Criminally Moronic Tales

February 23, 1999

D.U.I SUSPECT GETS HIS PANTIES IN A WAD -- LITERALLY
A Canadian DUI suspect recently tried to beat a drunk driving charge by...eating his underwear. The man was pulled over by police after they spotted his car swerving down the highway. As he sat in the back of the patrol car, the suspect ripped the crotch out of his underwear and stuffed it into his mouth. The man told the judge in the case he had eaten his shorts because he hoped the cotton fabric would absorb the alcohol before he took a breathalyzer test.

THE OVAL IDIOTS
A suspicous scene at a bank in a small town outside Montgomery, Alabama: Two men pulled a truck with no license plates up to the bank door. Despite the warm weather, the men were wearing long, heavy coats. They were also wearing Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton masks. the crime was apparently inspired by the movie "Point Break," which featured a gang of bank-robbing surfers who wore presidential masks during their heists. But a better title for the real life caper might be "Wipeout": before Tricky Dick and Slick Willie could enter the bank, a quick-thinking teller stopped them cold by...walking over and locking the front door. Unable to enter the bank, the men fled the scene.

FINALLY -- A GUY SAYS "I'LL CALL YOU" AND MEANS IT!
A woman who was kidnapped and assaulted by a man outside a Florida shopping mall used her quick wits to put a career rapist back behind bars. After the assault, the woman told the assailant she might be interested in seeing him again and gave him her pager number. The man called the woman three times the next day, and police used the pages to track him down and arrest him. said one investigator: "Her remarkable smarts, coupled with his remarkable dumbs, made a good case for us."

HEY -- WHY DIDN'T YOU TELL ME YOU WERE COPS?
Police in Arab, Alabama arrived at a house shortly after arresting its owners on drug charges, and were approached by a man who was apparently looking for a good time. said one officer: "He asked us if we were having a party. If we were, he said he wanted to join in." The man didn't realize his newfound buddies were drug agents, even though they had arrived at the "party" in a large truck with "Marshall County Drug Enforcement Unit" painted on the side.

HEY -- WHAT IS THIS CRAP?
Authorities are calling him "The Mad Crapper." Police say the man caused over 13 thousand dollars worth of damage to six vehicles by breaking into them and defecating on their seats. Court records say he showed a definite preference for Ford Mustangs: they were his car of choice in four of the incidents. A Ford truck and an Oldsmobile Cutlass were his other two targets. Authorities say the man would scale the fence around the lot, break into cars that customers had left for repairs, and...do his thing. He is now under psychiatric care and is taking medication to control his impulses.

THIS IS YOUR BRAIN. THIS IS YOUR BRAIN ON TV.
An escaped inmate in Mobile, Alabama was outraged at being refered to as a crack user by local news organizations. So outraged that he turned himself in -- and demanded a news conference to establish that he only uses cocaine in powder form. "I don't do crack, and anybody who knows me knows that," said the man, who surrendered after escaping from the Childersburg work center in Talladega County. "I smoke marijuana, and I do cocaine, but I don't do crack."

TUESDAY ON FOX: WHEN GRANNIES ATTACK!
Two well-meaning mothers in Pensacola, Florida decided that the best way to keep their 10-year-old sons from fighting all the time was to set up an arranged fight and act as referees. The women brought the boys to the middle of the street and turned them loose. The challengers were wearing each other down, until an angry grandma joined the fray and started punching the boy who was walloping her grandson. (Granny claims she was merely trying to separate the boys.) Her uninvited entry into the brawl prompted one mom to knock her into a fence post, fracturing a disk in her lower back. After Grandma's knockout, the two moms went at it, in a battle that went from punches to hair pulling. By the time a Sheriff's deputy arrived, the fight was over and neither party wanted to press charges. The deputy sent the women home to nurse their bruises with a strong warning against this sort of thing in the future.

YEAH...THAT'S THE TICKET!
A Montana State University chemistry professor claimed he was wrongfully accused of being drunk after an accident (which occurred while he was on work-release for a previous drunk-driving sentence). a state trooper at the scene said the professor was "highly intoxicated." the professor said it was a chemical explosion in his lab that caused him to smell and act drunk, and that his statement to the trooper about having consumed a six-pack of beer was merely "incoherent babbling" because of the trauma of the accident.

AND FINALLY...
A juror in St. Louis, Missouri, got three days in jail and a $700 fine after he missed final deliberations in a murder trial. The man told the judge that the jury's discussion of the details of the case had depressed him so much that he got drunk and overslept.