Some people are just plain stupid and many of them are criminals or those who attempt to commit crimes. I saw an article in the news today from Fort Worth, Texas where a 21 year old man took a check from his girlfriend’s mother without her knowing and tried to cash it at the bank. The only problem is that he wrote the check for $360 billion dollars! The smart bank teller, noticing the ridiculous amount, notified the woman who’s name was on the check and promptly notified the police who then arrested this young man who must have had some bills to pay. Here is a copy of what the amount looked like on the check, as taken from the news website:

I know gas prices are creeping higher and higher, along with all other expenses. I know that as I receive the monthly bills for utilities and city services only to see the rates climb higher for essentially the same service I can totally understand. But $360 billion? Did he think they would have that money just laying around somewhere in the vault and he would simply back his pickup truck to the rear door so they could load the cashed check amount pallet by pallet? Just silly. He was asking to get caught.

I have dealt with some crazy criminals as a cop. The crazy ones are also the scary ones because they actually believed at one time that they could get away with the crimed they were trying to commit. Like the shoplifter one day who tried to tell me the clothes she was wearing were hers despite the price tags, anti-theft devices attached, and old clothing in the dressing room she recently left. Or how about the silliest but often heard phrase when dealing with drug boys who are about to be searched: “officer, these are not my pants” as if to imply someone unknown to them came by and forced their pants on the unsuspecting young men, pants that often contained large amounts of money and drugs. Go figure!

My all time favorite is a traffic stop I did when I was working vice and doing a heavy prostitution enforcement detail. I witnessed what I believed to be an exchange between a known prostitute and a client on a side street in one of the housing project developments I patrolled. Once the driver drove off with his ‘date’ I initiated a traffic stop to conduct an investigation based on my established probable cause. Immediately after approaching the car but before I could identify myself, the driver declared “Officer, you got me. She’s a prostitute.” How easy was that?

Times like these are the good times to look back on and laugh, as opposed to listing the all too many fights and struggles I had with violent offenders who resisted going to jail at all cost. The stupid criminals made my day and afterwards they would often sit and laugh with us as we rode back to the station for processing for they had begun to see what was initially thought of as the suavest heist was in reality a blatant crime that advertised everything about their plan. No real secret there!

So, this guy from Texas…an almost-billionaire. Pretty convincing….NOT!