Thanks to former trooper Carl Stutzner for this classic:

Having been a state police trooper for 24 years, I’ve had my share of experiences with dumb crooks.

We were being plagued by a rash of gasoline thefts from school busses at a local school. One night we were called by neighbors who saw a suspicious vehicle pull into the bus park.

My partner and I proceeded to the location, doused our lights and exited the vehicle. Wandering through the bus park I observed a subject stooping next to a bus with one end of a hose in the fuel tank, the other attached to a fuel can. He was very obviously siphoning gas from the school bus.

His accomplice must have seen us coming and fled through the woods leaving him on his own.

I stood quietlybehind him and he said, “Hand me another can.”

I hapily obliged. I asked him what he was doing. He promptly replied that we were “getting some (expletive deleted) gas.”

Needless to say he was arrested and convicted. He plead not guilty but was found guilty as charged.

The judge had trouble composing himself during sentencing. The subject was eventually sentenced to 90 days with credit for time served.

The bank robber had a getaway plan.

But it wasn’t a very good one.

Authorities say Phillip Leon Harris entered the Bank of America on State Road 52 in Bayonet Point, Florida on Thursday morning carrying a note that said: “I have a gun, give me all the money.”

He walked out with an undisclosed amount of cash, got in white Buick sedan and drove west, sheriff’s officials said.

Then he stopped for gas and cigarettes, said a convenience store clerk who would identify herself only as Elaine.

Harris, 27, walked into the Circle K at 15831 U.S. 19 in Hudson at 9:45 a.m., about 15 minutes after bank employees reported the robbery. The clerk said Harris asked for a pack of Newport cigarettes and $5 worth of gas.

But while inside, Harris seemed to realize the stop was a bad idea.

“He was very nervous. He kept looking out the window,” said the clerk.

“He was looking toward the cop car across the street.”

The deputy in the cruiser also noticed Harris. And he saw the white Buick Century sedan Harris had just parked, which matched the description of the robber’s getaway car. The deputy called for backup units and approached the store, said Pasco Sheriff’s Office reports.

Meanwhile, inside Circle K, Harris turned to leave without his Newports, the clerk said, until she yelled to remind him the pack was still lying on the counter. He went back for the smokes and by the time he pushed open the door, a sheriff’s deputy was standing about 15 feet away with his gun drawn, the clerk said.

She said the deputy approached the store and yelled for Harris to get down on the ground. Harris was standing in the doorway, only halfway outside.

“And I was yelling to my manager, “I think somebody’s gonna get shot,’ ” Elaine said.

Instead of dropping to the ground, Harris took off running behind the station, away from U.S. 19. The deputy and his backup units chased him.

After a 10 minute foot chase through a nearby subdivision, deputies caught Harris in a swampy area about a quarter mile away from the store, authorities said.

But deputies said Harris committed another crime once in custody.

“After being placed into a Pasco sheriff’s patrol car, Harris smashed one of the car’s side windows,” sheriff’s spokesman Jon Powers said. The kick caused $750 damage, according to arrest reports.

Harris faces one charge of armed robbery and one charge of criminal mischief. Charges that he was driving a stolen car still were pending Thursday night. Deputies were investigating reports that the car had been stolen from Diane and Joseph Hudgens of St. Petersburg.

Harris also is wanted on a robbery warrant in Pinellas County, arrest reports said.

Records show Harris has been convicted of several crimes, including robbery, burglary and two charges of battery on a law enforcement officer.

Harris wasn’t talking to deputies Thursday as he was transported to Land O’Lakes jail, Powers said.

But the store clerk said that before Harris took off running, he had something to say.

“He kept yelling, “I didn’t do anything.’ ”

A 28-year-old Panamanian accused of killing a judge was eaten by a crocodile as he swam across a river after escaping from prison, police said on Thursday.

Oswaldo Martinez, accused of murdering judge Harmodio Mariscal on June 5 during a failed robbery in Panama City, was captured last week by police after fleeing to neighboring Costa Rica.

After being held in custody in Costa Rica, Martinez broke out of jail at the weekend and was aiming to reenter Panama through the dense jungle that divides the two Central American countries.

Martinez was eaten alive by the crocodile on Monday as he tried to swim across the River Terraba in southern Costa Rica, according to eyewitness reports confirmed by police on Thursday.

William Emery and his family had a great time cruising the Caribbean on vacation. They swam with stingrays in Grand Cayman, sipped margaritas in Cozumel and saw the sights in New Orleans.

Then, they got to Union Station on N Nebraska Avenue in downtown Tampa.

While the Emerys were waiting for their train home Sunday evening, two men with a shotgun stormed the station and tried to steal an ATM machine.

It didn’t work.

Their dolly broke under the weight of the gray ATM.

“I thought it was a joke,” said Emery, who lives in Loris, S.C., near Myrtle Beach. “It was kind of funny. They were very unequipped.”

Emery and his family were among a handful of people waiting in the station when the men came in at 6:45 p.m. and ordered everyone to get down.

One of the men guarded the door with the gun while the other tried to load the ATM. The gunman wore a clear plastic bag over his head that stuck to his face when he breathed, witnesses said.

Within minutes, the men gave up and sped off in a late 1970s or early ’80s blue Chevrolet, possibly an Impala or Monte Carlo. Thick smoke spewed from the tailpipe as it headed west on Twiggs Street.

Police combed the area for the suspects, but did not find them Sunday night.

