Stupid criminals of the week

Don’t hand your beer to a cop during a traffic stop

Even in Texas this is stupid.

There are things to do during a traffic stop, and things not to do. Handing your open beer to a cop is one of them.

That’s what happened to a man in McLennan County [Texas] earlier this month when approached by game wardens. The game wardens were patrolling near Lake Waco when they were cut off by the driver of a pickup.

The man then drove on the wrong side of the road before the wardens pulled him over, police said.

When wardens approached the truck, the man was having trouble turning down his music, they said. As he fumbled with the radio, he apparently handed one of the wardens an open beer so he could concentrate.

Wardens had other suspicions that the man was intoxicated after he stumbled out of the car and failed a field sobriety test. But passing the drink probably didn’t help his case.

The man was eventually arrested.

Source; Chron.com

Iowa man allegedly threatens to blow up McDonald’s over lack of sauces

When committing a crime by phone, you should probably not use your real name and phone number.

An Iowa man was arrested over the weekend for threatening to blow up a McDonald’s after the restaurant allegedly failed to include dipping sauces with his order, according to a report.

Robert Golwitzer Jr., 42, called up his local McDonald’s in Ankeny after finding he had no sauces for his Chicken McNuggets. He allegedly threatened to blow up the restaurant and punch an employee over the offense.

Restaurant employees then contacted police, who arrested Golwitzer Saturday night, WHO 13 reported.

Police called Golwitzer at the phone number he used to make his threat, at which point he admitted to making threat, then, admitted again during an interview at the department.

Police charged him with a Class D felony of a false report of an explosive device.

Golwitzer was booked into Polk County Jail, but police released him on bond Sunday.

Source; Fox News

Sheriff: Man tried to pay $200 bail with counterfeit bills

A man in Maine tried to post $200 bail with counterfeit bills, according to the sheriff’s office.

Deputies responding to a report of a stolen vehicle in Waterboro early Sunday morning stopped a man walking nearby, the York County Sheriff’s Office wrote in a Facebook post. They determined that he was not involved but arrested him on an outstanding warrant for theft from a Walmart, Sheriff William King said.

The man said he had enough money to post $200 in bail but when the bail commissioner arrived, he tried to pay with two counterfeit $100 bills.

He was denied bail and was returned to jail with the additional charge of forgery.

The man was able to post $100 in bail later in the day, the sheriff’s office said. His court date is scheduled for Aug. 4.

Court records do not indicate if the man has an attorney to represent him. A working phone number for the man could not be found.

Source; MSN

Armed robbers held up news crew as it interviewed Oakland’s chief of violence prevention

Two armed robbers held up a television news crew that was interviewing Oakland’s director of violence prevention outside City Hall on Monday afternoon, just hours after the police chief warned of worsening crime amid cuts to the police budget.

Oakland police reported that the two suspects approached the newscasters at 3:09 p.m. and tried to steal a camera. After a scuffle, a security officer pulled out a gun and ordered the suspects to leave. They fled without the camera. No injuries were reported.

A statement from the Police Department described the incident but did not identify Guillermo Cespedes, head of the city’s Department of Violence Prevention, as a victim.

Cespedes told The Chronicle he was at the scene of an attempted robbery on Monday, and a police watch commander confirmed he was being interviewed when the crime occurred.

“Our colleagues were conducting an interview at Oakland City Hall when they were approached by two armed individuals,” Liza Catalan, a spokesperson for NBC Bay Area, said. “Thankfully our colleagues are safe and unharmed.”

Less than three hours before the attempted robbery, Oakland Police Chief LeRonne Armstrong held a news conference in which he criticized the City Council for passing a budget that reduced police spending by $18 million — diverting much of those funds to the city’s department of violence prevention in an effort to support alternatives to policing.

Armstong said a surge in violent crime makes it more crucial to increase police funding and warned that police response to 911 calls could be delayed as a result of the cuts.

Oakland created its Department of Violence Prevention in 2017, with an ambitious goal: decrease homicides by 80 % over three years. The city tapped Cespedes to run the department in 2020, months before gun violence began rising at a staggering rate — a sudden unraveling after five years of progress.

As of Monday the city had counted 65 homicides for the year, nearly double the amount for this time last year.

Source; SF Chronicle

Texan bragged he’s an ‘infamous illegal excavator,’ feds say. Now he’s going to prison

A Texas man is going to prison after declaring he was “not scared of the feds” who patrolled an area where he looted Native American artifacts, authorities say.

Jeffrey Alan Vance, a 37-year-old from San Marcos, pleaded guilty in February to violating a federal law that prohibits unauthorized removal of artifacts from tribal land. A judge sentenced him to two years in prison on Tuesday.

Vance posted a Facebook photo of himself showing off artifacts after illegally excavating a Native American site north of Amarillo, authorities say.

The homestead site on a bluff overlooking the Canadian River once was home to the Antelope Creek Culture, a people credited with bringing early agriculture to what’s now the Texas Panhandle from 1200 to 1500.

The Canadian River is the only region in the U.S. with Alibates Flint, a rock with “striking colors” used by mammoth hunters and essential to survival and trade on the plains for 13,000 years, officials say.

When a Facebook user commented that the area “he is digging in is federal land and Rangers enforce (there),” Vance replied “I’m not scared of the feds,” according to court documents.

Another man in the photos was identified as Dax Wheatley of Amarillo. Wheatley also pleaded guilty in February.

Authorities say Vance described himself in texts as an “infamous illegal excavator of Native American artifacts in Texas” and warned others, “don’t be telling people we are digging on government property!”

Vance also posted photos of human remains with burial beads that he dug up, authorities say.

“(He) bragged that someday he would put the dead bodies back together and would display them in his ‘secret artifact lair,’” authorities wrote in court documents. “When asked if what he is doing is legal, Vance replied, ‘haha, no.’”

Authorities say they recovered about 1,500 artifacts, including burial beads and petrified wood, during the investigation.

Wheatley is scheduled to be sentenced this month.

Source; Charlotte Observer

Category: "Teh Stoopid", Crime, Dumbass Bullshit, Police, Stupid Criminals