Darwin Awards

[JoeBob 606]

Is there a 'Humor' forum?

Beavah, I'd like you input to the question in #6.

 

Here is the glorious winner:

 

1. When his 38 caliber revolver failed to fire at his intended victim during a holdup in Long Beach , California would-be robber James Elliot did something that can only inspire wonder. He peered down the barrel and tried the trigger again. This time it worked.

 

And now, the honorable mentions:

 

2. The chef at a hotel in Switzerland lost a finger in a meat cutting machine and after a little shopping around, submitted a claim to his insurance company. The company expecting negligence sent out one of its men to have a look for himself. He tried the machine and he also lost a finger.. The chef's claim was approved.

 

3. A man who shoveled snow for an hour to clear a space for his car during a blizzard in Chicago returned with his vehicle to find a woman had taken the space. Understandably, he shot her.

 

4. After stopping for drinks at an illegal bar, a Zimbabwean bus driver found that the 20 mental patients he was supposed to be transporting from Harare to Bulawayo had escaped. Not wanting to admit his incompetence, the driver went to a nearby bus stop and offered everyone waiting there a free ride. He then delivered the passengers to the mental hospital, telling the staff that the patients were very excitable and prone to bizarre fantasies.. The deception wasn't discovered for 3 days.

 

5. An American teenager was in the hospital recovering from serious head wounds received from an oncoming train. When asked how he received the injuries, the lad told police that he was simply trying to see how close he could get his head to a moving train before he was hit.

 

6. A man walked into a Louisiana Circle-K, put a $20 bill on the counter, and asked for change. When the clerk opened the cash drawer, the man pulled a gun and asked for all the cash in the register, which the clerk promptly provided. The man took the cash from the clerk and fled, leaving the $20 bill on the counter. The total amount of cash he got from the drawer... $15. [if someone points a gun at you and gives you money, is a crime committed?]

 

7. Seems an Arkansas guy wanted some beer pretty badly.. He decided that he'd just throw a cinder block through a liquor store window, grab some booze, and run. So he lifted the cinder block and heaved it over his head at the window. The cinder block bounced back and hit the would-be thief on the head, knocking him unconscious. The liquor store window was made of Plexiglas. The whole event was caught on videotape...

 

8. As a female shopper exited a New York convenience store, a man grabbed her purse and ran. The clerk called 911 immediately, and the woman was able to give them a detailed description of the snatcher. Within minutes, the police apprehended the snatcher. They put him in the car and drove back to the store. The thief was then taken out of the car and told to stand there for a positive ID. To which he replied, "Yes, officer, that's her. That's the lady I stole the purse from."

 

9.. The Ann Arbor News crime column reported that a man walked into a Burger King in Ypsilanti , Michigan at 5 A.M., flashed a gun, and demanded cash. The clerk turned him down because he said he couldn't open the cash register without a food order. When the man ordered onion rings, the clerk said they weren't available for breakfast... The man, frustrated, walked away. [*A 5-STAR STUPIDITY AWARD WINNER]

 

10. When a man attempted to siphon gasoline from a motor home parked on a Seattle street by sucking on a hose, he got much more than he bargained for.. Police arrived at the scene to find a very sick man curled up next to a motor home near spilled sewage. A police spokesman said that the man admitted to trying to steal gasoline, but he plugged his siphon hose into the motor home's sewage tank by mistake. The owner of the vehicle declined to press charges saying that it was the best laugh he'd ever had.

 

[packsaddle 753]

For the sake of humanity, I hope that each and every one of those is true.

[Engineer61 19]

My personal favorite:

 

(26 August 2006, Leicester, England) Darren's death was a mystery. The 33-year-old was found slumped in the hallway of his house, bleeding from stab wounds to his chest. Police initially assumed that an assailant had attacked him, but they could find no supporting evidence. A year later, the inquest revealed why Darren can stake his claim to a place among the winners of the Darwin Award.

 

Darren had called a friend, but minutes after he hung up, rang back to ask for an ambulance. The front door was ajar, and Darren was found lying near a bloodstained lock-knife he had purchased whilst on holiday in Spain. Forensics investigators saw no indication of a struggle, and the coroner reported that the stab wounds seemed to be self-inflicted. However, Darren had shown no suicidal tendencies.

 

His wife, who was on holiday at the time of the incident, cleared up the mystery, and revealed why our subject will go down in history as a Darwin Award winner. As she was leaving for the holiday, she remembered Darren wondering whether his new jacket was 'stab-proof'.

 

That's right. Darren decided to find out if his jacket could withstand a knife attack. Did he choose to test his jacket while it was draped over the back of a chair? No, our man thought that the best approach would be to wear the garment and stab himself. Sadly, his choice of armor proved less resistant to a sharp blade than he had hoped.

 

The coroner reached a verdict of accidental death by 'misadventure'.

