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Just_English_2 часть. Just English. Английский для юристов 43
PART V. THE STUPIDEST CRIMINALS
1. Bank Robbers
1.1. Klaus Schmidt, 41, burst into a bank in Berlin, Germany,
waved a pistol, and screamed, "Hand over the money!" The staff
asked if he wanted a bag, to which he replied, "Damn right it's a
real gun!" Guessing Schmidt was deaf, the manager set off the alarm, saying later, "It was ridiculously loud, but he didn't seem to notice." After five minutes, punctuated by Schmidt's occasionally shouting, "I am a trained killer!" police arrived and arrested him. Schmidt then sued the bank, accusing them of exploiting his disability.
Five armed raiders burst into a bank in Baku, the capital
of Azerbaijan. Their demands for money were foiled when the staff
calmly opened up the safes to reveal rows of empty shelves.
Unfortunately, robbers were let down by their ignorance of the
republic's finances. No money had been delivered to any of the banks
in Baku for the previous two months.
John Nashid from New York held up a bank in Bronx and
got away with $17,000. He then led the police on a five-mile car
chase through back streets, throwing fistfuls of dollars out of the
window in an attempt to hold up pursuit. To a certain extent it may
have worked, as $6,300 of his haul wasn't recovered; but it also left
a trail for the 12 cop cars chasing him to follow. Eventually Nashid
ran from his car, dived through the window of a nearby nursing
home, and was finally captured near a garbage can at the rear of
the building. He had entered the bank draped in a sheet with holes
cut out for his eyes, and was immediately nicknamed 'Casper the
Ghost' by police.
Scottish bank robber Derek Macfadden was caught because
he was too law-abiding. Gun in hand, he held up a bank at Gif f nock,
near Glasgow, and then raced off in his getaway car with £4,000.
Despite being pursued by police, he halted at a red traffic light,
where he was promptly arrested.
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Reader. Part V
1.5. A man arrived at a bank in East Hartford, Connecticut. He
was wearing a blue bandanna across his face and brandishing a pistol
as he yanked at the door, only to find it was locked. The bank had
actually closed at 3:00! After staring at the door for a few seconds,
the man ran off into a small black car. Staff still inside the bank
called the police, but no arrest was made.
Perhaps even later in arriving was the gang who spent the night
cutting their way into a Lloyds bank in Hampshire, England. They
cut bars with a hydraulic saw, wrenched out a security grille, and
punched a hole through a wall The only problem was that the bank
' was closed down four years earlier, and the building was empty.
From Florence, Italy, is a tale in which the guards got it
wrong: security men were all too eager to help a man with his foot in
a cast as he hobbled into a bank on metal crutches. Ignoring the alarm
from the metal detector at the bank's entrance, they guided the
apparently disabled man to a cashier's register. There he dropped his
crutches, pulled a gun, and grabbed $40,000 before sprinting away.
Michael Norton stole two security cameras from the lobby
of a bank. The cops were sure it was Norton, one of the
neigbourghood characters, because the last pictures the cameras
took showed him unscrewing them from the wall mountings.
Detective Thomas Hickey set off to cruise the streets and eventually
found Norton. "Hey", called Hickey. "Could you explain to me how
come the bank has your picture?" "I didn't rob the bank," Norton
protested. "I just took the camera." Oops...
2. Muggers
After he had been robbed of $20 in Winnipeg, Canada,
Roger Morse asked for his wallet back. The mugger agreed, handed
over his own wallet by mistake, and fled — leaving Roger $250 better
off.
In Camden, New
Jersey, Clarence Gland and
Kin Williams were taking a
late-night stroll when a car
pulled up and two men got
out. One of them produced
a long black snake and
shoved it toward Gland's
face, and while the couple
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Just English. Английский для юристов
Reader. Part V
237
  stood rigid, his associate made off with cash, a personal stereo, and a wristwatch. A snake expert later identified the reptile from its description as a completely harmless rat snake. In other words, it was not loaded.
A gun-toting mugger made a bad mistake when he held
up a man who was walking home through an alley in West Virginia.
Finding his victim was carrying only $13, he demanded a check
for $300. The man wrote out the check, and the thief was caught
the next day when he tried to cash it. As the cops said afterward:
"The crook wasn't very bright."
An Italian who turned to snatching handbags to finance
his drug addiction came unstuck, when he robbed his own mother
by mistake. The woman was walking along the street when her son,
who didn't see her face until it was too late, sped past on a
motorcycle and snatched her bag. Recognising him, his mother was
so angry she reported him to the police.
Belgian police quickly solved two Brussels street robberies
when they heard the victims' description of the culprit: he was
wearing a bright-yellow jacket and had a cast on one leg. The man
was caught within 15 minutes of his second robbery.
