Friday, December 14, 2007

Clueless bank robber leaves big clue

OK, we'll give the bad editors a break today. One of the fun things I did during my newspaper career was to start and write a weekly column on stupid criminals. It started out as "Night Beat" and later morphed into "Off Beat" when my shift changed in the late 1990s.
You can still find the column, which is now written by the Flint Journal's Bryn Mickle at mlive.com, click on the Flint Journal and then look through the offerings for columns and click on Off Beat.
One of my favorites was the story provided by Flint police detectives about a man who robbed a local bank branch. Apparently before leaving home the robber scribbled his note on the back of a piece of paper and headed to the bank.
Once at the bank he said nothing, but slid the note to the teller who handed over the cash and the man fled leaving behind the note.
When police retrieved the note from the teller they turned it over and discovered the note was written on the back of a copy of his birth certificate, which led them directly to the suspect.
See you soon.

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