Community Magazine March 2003

ADAR II 5763 MARCH 2003 79 s ” xc The Do-it-Yourself Mask A German bank robber in the western town of Giessen entered a bank with a burlap bag over his head – however he forgot to cut open eye slits in his mask. Bumping into bank customers on his way to the teller, he pulled out a plastic knife and a toy pistol. He then lifted the front of his mask to look at the teller and demand money looking straight into the security cameras in the process. After being told the safe couldn’t be opened, he fled. Police easily identified the perpetrator from the security cameras and apprehended him the next day. He has been convicted and sentenced to four years in jail. Self Help Title: “How to Steal from Your Library” 85-year-old Ernest Heyneman of California has been banned from all his local libraries after stealing more than 3,500 books and videos over a four year period. Authorities allege that the retired movie stu- dio employee was a regular visitor to his local Los Angeles area libraries. He would check out several books and videos a week, take them home and remove the security strips before returning the items on time. He then returned to the library at a later date and smuggled out his chosen material. He was detected after a librarian noticed a scarcity of medical books in the branch and made the link to Heyneman. He pleaded no contest to the burglary charge which police said covered items ranging from fitness videos to a book called “All I Need to Know I Learned fromWatching Star Trek.” Heyneman’s lawyer stated that his client was devastated by the pun- ishment adding that “The penalty is worse than jail for him”. Grand Theft Auto Manual Two would-be Canadian thieves learned the hard way that knowing how to drive a car is a prerequisite for stealing one. Police said the two males accosted a pizza delivery man in northeast Edmonton, Canada and demanded the four pizzas he was carrying as well as cash. The bandits, aged 17 and 18, apparently changed their plan at one point and jumped into the man’s car. But their getaway was foiled because the 17-year-old behind the wheel did not know how to drive a stick shift. Baffled by the manual transmission and clutch, the duo then went back to their original plot to commandeer the piz- zas, Edmonton Police spokesman Wes Bellmore said. “It was a toss-up between the pizzas and the car, and they knew how to operate pizzas.” When officers arrived on the scene, they spotted one of the suspects entering the home where the pizzas were to be delivered. Both were arrested and have been charged with robbery and theft. Police also recovered the pizzas Return to Sender C.O.D. Two German postal work- ers aged 20 and 28 tried to sell high-tech telephone equip- ment that they stole from the mail to a second- hand dealer in the Bavarian town of Nuremberg. The thieves how- ever failed to notice that the return address on the package that they stole was the same as their potential buyer. The original owner of the goods spotted the package as the same one he had taken to the post office that morning and called the police. Police arrested the thieves and searched their apartment, discov- ering a cache of missing mail that included stolen laptops, video cameras and fax equipment worth $10,000. Gone in a Kodak Moment Two men who entered a Vienna photo shop to pick up their holi- day pictures, took advantage of the opportunity to steal an expen- sive digital camera. While one man distracted the salesperson, the other pocketed a digital camera. The pair then ran out of the store but in their haste to flee the crime scene forgot to take their holi- day photos with them. The suspects were easily identified and have been arrested. Can’t Hack Traffic Court A 19-year-old computer whiz, arrested for drunk driving and sum- moned to appear in court in Besancon, in eastern France was too tempted when he found an unmanned computer as he arrived at the police station for his hearing. The man decided to test the good humor of the court by hacking into the database. He deleted his file from the computer’s hard drive and inserted “;)” — the text message shorthand for a winking smiley face — in its place. But rather than smiling at the prank, the judge handed the man a three- month suspended prison sentence, a $425 fine and suspended his driving license for three months. The Dumbest Criminals