Purse snatcher Daniel Pauchin ended up in the hospital,
when he tried to rob two women in a street in Nice, France. The
victims were burly transvestites who beat him up and left him with
broken ribs.
2.7. Mandy Hammond from Arnold, England, went out with
two friends. As they waited for a taxi, a man walked up to them
and demanded Mandy's lipstick and eyeshadow. The group thought
he was joking, but he then pulled a gun, held it to her friend Paul
Upton's head and announced, "Don't laugh. I've got a gun, and I'll
shoot if you haven't got any lipstick.' Lipstick was promptly
produced, and the man strolled off. In the same month a gunman
struck in Scarborough, England. Wearing a hood and dark glasses,
he forced a pharmacist assistant, at gunpoint, to fill a bag with
pimple cream. Police were said to be "puzzled".
3. Thieves
3.1. Edward Williams of Houston, Texas, was fined $10,000 and put on 10 years' probation. He had formerly been a storeroom supervisor at Houston's Jefferson Davis Hospital, and he had been
convicted of stealing 79,680 rolls of toilet paper. No one knew for sure what he'd done with the purloined paper.
3.2. Car thief in Holloway, north of London, got away with
something special. Tucked away in the trunk of his car was a box
containing 120 plastic earholes. They were plastic molds made for
the Royal National Throat, Nose and Ear Hospital, to allow hearing
aids to be tailor-made for patients. One can only imagine the thief
trying to sell them on the open market: "Ere, buddy — wanna buy
some plastic ear'oles?"
The day after winning $640,000 in Italy's national lottery,
Flavio Maestrini was arrested for stealing $400 from a shop.
Appearing in court, he explained that he didn't enjoy spending
money unless it was stolen.
A Russian man arrived at his country retreat near
Arkhangelsk, Russia, on the White Sea and found the entire house
stolen, complete with outhouses and fences, leaving just a vegetable
patch.
Members of a British Rail cricket team turned up for the
first match of the season at their field near Kidderminster, England.
The pavilion had disappeared. How one steals an eight-room building
without anyone noticing remains a mystery.
Alan Omonde appeared in court in Uganda on the charge
of stealing an old man's big edible rat. Omonde was given 12 strokes
of the cane for stealing John Onyait's smoked rat, while Onyait
lamented that he'd been deprived of his favourite dish. Omonde
was also ordered to hunt down and trap five more edible rats as a
fine payable to his elderly victim.
4. Escape Artists
Two prisoners tried to escape from an appearance at a court
in Watford, England. Forgetting that they were handcuffed together,
they ran on either side of a lamppost. Having hurtled into one
another, the stunned pair was grabbed by the guard and bundled
into a waiting prison van.
Relatives bribed a prison guard to smuggle a bunch of
bananas to an inmate at Pecs, Hungary. Unfortunately the guard ran
into the prison commander, and apparently unaware that there might
be anything wrong with them, offered him his choice of the fruit.
Needless to say, the commander chose the wrong banana, bit into
the metal file contained within, and had the guard up on charges.
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Reader. Part V
239
  A certain Mr. Jorgen appeared on a Danish TV quiz show
and easily outclassed his opponents. He was just about to take off
with nearly $700 and a vacation for two in Marbella, Spain, when
the producer took him aside: it seemed security wanted a word.
Jorgen had been on the run for the previous 18 months, and his
TV-addict prison officer had recognised him.
Double murderer David Graham was only too obliging
when prison officers in Florida asked him to try to escape so they
could test a new tracking dog. They even gave him a 30-minute
start. Graham did his part perfectly, but the dog didn't. Local police
were called in to join the search, but Graham was long gone. A much
better sniffer dog was employed at a jail in Mexico City, Mexico. It
found Darren Brown hiding in a laundry van — which probably
saved Brown a great deal of disappointment, as the laundry van's
immediate destination was another prison.
Three imprisoned robbers broke out of a new jail in Aixen-
Provence, France by climbing ladders left behind by workmea The
workers had been erecting wires intended to deter helicopter-aided
escapes from the prison yard, but in preventing the high-tech
breakouts, they seem to have forgotten all about the low-tech ones.
4.6. An unnamed man reportedly climbed the wall of
Chelmsford jail, in Essex, England, from the outside. He was
carrying a rope with which he intended to haul his brother out.
The fellow lost his balance, fell into the jail, and was arrested as
he staggered around the prison yard, dazed but unhurt.
5. Shop-Lifters
Steven Kemble was arrested in St. George, Utah, when
he tried to flee after shoplifting a CD. After being briefly detained
by a store clerk, he broke free, dashed out the door, and ran into a
pillar in front of the shop, knocking himself unconscious.
