Least competent criminals

According to police in Canton, Mich., Joseph Webster, 54, walked into a Comerica bank in June, gave the teller a robbery note and claimed he had a bomb strapped to his body. A nearby customer overheard, pulled out his licensed 9 mm handgun and told Webster: "You are not robbing this bank." Webster insisted: "But I have a bomb." The customer: "I don't care." Webster then quietly sat down in a chair, where he remained until police arrived.

Yikes!

The Panda Chinese Restaurant in York, Pa., was already in trouble in an early June city sanitation inspection, with demerits piling up because of accumulated grease, insects in the seating area and rotting lettuce, according to a York Daily Record report. Then, in the middle of an inspector's visit, he came upon a live snapping turtle in the restaurant's main sink. Said the inspector, "I had to sit down and gather myself before I could speak." The manager said he had seen the turtle outside and had brought it in for safety: "It was wrong that we put it in the sink."

Oops!

A June accident with nitric acid at the Albion Chemicals plant in Belfast, Northern Ireland, caused the release of an ominous cloud, but authorities said it was predominantly nitrous oxide, otherwise known as "laughing gas." An Associated Press dispatch reported no unusual "giggling" in the area.

A scheduling accident at the Eagle Trace Golf Course in Broomfield, Colo., in June caused insufficient time between the end of an early morning junior golf association event (kids age 7 to 12) and a noontime charity tournament sponsored by Shotgun Willie's strip club, with scantily clad dancers cavorting around the course. One mother told WUSA-TV that her little golfer asked, "Mom, why is she only wearing underwear?"

Family values

Darrell Walker, 30, was arrested in Bartlesville, Okla., in May after his 8-year-old son told police that his dad routinely shoots him (and his younger sister) in the leg with a BB gun if they misbehave.

Robert Cisero, 46, was arrested in Medford, Ore., in June after (according to police) he hit his teenage daughter in the ankle with a hammer to feign a "skating" injury, for which she could get a prescription for pain medication, which he then commandeered.

The New York Daily News reported in June that members of gangs such as the Bloods and the Latin Kings, who become parents, are routinely having their babies "blessed" into their gangs in religious ceremonies in which the swaddling clothes are the gang's colors. The Bloods call such babies "Blood drops" or "Blood stains." The Daily News described the parents "teaching chubby little fingers to (make) gang signs" even before the toddlers learn to talk. One Episcopal priest said he has "blessed in" about 300 such kids to two gangs.