<![CDATA[Jalopnik: criminals]]> http://tags.jalopnik.com/assets/base/img/thumbs140x140/jalopnik.com.png <![CDATA[Jalopnik: criminals]]> http://jalopnik.com/tag/criminals http://jalopnik.com/tag/criminals <![CDATA[VIDEO: High Huffing Teens Hijack Riding Mower, Crash Into Cop Car]]> Two rocket-scientist teenagers from the Metro Detroit suburb of Fraser got high by huffing then decided to steal a riding lawnmower before dawn and drive to the store for more cans. Too bad they crashed into a police cruiser. [ClickOnDetroit]

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<![CDATA[ID This Partial Logo, Help Find A Hit And Run Suspect]]> Mark Grgurich, 54, of Des Moines was killed cycling in rural Iowa when a speeding truck slammed into him, then sped away from the scene. Police recovered this partial logo and are asking for help identifying it. Updated.

The incident occurred Sunday, and since then Police have been tracking down any lead they can find. This one might be the key to finding the driver of the vehicle, believed to be a white ladder truck. It's a partial logo broken off the truck when it hit Grgurich, and Police are hoping someone can identify it. So what do you think? It's nothing we recognize, but it could be a regional or local business logo or something custom. Sleuth away.
[Desmoines Register]

Update: Diggers have joined in on the hunt and have offered up some good ideas, but so far there's nothing conclusive. Commenter keviano overlaid the oddly named "Kurt Russel" font atop the fragment and it makes a pretty good fit, as seen below. Keep at it though, we'd love to see this one solved.

Update 2: Des Moines police have released this image of a truck captured on surveillance tape which has been identified as a suspect vehicle. Obviously it doesn't have a ladder rack on it and it's a pickup with driving lights, a grille guard and what might be either a utility bed or a dually setup on it, but it's tough to tell. This truck's either a GMC or Chevrolet in the 1981 to 1987 and finding it may lead to an arrest.

[Des Moines Register]

Update 3: Police have impounded a pickup truck matching the description of the vehicle in the surveillance video. The truck was found at a towing company in Winterset, Iowa and sheriffs hauled it away after confirming it matched. Although no suspects have yet been taken into custody, finding the vehicle places police one step closer to the perpetrator.[KCCI]

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<![CDATA[Seattle Area Police Chief Causes Accident Driving While Texting]]> Federal Way Police Chief Brian Wilson has apologized for hitting a parked car while checking his Blackberry. The irony here? Washington state was the first to enact anti-texting laws. More ironic? No charges are planned.

It may be the Chief in the Seattle-area town was responding to another text message of "R U TEH BRAIN WILSON FRUM BEACH BOYZ?" but he apparently was checking his Blackberry and absentmindedly "lifted his foot" from the brake pedal while stopped at a light. As one might expect, a police cruiser unguided will find something to crash into and that's exactly what happened when the car collided with the stopped vehicle in front of him. At this point, no charges are planned, though Washington state does maintain anti-texting-while-driving laws. Do as we say, not as we do. [Seattle Times]

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<![CDATA[Legacy Auto Sales Execs Nabbed In Stolen Dealer Cars Caper]]> Authorities in Utah captured the three fugitive executives of Legacy Auto Sales and recovered some of the 81 cars stolen from their dealership as part of a plan to auction them off for personal profit.

According to the Salt Lake Tribune, Police apprehended comptroller Rachel Fait and general manager Rick Covello in Utah, dealership owner Allen Patch turned himself in to Nebraska cops after the others were captured. The three were in the middle of executing a brazen plan which began last Saturday, when they began quietly loading car haulers with inventory from their own dealership in Scottsbluff, Nebraska and shipping the cars west. The plan was to claim the cars were fully owned by the dealership, which was in the midst of closing down, and selling the cars through auction houses and direct to other dealers. The problem with the plan was that the cars, with an estimated value of $2.5 million, were owned by the financing arms of the respective automakers.


The dealership, and each of the suspects individually, had been slowly getting into financial trouble and the heist was a desperate attempt to cash out before the whole business went under. All three previously law abiding citizens are awaiting arraignment on multiple charges. This is the part where we normally make a joke about the whole situation, but this story is actually just a somber commentary on the state of things when previously successful business associates resort to this kind of nonsense when pushed to the brink. [Salt Lake Trib]

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<![CDATA[Nebraska Car Dealers Disappear, Take Dozens Of Cars With Them]]> Monday night, 81 cars disappeared from the lot of Scottsbluff, Nebraska-based Legacy Auto Sales, the next morning the company owner, comptroller and general manager had vanished without a trace. It's a mystery!