Roy Philips Downfall was a colour fellow. Appearing in
court on shoplifting charges, he wore a yellow parka, yellow shirt,
yellow pants, and a yellow tie. It was a similar dress that drew him
to the attention of the store detective at a supermarket in Oldham,
England, where everything he was after had a yellow connection:
jellies, mustard, cheese, three pairs of socks, and two pairs of
underpants. He was given a one-month suspended sentence.
In Johannesburg, South Africa, a shoplifter with a passion
for cheese was caught for the sixth time after stealing gouda and
cheddar. Cleopas Ntima told police he paid for his other groceries, but said 'voices' told him to take the cheese.
6. Robbers
6.1. Mr. Wazir Jiwi was the only clerk in a late night shop in
Houston, Texas, when he found himself looking at two pistols. "You
don't need two," he told the bandit. "Why don't you sell me one of
them?" The gunman named his price at $100; Jiwi handed over the
cash and was given the gua As he placed it under the counter, he
pushed the button that locked the shop door. They then agreed on
the price for the other gun. The outlaw grabbed the second bundle
of cash, put his other pistol on the counter, and tried to leave. When
he found he could not get out, Jiwi told him to bring the money back
and he would let him go. And he did let him go, presumably guessing
that anyone that stupid would get arrested soon enough anyway.
An armed man in Groiningen, northern Holland, handed a
shopkeeper a note demanding money. The man behind the counter
took one look and then wrote his own terse reply: "Bug off" (or
the nearest Dutch equivalent). And the gunman did, too, fleeing
empty-handed.
When John Gregory came to trial, the tale that came out
was one of high farce rather than high drama. Gregory and an
accomplice had attempted to rob a video-shop in Feltham, England,
but unfortunately they were so dense, they thought the shop's type
writer was the cash register and ordered the manager, at gunpoint,
to 'open it up'. Even after they'd spotted their mistake, they still
managed to grab only five pounds before their shotgun went off
accidentally, which scared them so much they fled, dropping the
cash in the shop's doorway. The net return for the robbery was no
money and 4 years'
youth custody.
6.4. A robber armed
with a sausage raided a
shop in Graz, Austria,
and escaped with 1,600
shillings. Storekeeper
Rudy Buckmeister was
hit over the head with
the ten-pound sausage.
"It felt like a baseball
bat," he said.
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Reader. Part V
241
 6.5. Clive Bunyan burst into a store near Scarborough, England, brandishing a toy revolver and wearing a crash helmet and a mask. He got the shop clerk to hand over 250 pounds and fled outside to his motorcycle. However, he'd forgotten that written on his helmet in inch-high letters was "CLIVE BUNYAN — DRIVER". He was sentenced to 200 hours of community service.
7. Burglars
Having broken into a Hong Kong garment factory and found
nothing worth stealing, burglar Yu Kin-Fong left a note saying: "Put
some money here next time or I'll set fire to your factory. You make
me do this for nothing. I can't even find 10 cents." He was tracked
down and sentenced to 3 years.
Gloria Smile opened the door to find the reformed burglar
in his twenties standing on her doorstep. Returning to the scene of
his crimes in Westcliff, England, the young man said he had found
God, apologized to her and handed her a shopping bag containing a
silver coffeepot, creamer, and sugar bowL Unfortunately' he'd gone
to the wrong house; Ms. Smile hadn't been his victim.
Two burglars raiding the Browns family home in Coventry,
England got a little help from four-year-old Russell Brown. He got
up to investigate when he heard a noise at 3 a.m., but the strangers
he found in the darkened living room whispered that they were
friends of his mommy and daddy who had come to borrow the
stereo, VCR, and TV, but didn't want to disturb them because it
was so late. Russell was delighted to help, and held the back door
open for his visitors as they left with their haul, before going back
upstairs to bed. The men were later arrested and the property
recovered.
Two 78-year-old burglars were caught red-handed in a
house in San Paolo, Brazil, when the occupants of the house
returned unexpectedly. The one inside was too deaf to hear the
warning of his accomplice outside, and the lookout man was not
fit enough to escape.
Three burglars who broke into a cottage found nothing
inside, literally. It was a front, held up by scaffolding and used by
BBC for filming a drama at Ewenny, Wales.
8. 'Miscellaneous' Crooks
In the Tasmanian town of Launceton, Don Desmond Davey
was fined $1,600 for quacking like a duck on his radio transmitter.
He was convicted of broadcasting something that was not speech,
and ordered to hand over his radio as well. Shortly before Barry
Brownless of London was fined 1,600 pounds for barking at a police
dog. He was found guilty of using threatening behavior.
