A bicyclist who confronted three well-dressed men walking to their hotel in Alexandria, Virginia, pointed what looked like a 9mm semi-automatic handgun at them and demanded money. The three men turned out to be off-duty federal agents, who drew their own weapons and fired more than 20 shots, hitting the would-be robber, as well as three cars, a truck, two homes and an office building. The injured suspect’s weapon turned out to be a pellet gun.
Kidnappers who abducted Gildo dos Santos near his factory in a suburb of Sao Paulo, Brazil, demanded $690,000, but Santos escaped. The next day, Santos got a phone call asking for $11,500 to defray the cost of the abduction. After negotiating a discount of 50 percent, Santos called police, who were waiting when Luiz Carlos Valerio showed up to collect payment.
Police say a suburban Chicago man faked a carjacking to avoid getting arrested for drunk driving.
DuPage County officials say 21-year-old Jason Atkins had too much to drink at a party in April and crashed his car into a tree.
To avoid detection, officials say he had two friends help him concoct a story about being carjacked at gunpoint.
The story started to unravel as Naperville police investigated the carjacking, and the two friends eventually told the truth about the accident.
Atkins was still in jail yesterday on $30,000 bond.
He is facing eight criminal charges, including an assault charge involving an officer he is accused of attacking during his arrest.
A 58-year-old unemployed man went into a branch of the Saitama Resona Bank in the town of Kumagaya, north of Tokyo, on Wednesday, intending to rob it, a police spokesman said.
According to local media reports the man first asked a bank teller, “Any idea how you rob a bank?” The teller alerted another member of staff, who asked the man to leave.
“He left quietly when asked to,” the police spokesman said.
However, the staff member escorting the man out of the bank noticed the knife sticking out of his pocket and a bloodstain on his trousers.
Police arrested the man for illegal possession of a weapon.
“He didn’t brandish the knife at anyone … but he injured himself in the leg,” the police spokesman said.