch out after you wear them a while.”
* “If you run, you’ll only go to jail tired.”
* “So, you don’t know how fast you were going. I guess that means I can write anything I want on the ticket, huh?”
* “Warning! You want a warning? OK, I’m warning you not to do that again or I’ll write you another ticket.”
* “No sir, we don’t have quotas anymore. We used to have quotas, but now we’re allowed to write as many tickets as we want.”
Putting out the trash in style: “We may live in the Valley, but all those jealous Westsiders will still want a designer garbage can at the curb by their Beemers,” said John G. Thomas of Northridge (see photo).
Actually, the mock Louis Vuitton canister -- which is not for sale -- was designed by Thomas’ daughter, Melissa Aspen, an art major at Cal State Northridge.
Word imperfect: Hugh Richards and Ellie Doud each spotted a kitchen appliance that should never be operated unless you’re wearing shoes (see accompanying). Perhaps it’s for preparing pickled pigs’ feet, Richards theorized.
It’s the Pitt’s: “Here’s a puzzler,” Garry Short says of an item (see accompanying) on the state controller’s website for unclaimed property. “Why wouldn’t Brad Pitt go after the $85.87 owed to him by Warner Bros? Surely, he needs the money.”
miscelLAny: In the Marquee Madness Department, Susan Baker writes: “The very best double bill ever was ‘America, America’ and ‘Mary, Mary.’ ” Points out Baker: “Two movies could not have been more diametrically opposite: ‘A, A’ was about the grinding struggle of an immigrant and ‘M, M’ was a classic ‘60s divorce comedy. Whoever booked the movies obviously hadn’t seen either one but just liked the symmetry of the names.”
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