Curses, Foiled Again

A man robbing his elderly victim in San Diego took exception when a bystander interrupted the crime and punched the robber in the face. The robber responded by calling the police to report the assault. When officers showed up, they arrested the 43-year-old caller. (San Diego Union-Tribune)

Police had little trouble finding two men who robbed a convenience store in Catawba County, N.C. The suspects called the police shortly after their getaway to request help with a flat tire. One of the officers recognized the men from a surveillance video of the robbery and arrested Mark Franklin, 46, and James Jennings, 31. (Charlotte Observer)

A carjacking victim told authorities in Hayward, Calif., that his attacker choked him, drove off, then returned and resumed choking him until a witness intervened. Alameda County sheriff’s investigators immediately identified Ali Kimia, 32, as the suspect when witness and victim both mentioned the tattoos on his forehead. One over his right eye reads, “Why,” and one over his left eye reads, “Try.” (San Francisco Chronicle)

Curses, Foiled Again

Police said Raul Gaucin-Valenzuela, 33, and a friend broke into a home in Evans, Colo., intending to beat up the friend’s ex-wife’s new boyfriend. The plan failed because the woman living there was baby-sitting Gaucin-Valenzuela’s two children, ages 8 and 11, who recognized their dad, even though a bandanna covered his face. Police said Gaucin-Valenzuela didn’t realize his kids were at the home. (Greeley Daily Tribune)

After recognizing themselves in a surveillance video on TV, two women went to the police station in DeLand, Fla., and, according to sheriff’s official Brandon Haught, “wanted to know what is going on.” Investigators stepped in and determined from the video that the women were at a beauty store when it was robbed and one of them, Myesha Williams, 20, committed the robbery. (Daytona Beach News-Journal)

When a man and a woman tried to sell a ring to a jewelry store in Joplin, Mo., owner L.T. Newton recognized it as stolen and called the police. Officers couldn’t find the ring on either suspect, but while questioning the man, he began to cough uncontrollably and eventually coughed up the ring, which he had swallowed. (The Joplin Globe)

Curses, Foiled Again

After robbers used heavy metal drain covers to smash their way into a Welsh bank in Cardiff and make off with $171,156, police quickly identified the culprits because a witness remembered the personalized license plate—“J4MES”—on the sporty blue BMW used as the getaway vehicle. Police found James Snell, 27, and his brother Wayne, 34, holding more than $48,944 of the loot and rounded up the rest of the gang. “It was the distinctiveness of the car which contributed to the robbers’ undoing,” prosecutor Daniel Williams said. (The Daily Telegraph)

Curses, Foiled Again

Two masked men armed with a shotgun tried to rob a bagel shop in Orlando, Fla., but fled empty handed when one of the employees pushed a bagel cart at them.

After stealing handcuffs, a Taser and other items from an unmarked police car in Ocoee, Fla., Shane Thomas Williams-Allen, 19, was apprehended when he “locked the handcuffs on himself and had to call the Clermont Police Department to respond to release him,” according to an arrest affidavit. Lake County authorities who took Williams-Allen into custody said he told them that while removing the Taser from the police car, “it discharged, hitting the floor and causing his foot to get shocked.” 

Mother’s Day Edition

Curses, Foiled Again

Tita Nyambi, 25, tried to withdraw $700 from his mother’s bank account by dressing in the woman’s clothes and speaking in a high-pitched voice, according to authorities in Somerset County, N.J., who added that he also presented her driver’s license and forged her signature on a bank form at the bank’s drive-through teller. Newark’s Star-Ledger said bank personnel immediately saw through the deception and called police, who responded while Nyambi was waiting for the money.

Curses, Foiled Again

Massachusetts State Police who stopped Francis Viliar, 36, for speeding said he showed troopers a driver’s license that had the name Luis Gomez but a different signature. When they asked him his birth date, he failed six times to match the one on the license, prompting his arrest. At the Brockton police station, officers noticed the pads of Viliar’s fingers were covered with scar tissue. They took fingerprints anyway, and federal officials were able to determine his identity and that he was wanted on 13 warrants. Viliar said he paid someone $400 to cut his fingers vertically, from the fingertip to the knuckle joint, so his prints would be unreadable. “Fortunately,” police official David Procopio told The Boston Globe, “our efforts to identify {suspects} are keeping pace with their efforts to mutilate themselves.”

Curses, Foiled Again

Los Angeles police broke up a sophisticated marijuana growing operation they found 25 feet from the back door of the police station. Officers noticed the strong smell of pot coming from the building and notified the narcotics squad, which investigated. Officer Karen Raynor told KTTV News the three suspects had “gone to great lengths to filter the air coming out of every hole that might leak to the outside” and plugged all places where the smell might have been detected with liquid caulking. “But it was not enough,” Raynor noted. “Their luck ran out.”

Police responding to a bank robbery in St. Petersburg, Fla., said suspect Thomas John Castro, 54, was making his getaway on a city bus when a dye pack hidden with the stolen money exploded on him. Witnesses said he hastily hopped off the bus and fled on foot. The St. Petersburg Times reported that a tip led police to a motel room, where Castro answered the door holding a bag of crack cocaine.

Curses, Foiled Again

Brier Cutlip, 22, and Paul Bragg, 25, were arrested for firearms possession, a felony parole violation, after sheriff’s deputies in Randolph County, W.Va., found two rifles in Cutlip’s truck. The deputies thought to look for incriminating evidence because the two men showed up at their parole meetings together dressed in blaze orange. WBOY-TV News said the men admitted hunting earlier that day.

Curses, Foiled Again

Two men lacking masks when they broke into an apartment in Carroll, Iowa, used a Sharpie marker to draw on masks. The Daily Times Herald reported that police, responding to a caller who saw two men with “painted faces” drive off, stopped a car after noticing Matthew McNelly, 23, and Joey Miller, 20, sporting the irremovable disguises.