The disappearance of a mix of Fords and Toyotas was discovered on Tuesday morning when employees reported to noticeably empty sales lots. Adding to the confusion were the emptied desks and missing computers of dealership owner Alan Patch, comptroller Rachel Feit, and general manager Rick Covello. The three had vanished with no explanation and all attempts to contact them have been fruitless. Eye-witnesses report the cars were loaded on trucks late in the evening and driven off into the night. Scottsbluff Police are investigating the situation, but the way things are going lately we're assuming the trio made off with the cars for nefarious reasons. Perhaps reenacting the plot of Fargo. [Omaha World-Herald]

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<![CDATA[Police Pull Over Drunk Driving On Three Wheels]]> Somewhere before getting pulled over for DUI, a 27-year-old Florida man lost his rear passenger-side tire. Wanna bet he drunkenly asked "What seems to be the problem officer?"

The officers became suspicious when they spotted, you know, the spray of sparks emanating from the rear of the car and pulled the man over. His intoxication became readily apparent when he displayed bloodshot eyes and uneven balance, officers managed to get the guy to blow a .20 BAC, and off to the slammer he went. In the pantheon of dumb things drunk drivers do, losing a tire is pretty low, but really funny. [SF Gate]

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<![CDATA[Florida Man Issued 50 Traffic Tickets In One Day]]> Elvis Alonzo Barrett decided to flee police when they attempted a traffic stop, it was the first in a series of poor decisions which would result in fifty traffic citations in one sitting.

Elvis ran red lights, hit parked cars, traveled at high rates of speed, didn't wear a seatbelt, and finally came to a stop when he rolled the car on its side. Officers arrested Barrett and during a search turned up crack as well as a crack pipe in his car. Officers issued the man 50 citations in what has to be one of the most ticketed stops ever recorded in Florida. [Yahoo]

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<![CDATA[Hackers Using Parking Tickets As Trojan Horses]]> Hackers in Grand Forks, North Dakota of all places have hit on a clever Trojan Horse: using a fraudulent parking ticket to direct unsuspecting motorists to their virus laden websites.

The scam works like this: You come back to your parked car and there's a parking ticket under the windshield wiper. Everything looks official so you go home, and, being a law abiding citizen you visit the website on the ticket as directed. In order to make sure it was your car, you have to flip through a gallery of evidence and find your car. In order to do this, you have to download a toolbar and that's how they get you. The toolbar is loaded up with an executable file. When the computer restarts is when the fun begins. Your computer becomes a nightmare of pop-up windows talking about downloadable antivirus software and all hell breaks loose from there.

It is a pretty clever scam, and we have to hand it to this particular hacker for thinking laterally. That doesn't mean we don't want virus-generating hackers to burn for eternity in the deepest, most fiery pits of hell but... at least he or she isn't hacking electronic road signs, right? [BBC]

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<![CDATA[Brazen Thief Steals Car In Front Of Police Officer, Gets Away With It]]> There's brazen, and then there's this guy, who managed to steal a Honda Accord in plain sight of an officer talking to the car's owner. Adding insult to injury, he got away scot-free.

Put aside for a moment the unfortunate situation the owner of the Accord has fallen into, and let's think about the situation the officer finds himself in. A crime happened in front of his eyes and the thief got away with virtually no effort, all captured on camera and broadcast for the whole world to see. We're going to bet this guy is in for a brutal ribbing from his friends on the force. There is no way he will ever live this incident down, they've probably even nicknamed him as a result of this. Something like "Officer McCar-Jack" or "Eagle Eyes McGee." Oh, it all happened so fast but will have repercussions for so, so long. [Youtube]

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<![CDATA[Nigerian Vigilantes Turn Goat Into Police, Accuse It Of Car Theft, Shape-Shifting Witchcraft]]> Nigerian Police are holding a witch, above, in custody while investigating charges he attempted to steal a Mazda, then transformed into a goat to evade the vigilante mob chasing him down. But, does he float?

Kwara State Police Command displayed the suspect for media the other day and explained the investigation into the attempted car jacking was still ongoing. The charges arise from a a vigilante group who turned in the goat following their citizens arrest. They claim two men attempted to steal a Mazda and upon failing and being spotted by neighborhood watchmen, attempted to flee. One of the men escaped, but the other, upon being cornered, turned his back to the pursuers and transformed into a goat. The vigilantes quickly grabbed the goat and turned it in to police. A spokesman for police later confided that they were really holding the goat until an owner showed up, but still, the official line is the goat is being held pending completion of investigation, meaning charges against the goat are possible.