A man was arrested in Bangkok, Thailand, charged with
impersonating a police officer. Using a stolen uniform, he had spent
two months posing as a traffic cop in order to extort money from.
motorists. He finally came unstuck when a senior officer passed by
on an inspection tour and he saluted with the wrong hand.
Pickpocket Mario Palumbo thought he was going to have
another good day at the races as he mingled with a 75,000-strong
crowd in Monza, Italy. Unfortunately, his chosen victim turned out
to be Pietro Fontana, who was not only a cop but the head of Milan's
anti-pickpocket squad. Apparently known as the King of the
Pickpockets, Palumbo was said to have remarked on his arrest:
"When they hear of this in Naples, I will die of shame."
John Gilmer of Goole, England, was arrested for drunken
driving but the police left him alone for a moment. Seizing his
opportunity, he stole the car and drove off. He would probably have
got away with it, driving along dark Yorkshire lanes, but for one
thing: he had no idea how to turn off the patrol car's flashing blue
light. The police simply followed the light and arrested him when
he gave up and parked by a riverbank.
8.5. Unemployed David Morris, 21 from Beckenham in Kent,
England, was passing the time before a date with his girlfriend when
he wrote a note reading "I have a gun in my pocket and I'll shoot
it off unless you hand over the money". He then went into'three
shops and passed the note over the counter. At the drugstore an
assistant refused to accept the note because she thought it was an
obscene suggestion. Next door in a hardware store a sales clerk shook
his head and said he could not read English. Morris then went into
a take-out restaurant, but the cashier couldn't read the note without
his glasses. Morris asked for it back and hung around the street
outside. Arrested soon afterward he told the police: "I've been a
twit... I only pretended to have a gun." He was put on probation
for two years.
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9. Outrageous Lawsuits
9.1. A woman in Israel is suing a TV station and its weatherman
for $1,000 after he predicted a sunny day and it rained. The woman
claims the forecast caused her to leave home lightly dressed. As a
result, she caught the flu, missed 4 days of work, spent $38 on
medication and suffered stress.
A woman dropped some burglar bars on her foot. She
claimed that her neighbour, who was helping her carry the bars,
had caused the accident. The neighbour's insurance company offered
to settle the dispute by paying her medical bills, but she refused.
She wanted more and sued for damages, including "pain and
suffering." The jury took only 17 minutes to unanimously decide
that the woman was fully responsible for her own injuries. The
innocent neighbour had to pay $4,700 in defense costs. The two are
no longer friends.
A jury awarded $178,000 in damages to a woman who sued
her former fiance for breaking their seven-week engagement. The
breakdown: $93,000 for pain & suffering; $60,000 for loss of income
from her legal practice, and $25,000 for psychiatric counseling
expenses.
Inmates at a county jail sued for cruel and unusual living
conditions: bunk beds, cells lacking a sink and toilet, and no way to
exercise in winter. These criminals were awarded $2 million dollars,
paid by the taxpayers of Massachusetts. Each inmate who was a
party to the suit got $10 tax-free, for each day he was jailed. Their
award included damages plus 12 per cent interest from the time
the case was settled until the time they collected their windfall.
9.5. John Carter, a New Jersey man sued McDonald's for
injuries he sustained in an auto accident with one of their customers.
He claimed that the customer who hit him did so after spilling the
contents of his chocolate shake (which he purchased from
McDonald's) onto his lap while reaching over for his fries. He alleged
that McDonald's sold their customer food knowing he would
consume it while driving and without announcing or affixing a
warning to the effect "don't eat and drive." The court concluded
that McDonald's had no duty to warn customers of obvious things
which they should expect to know, but refused McDonald's request
for attorney's fees stating that the plaintiff's attorney was "creative,
imaginative and he shouldn't be penalised for that." This case was
Reader. Part V 243
i  n the court system for three years, underwent appellate court review and cost McDonald's over $10,000.
9.6. A woman was treated by a psychiatrist, became
romantically involved with him, and subsequently married him.
After more than five years of marriage they divorced, at which
time the woman sued her ex-husband for psychiatric malpractice
and negligence claiming that the romantic or sexual relationship
between them started before the formal psychiatric treatment ended.
She contended that her ex-husband had breached the standard of
care as a psychiatrist by becoming romantically involved with her,
and sought general, special and punitive damages.
A surfer recently sued another surfer for "taking his wave."
The case was ultimately dismissed because they were unable to put
a price on "pain and suffering" endured by watching someone ride
the wave that was "intended for you." \
A man sued a lemonade company for $10,000 for false
advertising. He claimed that he suffered physical and mental injury
and emotional- distress from the implicit promises in the
advertisements. When he drank the beverage, success with women
did not come true for him plus, he got sick. The Michigan Court
of Appeals affirmed a lower-court decision dismissing the case:
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