Stupid Criminals

After a night of drinking and apparently an auto accident, Michael DeWitt just wanted a bed and somewhere to park his SUV.

So he drove out past the intersection of U.S. 24 and Interstate 69, turned onto Ellison Road and headed toward the hotels in the area.

He parked the Hummer H3 just after 1:30 a.m. Thursday and got out to look at the passenger side. He was sure somebody had pulled out in front of him. A woman in the sport utility vehicle crawled across the console and clambered out the driver’s side door.

A concerned onlooker asked DeWitt whether he needed any help.

He declined, saying he was going around front to get a room.

And a room he received. Well, kind of.

DeWitt had pulled not into a hotel lot, but a restricted parking lot behind the Indiana State Police post, just moments after police believe he was involved in a hit-and-run crash.

DeWitt landed in the Allen County Jail on Thursday, with a blood-alcohol level more than twice the legal limit, police said.

Dispatchers saw him drive the banged-up Hummer, leaking fluids, past two “Restricted” signs, into the back parking lot of the state police post. Thinking it may have been an undercover officer, Trooper Jami Hotchkiss asked DeWitt what happened. He said “somebody hit me and took off,” police said.

About that time, Fort Wayne police took a call of a hit-skip crash at U.S. 24 and Interstate  69, just a block away from the state police post.

When officers questioned DeWitt – with his bloodshot eyes, unsteady balance and slurred speech – he told them he had had too much vodka to drink.

He told police he didn’t know what happened but knew he was driving and someone pulled out in front of him.

Police pointed out that the Holiday Inn Express is directly next door to the post.

“Although the Indiana State Police Post is not Motel 6, we will still leave the light on for you,” state police spokesman Sgt. Rodger Popplewell said.

DeWitt is charged with misdemeanor counts of driving while intoxicated and leaving the scene of an accident that damaged property. The woman in the Hummer was not charged.

Stupid Criminals

HAWTHORNE, Fla. — A woman was arrested after complaining to a police officer that the crack cocaine she had just purchased wasn’t very good, authorities said.

Eloise D. Reaves, 50, approached a Putnam County sheriff’s deputy at a convenience store Friday, telling him that a man had sold her “bad crack” that contained wax and cocaine.

She pulled an alleged crack rock out of her mouth and placed it on the deputy’s car for inspection, the Palatka Daily News reported in Tuesday’s editions.

The deputy told Reaves she would be arrested if the crack tested positive for cocaine.

Reaves was charged with possession of cocaine and bonded out for $1,504.

Stupid Criminals

BERLIN – A 21-year-old German woman who did not feel like going to work at a fast food restaurant sent her parents a text message saying she had been kidnapped.

Police in the Bavarian town of Straubing said Wednesday they had launched a massive search throughout the region for the woman who disappeared on December 23 but turned up unscathed the following morning, saying the kidnapper had set her free.

A spokesman said the woman was questioned over the Christmas holiday and admitted she made up the story because she owed a colleague 25 euros ($32.9) and did not have the money to pay her debt. She now faces a fine of up to 1,000 euros.

Stupid Criminals

PARIS – What’s a television without its remote control? Not much, decided a thief in southwestern France who returned to the home from which he had just stolen a TV to pick up the remote control — and was arrested.

The man robbed a retiree’s house in the village of Mussidan, taking the TV set and some hunting rifles, police said. While the owner was reporting the theft at the local police station, the thief returned.

Alert neighbors tipped off the police and they caught the man red-handed.

“He came back to take the remote control,” a local police spokesman said. “I guess there’s daring and there’s stupid.”