We're silently wondering if the goat will soon begin sending us emails, telling the tail of his unlawful jailing and how he needs our help to transfer his fathers fortune to the United States. [Vangaurd via BBC]

At this point, I'd like to break away from the story and make a quick note. In my many years of education, years of work, and thousands of posts for Jalopnik, never have I ever thought I would ever write the sentence "The vigilantes quickly grabbed the goat and turned it in to police." I consider this a high water mark in the news of the weird. That is all.

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<![CDATA[Australian Grandma Banned From Roads For 1000 Years]]> It takes a certain kind of bad driver to be banned from the road for almost 1000 years, but 84-year-old Luba Relic of Warriewood, New South Wales, Australia has managed to be just that dangerous.

Miss Relic was out at a St. Vincent De Paul back in September when she managed to smash into an unsuspecting Honda Civic. The trouble was she didn't have a license, as it had been revoked because of medical reasons. Turns out that was only one of 78 times she'd been in court, whether due to traffic incidents or tangling with neighbors. Yeah, that's a bit much.

Seems the court system finally got tired of dealing with Luba and leveled a ban on her driving until the year 2999. On that news, Miss Relic got testy with the Magistrate, who added on another year for her back talk, bringing the final date up to the year 3000. We expect this salty old lady to stick around until then just to spite the system.

[via News.co.au]

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<![CDATA[Man Released From Prison, Carjacks Vehicle In Parking Lot]]> On December 14th, Sean L. Hawkins Jr. walked out of Prince George's County Jail in Maryland on his own recognizance. He immediately carjacked a Toyota 4Runner because he "needed a ride home from jail."

The 22-year-old, six-foot-tall, 300 Lb Hawkins had been arrested and tossed in the slammer after assaulting his own mother, but the judge let him loose when a court date was assigned. Obviously Sean couldn't call his mom, but instead of getting a taxi or inconveniencing a friend, he yanked Roberto Valladares from his Toyota 4Runner and took off for home. Police caught up with Hawkins a couple hours later when they spotted him driving around without his headlights on, and now additional charges have been added to his docket. Really, really dumb. [Washington Post]

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<![CDATA[Drunk Maryland State Cop Abducts Man, Takes City Cops On High Speed Chase With Cruiser]]> It's two-thirty in the morning, you're a raging drunk cop, stuck at the Taco Bell drive-through desperately in need of cheesy double beef burritos and some jerk won't hurry up. What to do?

While we can't be certain this was the exact scenario posed to off duty Maryland State Trooper Bruce Anthony Wrzosek, 22, we can be certain it's a reasonable assumption of the problem he faced as he sat idling in his marked cruiser. Obviously he couldn't just sit there and wait, so instead he turned on his lights and started yelling at and assaulting people in the cars ahead of him. Things got out of hand and Officer Wrzosek threw a 20-year-old man into the back of his cruiser for some reason. At that point a Baltimore city cop showed up and asked Wrzosek to park his cruiser and get out. Instead he took off with his lights and sirens blaring and took the cops on a brief high speed chase.

After blowing a 0.20 BAC in a field sobriety test Wrzosek was arrested and he's been summarily fired from the force. He's also been charged with kidnapping, second-degree assault, false imprisonment and alcohol-related traffic violations. He's currently being held at Baltimore City Jail on $500,000 bail, but we suspect he'll make a run for the border as soon as possible. [Baltimore Sun]

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<![CDATA[Drunk UK Motorist Crashes While Masturbating, Kills Two]]> After attempts to secure a prostitute failed, a belligerently drunk UK driver crashed his Audi Q7 into the back of a Fiat Punto while pleasuring himself, killing two and injuring a third.

File this one under "What Where You Thinking?" After an argument with his wife, Imran Hussain got belligerently drunk and after attempts to secure a prostitute failed, pleasured himself while driving in his Audi Q7. Everything was fine and dandy until he crashed into the back of a Fiat Punto at speed, killing Gary Proctor, 47, and son James, 16, and seriously injuring wife Catherine, age 44.

