A spry old guy managed to get the best of a robber - by asking to use to the bathroom.

Police in Wilmington charge that Charles Dale forced his way into the home of an 87-year-old man Sunday morning.

According to authorities, Dale tackled the man and went through his pockets. The elderly victim asked the robber if he could go to the bathroom.

The 87-year-old man then climbed out of a window and called 911 from a neighbor’s house.

Dale was busted nearby and now faces a number of counts, including robbery and burglary.

An accused robber left a little something at the scene of the crime - his wallet.

According to authorities in Comfort, W. Virginia, Terry Lee Romine pulled a stick-up the V-Mart convenience store.

Investigators say Romine ordered a slice of pizza, then told the clerk he had a gun and demanded cash.

He’s accused of grabbing the cash register after the clerk had trouble opening it.

The clerk says Romine crashed into the wrong door before finding his way out. The clerk then looked down and saw the suspect had forgotten his wallet on the counter.

Deputies busted Romine a short time later. He’s been freed on $50,000 bond.

I’m a State Trooper with the Florida Highway Patrol. Several years ago I happened to stop a car with expired license plates. Before the stop I advised the dispatcher to run the driver’s license from the registration if the owner was a male. She advised she would and I proceeded to stop the car. Dispatch advised the owner was such and such and he had a felony warrant from Ohio for trafficking in cocaine, no bond, and the originating agency would extradite. When I got the driver’s license in hand I found he was not the person on the warrant. I asked who the car belonged to and he replied, “my boss.” I ran the actual driver’s license and found the driver had 17 felony warrants locally for grand theft worthless checks. Also, his license was suspended. He was placed under arrest. I asked where his boss was and found he was close by. The driver gave me his work number. I called the boss and advised I had his employee under arrest for driving while license suspended (not telling him there were warrants for the employee and himself). If he (the boss) could get a ride to where I was he could save himself the tow bill for the car. He thanked me and a few minutes later showed up. I asked for his identification and he showed me a driver’s license in the name of the person with the felony warrant. I promptly placed him under arrest too. I transported the driver and my sergeant transported the boss to jail. On the way to jail the boss told the sergeant he must be the stupidest person in the world to voluntarily identify himself to a Trooper knowing he had a felony warrant out for him.

An Indiana woman earned herself a trip to jail after allegedly making an obscene gesture to the wrong person.

Police say the Evansville woman “flipped off” an SUV carrying a sheriff Tuesday. Officers pulled her over and ran a routine check on her license plate. The check turned up outstanding warrants for the woman and her husband.

To top it off, officials say they found marijuana and drug paraphernalia in the car.

The woman and her husband were jailed on the warrants. She also faces a misdemeanor charge of marijuana possession.

How do you know if you’re not cut out for a life of crime?

Consider the case of a Whidbey Island, Washington man who is cooling his heels in jail after being arrested by police officers he called himself when he botched a burglary.

Friday night, the man, 18, smashed a glass door at a closed gas station, in the 5600 block of Fish Road.

The burglary started off rocky when he cut his hand during the break-in and bled all over himself and the store.

When he couldn’t open the cash register, he stuffed his pockets with packs of cigarettes and was on the way to a clean getaway.

But he went back to the store three minutes later and again tried — and failed — to open the cash register, Island County Sheriff’s spokeswoman Jan Smith said.

So he shoved more cigarettes into his pockets.

What’s next when you’re bleeding, loaded down with stolen smokes and have no money?

The man called 911.

Officers found the man lying on the floor, with blood on his jacket and all over the store. He told them he tried to break up a burglary but was beat with a bat by two men who drove off in a sports car.

The officers saw the stolen cigarettes in his pockets. The store’s surveillance camera caught the whole debacle on tape.

The man, who was drunk, was booked into jail for investigation of two counts of second-degree burglary — one count for each time he entered the store.

“Criminals are not particularly smart,” Smith said. “That’s how they get caught.”

Story courtesy Diana Hefley and the Everett (Washington) Herald

One 32-ounce bottle of Budweiser apparently wasn’t enough to quench James E. Valentine’s thirst.

So shortly before noon Thursday, police say, the Plant City, Florida man took another three quarts of Bud from a cooler at the 7-Eleven at 10815 N Nebraska Ave. - and stuffed them down his khaki pants.

“Thirty-two ounces, that’s a quart, and he had three of them down there,” said Cpl. Larry McKinnon, a longtime police officer. “I don’t know where he thought he was going to go.”

Not very far, it turned out.

Store manager Prince Tanoukhi noticed Valentine walking out with the 32-ounce Bud in his hand and tried to stop him. Perhaps forgetting his precious cargo, Valentine started kicking Tanoukhi, police say.

“He’s kicking the manager, and the bottles fall out of his pants and break all over the floor,” McKinnon said Friday, trying to stifle a laugh.

Valentine ran outside and approached the car of a female customer “like he was going to carjack her,” McKinnon said. “Of course, she drives away and leaves him standing there.”

That was when McKinnon drove up. Valentine took off running. A police helicopter found him a block away, “but he just kept fighting it,” McKinnon said. “I had to tackle him.”

As if his hole wasn’t deep enough already, Valentine gave police a false name, identifying himself as Clarence Valentine, his brother, McKinnon said.

“Then a few minutes later, he starts mumbling in the backseat, saying “Hey, I’m James Valentine.’ So this is like the world’s dumbest criminal.”

And a busy one. Valentine has been arrested 11 times since 1999.

Valentine faces charges of armed robbery, burglary, grand theft, driving with a suspended license and giving a false name. He is being held in the county jail without bail.

An Oklahoma woman dialed a wrong number and ended up under arrest after she tried to set up a drug deal with her former parole officer, police said on Tuesday.

Patricia Michel was arrested last Thursday on suspicion of the unlawful distribution of a dangerous controlled substance at her home in Durant, Oklahoma, near the Texas border.

Michel called her former parole officer, Doug Canant, on his cell phone by mistake, thinking he could help set up a deal where she could acquire methamphetamines, police said.

“I am a bit of a joker, so I was playing along,” Canant said in a telephone interview. “She thought she was talking to her local drug dealer.”

She told the parole officer she did not have money to buy drugs because she was waiting for her U.S. tax refund and wanted to exchange one type of drug for another, Canant said.

Acting on Canant’s tip, the local drug task force sent agents to Michel’s house and set up a deal. She handed over two pills that were controlled substances and instead of getting drugs, she got arrested, police said.

Michel has been released on bond but faces between two years to life in prison if convicted. If she receives parole, she may have Canant as her parole officer again.

“It is a small town and there are only three of us (parole officers). It will be the luck of the draw,” Canant said.