Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission officers have a robotic deer, nick-named Robo Deer, that helps them nab poachers and deter the illegal shooting of real deer.

Robo Deer is a more sophisticated decoy that replaced a couple of more basic versions. The first was a cardboard cutout with some burlap on it.

“It was worth maybe $2,” commission Lt. Stan Kirkland said. “It was amazing how many people shot at it.”

Next was a deer replica similar to those archers can buy as practice targets, but it had no moving parts.

Then came Robo Deer, which can turn its head and twitch its tail. The stories quickly followed.

“We had an officer report there was someone in a truck watching the replica,” Kirkland said. “He took a long gaze and then floorboarded his vehicle. He ran through these pines and oaks, ran over the decoy, and destroyed it.”

The motorist had to buy the state a replacement.

Another driver just missed running over it.

“Then the guy all of the sudden slammed on the brakes, vaults out of the truck, takes out a big sheath knife, tackles it, and knocks it to the ground,” Kirkland said. “The head rolls off.”

The man got up mumbling about game officers and drove off. No arrest was made because there’s nothing illegal about tackling a deer.

Officers once caught someone shooting at the decoy in a field where they had arrested a man for doing the same thing the year before. One of the officers thought the man looked familiar.

“He said ‘I think y’all caught me here a year ago shooting at this thing,’” Kirkland said.

Another man saw the deer and stopped his truck, got out and crawled on his belly across a ditch filled with water to within 20 feet.

“You’d think by now he’d get the message when this thing doesn’t run that it’s not real,” Kirkland said. “He reaches back into his pocket, whips out this little pistol you couldn’t kill a snake with, and plinks away at the decoy.”

As the arrests grew, so did the legend. Officers get calls from people claiming they spotted Robo Deer, much like Elvis, in places he’s never been.

“A lot of them want to us to know we didn’t fool them,” Kirkland said. “Then they want to know how we’re able to get him to jump fences. That’s when we just grin and bear it and say ‘It’s a secret, and we can’t discuss that.’ ”

A 17-year-old was run over by the pickup truck he had allegedly stolen, police said.

The teen-ager, whose name was not released because he is a juvenile, caught the attention of police early on Friday morning as the pickup wove through the streets of Overland Park, a south Kansas City-area suburb.

Police were able to coax the driver into stopping the vehicle, but he jumped from the truck and tried to make a run for it.

“The vehicle began to roll just as the driver ducked in front of it,” said Overland Park police Capt. Dave Moore. “He stumbled and fell and the truck ran over him.

“I guess that truck didn’t want to be stolen.”

The suspect was hospitalized with minor injuries. Charges were pending, said Moore.

Two men stole a digital camera from a Vienna photo shop, but in their haste to flee the crime scene forgot to take their holiday photos with them.

The pair entered the shop to pick up their holiday pictures, but seized the opportunity to acquire an expensive camera. While one man distracted the salesperson, the other pocketed the loot.

“The men ran but left their pictures behind, which made it easy for the victim to identify the suspects,” an investigator told the Kronen Zeitung newspaper.

Debra Angeline Schwarz contends it wasn’t her fault the ticket stinks.

She’s been found guilty of paying a $350 traffic fine with an envelope half-filled with feces. Prosecutors in Lake County, Ore., say Schwarz’s money order was accompanied by what witnesses called at “brown, pasty substance” that really smelled.

Schwarz testified she had given the money order to someone else to mail. But her story wasn’t convincing enough. Schwarz was convicted on a number of charges including criminal mischief and disorderly conduct.

A 700-foot trail of ivory-colored paint led police to the home of a man suspected of stealing a commercial paint sprayer from a trailer in the parking lot of nearby motel.

The suspect was not home when officers arrived Wednesday, but they recovered the $5,000 sprayer from his yard. They then obtained an arrest warrant on charges of burglary of a conveyance and grand theft.

The suspect, William Anthony Harris, 44, remained at-large Friday.

The sprayer was returned to its owner, Phil Knicely, a contract painter from St. Augustine.

Officers “walked right to the man’s house and got my equipment,” Knicely said. “I was back at work before noon. All I lost was a little bit of time.”

He and his crew were painting a BellSouth building in neighboring Cedar Grove. When police arrived at the motel, Knicely pointed out a paint spot on the parking lot.

The sprayer sometimes drips for days after being turned off. Paint had leaked onto the sprayer’s wheels and left tracks on the blacktop, Knicely said.

I work for the Georgia Parole Board as a parole officer and am also the coordinator for my office’s warrant service unit.

One early morning, we hit a house where we believed a fugitive might be located. We knocked on the door and made contact with an older woman - through a window, with no blinds or shades.

She was obviously trying to stall us from coming in.

After telling her to open the door repeatedly, she was told she would lose her door if she didnt open it. Just then, I heard a loud crash.

I looked into the bedroom with the wide open window and saw our suspect getting up off the floor. He started running toward the back of the house. I immediately called out over the radio that I saw the subject running to the back of the house. The woman then came to the door, and she was again told she would lose her door if she didn’t open it. This time she opened the door and we entered the house.

After moving toward the bedroom area, I found a huge chuck of the ceiling in the bedroom laying on the floor. At that point the second team called that they had the subject in the kitchen.

Apparently when we first knocked on the door, the subject climbed up into the attic to hide. He must have started to make his way to the back of the attic, hit a weak spot, and fell through the ceiling. I’ll bet it hurt too, judging by the amount of the ceiling he took with him!

He now faces having his parole being revoked and spending a long time in prison.

A robbery suspect was in fair condition Sunday night after being bitten in the groin and buttocks by a police dog during a brief chase. The bites from St. Petersburg police dog Scooby partially severed the penis of Raphael R. Scott on Friday, officials said.

Officer Bob Roche ordered Scott, 20, to stop running and told him “if he didn’t stop, he was going to release the dog,” said St. Petersburg police spokesman Rick Stelljes.

“Of course, the dog caught up with him.”

At first, Scooby bit Scott in the buttocks, but he kept fighting, so the dog kept biting, Stelljes said. Scott was taken Friday afternoon to Bayfront Medical Center. He is facing charges of strong-arm robbery, possession of cocaine and burglary. Police say Scott and two others robbed a Treasure Island store, drove a van to St. Petersburg and wrecked it at Second Avenue S and 43rd Street.