Bill Kiss, an unarmed security guard who came in at 8 p.m., said he was glad he wasn’t working during the robbery attempt. The station has guards on duty when trains arrive and depart, but not around-the-clock.

“If they would have seen a guard here, the first thing they would have tried to do was take him out,” he said.

Emery’s wife, Kimberly, said she wouldn’t let the experience detract from their vacation.

“It’s okay. Tampa was just a stopover,” she said.

A 12-year-old girl confronted by a flasher in an elevator Monday night reacted quickly: She grabbed his zipper and yanked it up.

The two were in an elevator at the Suburban Lodge in the 400 block of South Independence Boulevard at 7:50 p.m., said police spokesman Mike Carey.

The man was injured, and the girl ran out of the elevator and found her stepfather to tell him what happened, Carey said. The stepfather found the suspect running from the building, and the two men fought. The suspect broke free and ran away.

Because he suffered blood loss, the man probably suffered injuries significant enough for him to seek medical treatment, Carey said. Investigators have been checking for him at area hospitals.

The suspect is described as 5 feet 7 inches tall with a medium build and dark, curly hair. He was wearing a black T-shirt and tan vest. He may have fled in a purple Ford Ranger pickup truck with four-wheel drive.

The man faces a felony charge of taking indecent liberties with a minor. The case is being investigated by Detective Mark Vidrine of the police department’s Special Victims Unit.

Police said the girl was unharmed.

Anyone with information is asked to call Crime Solvers at 1-888-LOCK-U-UP.

I am a former San Diego police officer. I have been working as the Security Manager for a large mid-west bank for the past twenty years.

On October 16, 2000, two suspects entered the bank. One suspect stood by the front door with his hands in his pockets, apparently trying to appear inconspicuous while being a lookout. The second suspect got in line and pulled a check from his wallet as he approached the teller window.

The check he pulled from his wallet was stolen from his ex-wife. He had scribbled out her name and address, and the bank name. He did not, however, scribble out the account number, the routing number, or anything else. The check was made out to him (his real name)!

The suspect handed the check to the teller as he approached her window.

He then immediately jumped up on top of the counter and threw a plastic grocery bag to her and another teller, telling them to fill the bags.

The suspect and his accomplice then ran out of the bank together, leaving the check behind! We obtained some most excellent pictures of both suspects.

The F.B.I. went to the ex-wife’s home a couple of days later and showed the pictures to her, asking if she knew either of them. The ex-wife immediately said, “That’s my ex-husband, Jack, and his friend, Patrick.”

A call about a suspicious vehicle cruising a Food Lion parking lot took an unexpected turn last week when Mebane police found a naked man inside.

Mebane police charged Eldridge Freeman Jr., 27, of 827 Nancy Street, Durham, with careless and reckless driving and resisting, obstructing and delaying a police officer. He was released on a $2,500 bond.

Police received a telephone call Wednesday night from a Food Lion employee who was worried about the possibility of a robbery, said Capt. T.E. Caldwell of the Mebane police.

The store is located in the Brookhollow Shopping Center at 1282 S. Fifth St.

“We received a call from Food Lion telling us that someone in a pickup truck was periodically circling the parking lot, then pulling up in front of the store and then pulling away,” Caldwell said.

When Caldwell and Mebane police detective T.A. Byrd went to the store in an unmarked police car at 9:30 p.m., they saw a man sitting in a 1981 Toyota pickup, blocking the store’s fire lane.

“As we drove past, I noticed that he wasn’t wearing a shirt,” Caldwell said. “I thought, ‘That’s pretty strange.’ It was pretty cool out there at that time of night.”

Caldwell said that when the driver saw the police car, he tried to drive away.

“I turned on my blue lights and attempted to stop the truck,” Caldwell said. “He made several evasive moves and zigzags in, out and around several of the parked cars in the parking lot. After about a two-minute chase, we got him to come to a stop at the Holmes Road entrance of the shopping center.”

As the officers chased their suspect around the parking lot at speeds sometimes approaching 40 mph, Caldwell said they saw the man repeatedly reach behind and under the driver’s seat.

“We couldn’t tell what he was reaching for, but we had to assume that he may have been reaching for a weapon,” he said.

Police told the pickup’s driver, Freeman, to get out of the truck. At first he refused, but then seemed to make an attempt to comply with the officers’ demands.

“He kept sticking his hands out the window to show us that he didn’t have a weapon,” Caldwell said. “We just couldn’t tell exactly what it was he was doing.”

When Freeman finally stepped out of the truck, Caldwell said he got a much clearer idea about what was going on.

“He had managed to get his T-shirt partially on, but that was basically all he was wearing,” Caldwell said. “We also noticed that Mr. Freeman’s hands and mid-section were both covered in Vaseline.”

When they searched the truck’s cab, police found several paper towels, several cloth towels, a large jar of Vaseline and a pornographic magazine.

Caldwell said Monday that he planned to talk to Alamance County District Attorney Robert Johnson about filing additional charges. The law says that a female victim or witness has to be present for police to charge a suspect with indecent exposure, he said.

Freeman was convicted on charges of indecent exposure in Alamance County in 2000 and 2001. A similar charge against Freeman in Durham County in 1999 was dismissed.

“It’s the kind of thing that I’d rarely seen during my 15 years as a law enforcement officer,” Caldwell said. “And it’s definitely something that I haven’t seen recently.”