[NJCubScouter 1389]

6. A man walked into a Louisiana Circle-K, put a $20 bill on the counter, and asked for change. When the clerk opened the cash drawer, the man pulled a gun and asked for all the cash in the register, which the clerk promptly provided. The man took the cash from the clerk and fled, leaving the $20 bill on the counter. The total amount of cash he got from the drawer... $15. [if someone points a gun at you and gives you money, is a crime committed?]

 

Sounds like a law school exam question. You write a bluebook page or two on why it is a crime, then another page or two on why it isn't. (Do they have bluebooks anymore? Or do you just type the answer on your laptop and email it to the professor?)

 

Assuming that it's a serious question (which it probably isn't): Sure. The guy obtained property from another person by the threat of force, and in this case, using a weapon. The fact that he "lost" some of his own property while doing so is irrelevant. (The guy also committed the crime of assault with a weapon, but I think the questioner was asking about armed robbery.)

[Oak Tree 15]

Check out http://www.snopes.com/horrors/freakish/darwin05.asp for the scoop on the truth here.

 

Note that only the first one on this list would literally qualify as a "Darwin Award" - which is named for removing yourself from the gene pool.

 

You can also check out http://www.darwinawards.com/ for some more entertaining examples of simply astonishing stupidity. Let's just say that none of the above stories seem beyond the realm of possibility.

[eisely 13]

Just as with the Darwin Awards there is a web site dedicated to the achievements of really stupid criminals. One of my favorite stories of several years ago involved an aspiring bank robber.

 

A guy goes into a bank and shoves a note to a teller demanding $100,000 in small bills. The teller informs the robber that they really don't keep that much cash in the bank but that she could write him a check. He thinks for a brief moment and agrees. The teller then requests some ID which the robber provides. The teller and bank officers then issue a chashier's check to the guy for $100,000. The police were waiting for the robber when arrived at home.

[oldisnewagain1 42]

When I first got out of college, I worked for a short time at Radio Shack and this is what happened to my manager one afternoon.

A young fellow came in to rob the store and Larry (the manager) began to open the cash draw asking the fellow why he was doing this. The fellow responded, "So I can buy one of those!" pointing to a boom box. Larry, not missing a beat, hands the guy the biggest boom box in the store and says "Like this one?". (It was the late 80's and these things were huge!) The guy is so excited wanted to hold the box, puts his gun on the counter. Larry cranks the sound up with one hand and takes the gun with the other hand to hide it under the counter. Being the kind of sales guy he was, he spends the next couple minutes explaining all the features of the boom box and convinces the guy he doesn't need any money just good credit. He got the crook to fill out a credit application and to go home to receive a call from "insta-credit" in about an hour. Police found the crook at home waiting next to the phone.

[CalicoPenn 729]

"3. A man who shoveled snow for an hour to clear a space for his car during a blizzard in Chicago returned with his vehicle to find a woman had taken the space. Understandably, he shot her."

 

Yes - this is true - indeed, it's generally true at least once every winter here in Chicago. It's hard to get a jury in Chicago to convict on these though - that's why they have to import the jurors from the suburbs.

 

One of the best stories of the great Chicago blizzard this year is of a woman who was caught on video taking shovel from a neighbor's porch. Had she returned the shovel, the guy wouldn't have cared much. But since the guy was using the shovel to build his young daughter a quinzhee in his yard, and she didn't bring the shovel back, he decided to get even. His tapes showed the woman shoveling out her car - then taking the shovel with her to wherever she lived. He got out the old snowblower, and, as any good citizen would do, did his civic duty and cleared the sidewalk - all over her car. She didn't have the shovel the next day when she had to clear her car off again.

 

 

[Kahuna 172]

NJCubscouter writes: Sounds like a law school exam question. You write a bluebook page or two on why it is a crime, then another page or two on why it isn't. (Do they have bluebooks anymore? Or do you just type the answer on your laptop and email it to the professor?)

 

I've wondered that myself. All the infomercials I get from my alma mater show nothing but a sea of laptops. I doubt most of those students could actually write for three hours like we did.

 

BTW, I concur in your legal opinion.

[BartHumphries 10]

When you know how to type well, typing is faster than writing -- the greater prevalence of laptops means that more is generally expected, as you can get the same thing done in a shorter amount of time.

[Stosh 3452]

The one I like was related to me by my brother who works for the Federal Bureau of Prisons.

 

Bank robber enters Bank A and writes a note of intention on a deposit slip. Stands in line. While waiting in the long line, notices there are no lines at the bank across the street goes there and hands the teller the note. She calmly explains that she can't accept that note because it's on a deposit slip of Bank A. When he goes back to Bank A the teller of the second bank alerts the police and the would be robber is eventually arrested while standing in line the second time.

 

Stosh

[Gunny2862 11]

The 2010 awards are posted here: http://www.darwinawards.com/darwin/darwin2010-02.html

Once there, you can navigate to all the archived years.