Not here. Our local crooks are either caught at the scene of their next crime or, if police bother to look, they find them hiding in plain sight at their grandmother's or their girlfriend's house.
Some crimes are so brazen or bizarre that their very nature attests to the astonishing arrogance or diminished capacity of their perpetrators. But every once in awhile, we hear about a crime of such staggering stupidity that it makes you want to peel back the perpetrator's scalp for a closer look at the inner workings of his brain.
What was the K-9 officer thinking when he allegely helped himself to a stack of money from a safe at Pat's Cafe? How could he think he'd get away with it when two other officers who had also answered the call apparently were on the premises?
It's even more perplexing when you consider that the unnamed cop had to know there was a surveillance camera operating in the bar. Surveillance video from that bar was entered into evidence in the trial of Solomon Montgomery, the man convicted of the murder four years ago of
Officer Gary Skerski during a robbery at Pat's.
"There is a portion of [this week's] tape that shows one of the officers taking something from the safe," Police Commissioner Charles Ramsey told a news conference yesterday.
All three had been assigned to desk duty pending an Internal Affairs investigation. But Ramsey said the other two were guilty of nothing more than taking a soft drink without paying for it. They will be returned to street duty, he said.
"The other two did not see the third officer," Ramsey said. He said they have not recovered the $825 that was reported missing.
What would make a veteran cop risk his career to lift $825 from an open safe during a burglary investigatiion?
Part of his punishment should be to star in a reality show about stupid criminals.
