Blottdown: Guns, Glue, Tasers, Cats & Vigilantes

By Caleb Groos on August 07, 2009 | Last updated on March 21, 2019

The weekly rundown of crime stories that blur the lines between idiot and genius, justified and not so much, freedom and incarceration... you be the judge.

Sports bars + guns + kids = trouble. Last week, we saw a scooter-jacking by a kid with a fake gun. This week, we have a skateboard-jacking by a grown man with a real gun. Cincinnati sports bar proprietor Jack Connerton does not appreciate kids cutting through his parking lot. So he robbed an 11 year old girl of her skateboard at gunpoint. She lives a half block away from the bar and has to pass by to get to the local rec center. He's now looking at a felony armed robbery charge.

And then there were none. By week's end, an entire Wisconsin love quadrangle plus one has been arrested. Last week, the male of the group showed up to a motel expecting a romantic evening with one ladyfriend. Allegedly blindfolded and waiting for a for a "rub down," he soon found out that a quiet evening this would not be. Four women (including his wife and two mistresses) allegedly tied him up, hit him, taunted him and krazy-glued his penis to his stomach. This led to four false imprisonment charges and one charge of fourth degree sexual assault. Wednesday, the man was arrested for alleged child abuse, theft, unlawful phone use, and harrassment with a death threat.

This week in tazings...

Wrong place, wrong time (and just plain wrong). Using a cell phone to snap up-the-skirt pictures is disgusting and illegal. What about prentending to tie your shoe and taking a picture up the skirt of a legal assistant, in the courthouse lobby, while she's talking to a constable? That's called adding a felony improper photography charge to the misdemeanor drug charge that brought you to court in the first place. And perhaps a couple of years in the pokey.

Why I like dogs. According to Floridian Keith Griffin, he was just downloading some music on his computer and left the room for a minute when his cat just like jumped on his keyboard, and then whoa... there were all these "strange things" on the computer. The strange things his sicko cat supposedly downloaded included over 1,000 images of child pornography.

Branch out. Stocking mask to hide identity? Check. Gloves to hide the fingerprints? Check. Pick a different bank so the same cop who arrested me for robbing it in 2003 won't arrest me again? Doh! Last week showed us that this lesson doesn't just apply to banks, but to horses as well.

Thanks... and you're fired. Seattle bank teller Jim Nicholson confronted a would-be bank robber, chased him down and detained him until police arrived. Then he got fired. But he understands Key Bank 's strict policy about complying with potentially violent criminals. So it's probably best that Nicholson won't be a teller there anymore, because confronting thieves on the job is part of his M.O. As he put it, "it's something I almost look forward to. It's a thrill and I'm an adrenaline-junkie person. It's the pursuit."

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