Robbed of dignity A convenience store robbery failed in North Carolina after the gunman placed his gun on the store counter and let the clerk grab it. The heist started comically when the man walked in with a lopsided ski mask over his half his face, then dropped a plastic bag and stumbled as he picked it up.
The clerk, Guillermo Troncoso, thought it was a joke.
The man took the entire cash register off the counter, but Troncoso yanked on the register’s electrical cord, and the gunman tumbled to the floor.
Troncoso noticed the gun has been left on the counter and grabbed it. The clerk then took his own baseball bat and struck the robber in the head. Then Troncoso smashed out the getaway car’s rear window.
Police officers got a break after the car with the smashed-in window was found in front of the suspect’s home.
Police found the suspect asleep, with a bloody bruise on his head.
“I feel a little sad,” Troncoso told WCNC-TV, “because I’m not the kind of human being who likes to hit people.”
Do-it-yourself DUI
An Ohio woman was arrested for drinking and driving after she pulled herself over.
Police said the woman stopped because she thought she saw police lights, but it turned out the flashing lights were from a skating rink sign.
The Sandusky Register reports that the woman’s car got stuck in a snowbank near the sign when she stopped early Monday and another motorist called police.
Officers said Nicole Scott was charged with operating a vehicle under the influence. Police say Scott denied she had been driving.
Ambulance chaser
An ambulance driver who used his GPS-equipped rig as a getaway car has been convicted of holding up a New York nail salon.
Kevin Cheeks, 44, was linked to the robbery by GPS records showing he was near the salon at the time of the crime. Witnesses from a nearby diner recalled seeing a man getting into a rig marked “Sigma ambulette number 16” and speeding off.
Cheeks was arrested when he returned his ambulance to Sigma Transportation in West Hempstead, N.Y., in the hours after the robbery.
Modern day mix-up
A 9-year-old with a cell phone received a pornographic photo of a woman performing a sex act on a man.
Ty’Ge Davis told NBC News in Naples, Fla., that he ran to his home and showed his mom, who called the sheriff’s office.
“That was just too old for me,” the Davis youth said, “I wasn’t ready for that.”
Ty’Ge says he texted the number back and told the man he was only 9 years old, but the man sent another text.
After Ty’Ge’s mother called the number, the man said he was only trying to sell the couch in the sexually explicit picture.