First responders reported Hussain fleeing the scene with his erect member exposed and hurling insults towards onlookers. It's doubtful there are words in the English language to properly berate this kind of irresponsible asshatery, but Hussain has been sentenced to eight years in jail, which is breathtakingly brief for such record-breaking levels of douchebaggery. [BBC.co.uk]

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<![CDATA[Armless Chinese Man Arrested For Driving With Feet]]> Zing Shen, 42, a citizen of the People's Republic of China, lost his arms in an industrial accident. But that didn't stop him from driving. It was the police who did that. Authorities arrested the man, who is missing both arms below the elbows, when they spotted him driving his automatic transmission equipped car with his feet. If Zing lived in a less authoritarian country, we'd encourage him to demand the police show him where the law against that is, but considering he'd probably get his feet chopped off for insolence, he's probably better off welcoming his fate with open arms. Err, legs. [AttuWorld]

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<![CDATA[How To Steal A Mazda3 With Only Your Wits And Some Tin Cans]]> Let's say you're MacGyver, you've turned to a life of crime and need to steal a car. All you have is a shoelace, some tin cans and a nail. Of course you punch a hole in each can, string them together and hook them to the bumper of a car then lie in wait to pounce when the driver gets out to see what's making all that racket as they pull away. As perfect as this plan may be, we suspect it's probably staged since the otherwise clever plan would be thwarted when the would-be victim approaches from behind and sees cans hooked to the car. Plus the 'get in, start up, drive, stop and get out' sequence happens too fast to believe it wasn't staged. But who are we, CSI? Judge for yourselves. [youtube]

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<![CDATA[Ten-Year-Old Drives Drunks Home, Rolls Van At 90 MPH]]> Last Sunday, a 10-year-old Tennessee boy was happily cruising along in a van at 90 MPH, taking some apparently too-drunk-to-drive associates home when he lost control and rolled the van, which came to rest on its roof. The only adults in the car, whose relation to the children (including another 10-year-old and one aged 6) in the van was not disclosed, were 43-year-old Randy Lewis (pictured) and Paula Elaine Evans. When the authorities arrived on the scene, Lewis admitted to having consumed at least 15 beers as well as some alcohol while Miss Evans pounded down as many unidentified pills as she could before police arrested her.

All five individuals where released from the hospital with minor injuries, and Lewis and Evans both went to jail for charges ranging from child endangerment and neglect to DUI, a charge which can be levied in Tennessee even if you aren't behind the wheel. After a performance like that, we sincerely hope nobody ever buys that dad a beer ever again. [WSBTV]

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<![CDATA[The Economy's Bad When Your Cocaine Bill Comes With A Fuel Surcharge]]> Anthony Salinas, 18, of Hammond, Indiana is just a businessman; He's got to watch out for his bottom line, and the rising price of gas has forced him to drop a fuel surcharge on top of what he sells — cocaine. It's not an ideal situation, but economic forces are driving up the cost of everything, and a small businessman can only absorb costs for so long until passing them on to the customer.

Up until police decided his operation was illegal and warranted his arrest, Salinas had managed to keep the charge to only 11% of the purchase price on a quarter ounce, and $25 on a $215 bag of coke wasn't going to break anyone's bank. It's just a damn shame our national addiction to oil is now also affecting our national addiction to cocaine. [TheSmokingGun via Gawker]

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<![CDATA[Pervert Charged With Taking Upskirts At Woodward Dream Cruise]]> With a million-plus people showing up for the 2008 Woodward Dream Cruise, you know there's bound to be at least one pervert, and that pervert's name is Michael S. Searle. For those of you who thought our Women of Woodward post was something, Searle actually went around with a camera in a bag, equipped with some kind of remote lens device, trying to look up women's shirts and skirts. Shockingly, the women who noticed had a problem with it and got the cops involved. Searle is on bond awaiting prosecution; the fact that he's from Ohio almost makes this a non-story. [ClickOnDetroit]

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<![CDATA[Secretly Recording A Traffic Stop In Massachusetts Will Land You In The Slammer]]> On October 26, 1998, Michael Hyde was pulled over by Abington, Massachusetts police for an excessively loud exhaust system and unlit license plate on his white Porsche. The stop should have ended in a fix-it ticket at worst, but escalated when Hyde accused the cop of pulling him over for his hippie hair. That was just the beginning: Apparently, Hyde was secretly recording the show and filed a complaint over the incident...which is unfortunate, since secretly recording a traffic stop is illegal in Massachusetts. The cops pressed charges and Hyde was sent up the river. His conviction was confirmed by the Massachusetts State Supreme Court on appeal.

The stupid part of this whole thing is that the guy just had to inform the officer he was recording the stop and everything would have been totally legal. Now, we're always wary of abusive police power combined with divisive state laws, but this case seems like the driver was just an ass looking to get one over on the cops. Karma, it seems, is indeed a bitch. [Details at PansyPatrol (what a great name)]; Photo from Flickr

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