The murky world of criminal has its fair share of morons. In the noir world, criminals are aggressive, sinister, violent and unstable. In the real world there is are all kinds of people who aren’t good at their chosen occupation. Some people don’t have what it takes to be a criminal.
While 2012 has yet to end, people are drawing up list of the most stupid criminals.
Here are some examples:
The little known defense of claiming to be a Werewolf doesn’t work in most jurisdictions.
1. Claim diminished capacity as a result of being involuntarily made a Werewolf in Germany
No one bothered to inform Thomas Stroup of the limitations of such a defense. Ohio police arrested Thomas and charged him for underage drinking. The evidence was reasonably clear. Thomas was passed out in a trailer encircled by swords. Other residents in the trailer park had complained that Thomas started fights and was otherwise a nasty character. When confronted by the police, Stroup said he was sober though admitted his behavior was strange though beyond his control as he’d been scratched by a wolf in Germany. And this wolf like spirit had motivated him to kill the officer’s cousin named Keith. Only the officer had no cousin named Keith.
Christopher Jansen was on trial in March in Pontiac, Michigan for drug possession. Young Christopher claimed that he had been searched without a warrant. The DA countered that the arresting officer acted properly without a search warrant as he had probable cause. He saw a “bulge” in Christopher’s jacket and thought it might have been a gun. Christopher objected to that conclusion. It turned out he was wearing the same jacket that day in court. He removed the jacket and handed to the judge for inspection. The judge removed a packet of cocaine from the jacket pocket. The judge laughed so hard he needed a five-minute recess to get a grip on his giggles before the trial could resume.
3. Closer to home there are endless examples of foreign tourists who leave their thinking mind at home arrive in Thailand and discover. . . .Like everywhere else there are laws.
If you take a couple of Indian tourists and decide to get drunk, but at some stage they want to have some fun or transportation to the hotel—why, after all it is holiday, do both. So they steal a motorbike owned a taxi driver who worked at a taxi queue in South Pattaya. It seems that Mr. Govind Lal aged 43 and Mr. Varun Kumar Guel aged 28, could pass that motorcycle without noticing the key had been left in the ignition. There is no explanation of what distracted the other motorcycle taxi driver in the queue. The motorcycle owner, Moragort aged 32 admitted his bladder was killing him as he rushed away leaving the key into the ignition to use the toilet. After he returns, his bike is gone.
But with the bamboo telegraph in hyper mode, the missing bike and the two Indians are spotted on Second Road in Pattaya. Friends of Khun Moragort forced the bike to spot and took the two Indians to Pattaya Police Station. The suspects defense was one the local cops had likely many times was they only intended to borrow the motorcycle, have some fun and besides they were far too drunk to have the criminal intent to commit a theft. Khun Moragort, the crime victim, must have been quite upset to hear the Indians prattling a defense reserved only for Thais caught in these circumstances. That is the only explanation for his refusal to accept a financial compensation package by the two suspects. No way these guys were going to pay their way out of justice. The two Indians were remanded for trial.
4. Tourists not only get drunk and commit stupid crimes, when they stay longer than their bankroll, the real fun begins on formulating really stupid plans to replenish their wallets. And what better place to get money than a bank? Why not rip an ATM machine out of the wall, cut it open like a mad, beast and drain out the money? You have now entered the chain of reasoning that makes desperate men into morons. In June, 2012, in Chon Buri, Alexander Milbourn, 25, and Shaun Edward Tracy, 34, had a brilliant plan to attack an ATM at the Bank of Ayudhya’s Laem Chabang branch. The local police said the two hit the ATM late night of June 21.
The two Britons groused out a third man, they called Richard (a popular name among British Expats in Pattaya). Richard was on the lamb. One wonders which one of these guys was the ringleader. They’ve got a map. Or maybe not. They just think on impulse hit the ATMs in Si Racha district, at Bangkok Bank’s Bo Win, Bank of Ayudhya’s Laem Chabang branch and Bank of Ayudhya’s Bo Win branch. There is a slight preference for Bank of Ayudhya ATMs thought the sample is small so it might be just random noise and no pattern is discernable for the name of the bank.
This is where it is gets interesting. If you are going to steal something built into a wall to prevent theft you have to respect that whoever installed the ATM machine would have made it difficult to easily pry lose. Or so you would think. But you’re not out of money and desperate in Pattaya like these three Britons. Their plan was to tie a tow sling around the ATM and attach the other end of the sling to their car’s bumper. Both ends secure, ATM to car bumper, driver gets in and pushes the accelerator to the floor. It didn’t work. In all three attempts, the tow sling failed to pry the ATM lose. One might think after the first failure, the gang might have a rethink of technique. But, no, they tried-second time. By the third time they must have been resigned to touring ATM machines by the thousands in Pattaya in hopes there was at least one that would prove they were right and the first three machines were just flukes of bad luck. What would a reasonable thief do? Change cars. It must be the car’s fault.
It also might occur to most people (especially Britons) that banks have significantly more CCTV cameras than tellers and other staff. They are watching you. Not these boys. It took them three failed attempts to get the attention of the police who gradually became aware that someone was attempting to steal ATM machines. The point is the tourists got caught and were probably just as surprised at being arrested as they were when the second and third ATM machines to be ripped out of the wall.
The police have taken into custody, the tow sling, the two car(s) used in the attempted thefts and were still looking for Richard. Personally, I think the Indians handled it much better—with their imaginary friend Richard, they could have claimed they were very drunk and had mistaken the ATM machines for paragliding docking stations and had no idea they had anything to do with banking. It might not have worked any better for the Britons than it had for the Indians. Yet the Thai justice system has a lot of tolerance for drunks. It has very little for sober tourists tying tow slips to their ATM machines.
When you are on holiday, don’t commit a crime. If you decide to break that rule, think about how dumb your plan is, borrow the money from mum or dad or a friend, and go back home. Because none of your friends are going to tie a tow sling to her cell bars and clear a path for your freedom.
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