News Quirks

Curses, foiled again• Police looking for a bank robber in New Kensington, Pa., found suspect Shane Lindsey, 32, two blocks away at a restaurant where he stopped for chicken and biscuits. Officers entered the restaurant hoping its surveillance video might show the suspect passing by, only to spot Lindsey eating at a booth. (Tarentum’s Valley […]

Curses, foiled againClayton Dial, 23, pulled a gun and demanded cash at a Japanese restaurant in Champaign, Ill., only to have chef Tetsuji Miwa thwart the robbery. “I instantly grabbed my sushi knife, walked up to him, wrapped my arm around his shoulder and asked him what he wanted,” Miwa said. “He saw the blade, […]

 Curses, foiled again• Police said Eric Frey, 29, handed a pizza shop employee in Uniontown, Pa., a note written on toilet paper. “I have a gun,” it read. “Give me $300.” The worker hit the silent alarm, summoning police before Frey could leave. He explained that a bearded man had confronted him in a nearby […]

Curses, foiled againPolice charged Kahlif Aleem Buggs, 32, with fraudulent use of debit cards after Tamara Thomas noticed a family “shopping like it was Christmas” at a Family Dollar store in DeKalb, Ga. Thomas got behind them at the register and saw Buggs pay with her missing card, which she recognized because it had been […]

Curses, foiled again• Fugitive Jacob Moore, 25, tried to divert police attention from his home where officers were preparing to execute a warrant by calling in a bomb threat to an elementary school in Hayden, Idaho. Moore forgot to turn off his caller ID, however, allowing authorities to trace the call to his phone and […]

Curses, foiled againAfter police linked Ralik Hansen, 28, to a smash-and-grab robbery at a jewelry store in New York City, he eluded them for seven months until a FedEx delivery driver knocked on the door of his Brooklyn home. Thinking it was the police, Hansen hid under the couch, FBI investigators said, but his gun […]

Curses, foiled againWhen Damontay Wright, 19, drove himself unaccompanied to a road test facility in Jonesboro, Ark., for his driver’s license, a police officer approached to ticket him for driving without a license, but Wright sped off. He smashed into a state trooper’s patrol car and then, with police in pursuit, lost control of his […]

Compiler’s note: Chronicling human folly gets harder every year because as foibles proliferate, the odd seems commonplace. These unbelievable-but-true news stories, however, stand out as the year’s quirkiest. Caught stupid• When the police officer who stopped Douglas Glidden, 25, in Livermore Falls, Maine, found marijuana in his vehicle Glidden insisted the pot couldn’t be his […]

Curses, foiled again• Police investigating a theft at a coin laundry in Great Falls, Mont., captured suspect Curtis Dear, 28, after following his footprints in the snow to a nearby residence. They found Dear with a backpack containing hundreds of quarters and shoes that matched the prints. (Associated Press) • Police who found Jailin Turner, […]

Curses, foiled againOntario resident Kai Xu was charged with smuggling after border agents at the Detroit-Windsor Tunnel discovered more than 50 turtles strapped to his body and hidden between his legs. Acting on a tip about a large box sent from Alabama to a Detroit postal center addressed to Xu, U.S. authorities staked it out […]

 Curses, foiled again• After an employee confronted two burglars inside a business in Mulga, Ala., he chased them to a pontoon boat on a trailer hooked up to a pickup truck they had parked down the road. Then one of the suspects opened fire with a shotgun. The employee called sheriff’s deputies, who said suspects […]

Curses, foiled againAfter John Franklin Forbis, 72, was convicted of possessing 850 pounds of marijuana in Columbia County, N.Y. in 1992, he jumped bail and eluded police for 22 years. Authorities finally caught up with him in Lane County, Ore., because he applied for Social Security benefits in his real name. (New York Daily News) […]