NewsQuirks 652 -- A Quirky Review of 2001

In spite of the recent war coverage, the nation's press devoted significant column inches this year to the truly weird and the just plain wacky. From the pages of America's newspapers, large and small, here are the top-10 stupid crook tricks and the best of the rest of the odd news for 2001.

Curses, Foiled Again

Police in Fort Worth, Texas, charged Lakount Maddox, 17, with trying to rob a Taco Bell after he pulled up to the drive-through window on a bicycle, brandished what turned out to be a toy gun and demanded money. He also ordered a chalupa. Police responding to a 911 call found Maddox holding the money while sitting on his bike at the drive-through, still waiting for his chalupa.

Police in Ogden, Utah, reported that a man in his forties tried to rob a group of people by pointing a handgun at himself and threatening to shoot unless they turned over their vehicles. Not surprisingly, nobody complied.

Police in Brockton, Mass., charged James M. Jorritsma, 38, with holding up a coffee shop, then fleeing with the cash register. Two customers who gave chase quickly caught him because he was slowed by the weight of the register and the cast he was wearing from a broken leg.

Edwin V. Gaynor, 21, tried to join the Baltimore police department, but when the application asked if he had ever committed a crime, he checked the box marked yes. He explained he had carjacked a woman and robbed five people in Texas. "I've never seen anything like this," police Maj. George Klein said. "I guess something just spooked him, and he wanted to clear his conscience."

When police Officer Greg Tucker heard loud music from a car outside a convenience store in Tallahassee, Fla., he pulled alongside to tell the driver to turn down the music, then noticed it was parked in a handicapped spot without a permit. Tucker told the driver to move, but the man said he would be there only a minute. Tucker insisted the car be moved, then ran a check, discovered the car was stolen and arrested Alonzo Lamar McMillan, 20, on several felony charges.

Police in Ruscombmanor Township, Pa., charged Christian A. McDade, 25, with robbing the same convenience store six times in five months. Identification was simplified when a surveillance camera photographed him wearing a clear plastic bag over his face.

Kenneth Bartelson, 35, and Eugene Allen, 29, were arrested while trying to rob the residents of an apartment in Pawtucket, R.I., because Allen was acting as the lookout, even though he is legally blind. He not only failed to see the police coming, but also confided details of the crime to the victims' neighbor, thinking it was Bartelson.

Clarence Stucki, 91, rigged an electrical bypass and stole electricity from Utah's Logan Light & Power company for almost 60 years. Authorities finally caught him because he called the utility to complain about a power outage, and the repair crew spotted his handiwork.

West Virginia authorities charged Brian Lee Moore, 28, with taking a high-powered rifle from a home during a burglary and stealing ammunition from a Wal-Mart, then attempting to rob an adult sex-toy shop by pointing the loaded weapon at the clerk and pulling the trigger. The gun did not fire because the suspect had stolen the wrong size ammunition.

Police in Omaha, Neb., arrested Edward Ming after he pulled up to a bank's drive-through window and presented a stolen check. The teller turned out to be the person the check was stolen from. Ming made his capture even easier after receiving his money by asking to use the bank's bathroom, which is where police found him.

News from the Front

When the Defense Department became concerned that some Afghan people might mistake yellow unexploded cluster bombs for the yellow humanitarian aid packages that it was also dropping on the country, it decided to switch the food packs to light blue. That wouldn't work, analysts concluded, because it's the same color as the United Nations and Israeli flags. Every color that was proposed seemed to trigger some cultural objection.