Oftentimes, criminals make mistakes that make it all too easy for police to catch them, as this story out of Fort Myers, Florida, shows.

A man was caught attempting to use a sledgehammer to break into the North Fort Myers Post Office.

Now, plywood covers the hole that deputies say the man, identified as 42-year-old Anthony Armstrong made in the wall in order to break into the post office.

They say that Armstrong did himself in and it all began with a phone call he made himself.

“It’s somewhat puzzling in that the individual called 911 because he was basically trapped inside the post office,” said Larry King (no, not that Larry King) with the Lee County Sheriff’s office.

Surveillance video, released on November 29 by the sheriff’s office, shows a man with sledgehammer in his hand going into the post office at Weaver’s Corner.

Though the post office lobby remains open 24/7, Armstrong did not come to check his mail, according to deputies.

“He used a hammer to break through drywall and then gain entry into the actual office area,” said King.

King said that the suspect broke through the wall with the sledgehammer. Once he got to the other side, he was trapped.

Sheriff’s reports say that Armstrong called 911 and told dispatchers that he was locked in the post office.

Once deputies showed up, Armstrong’s story that three men chased him into the post office was full of holes (just like the wall). According to investigators, he was next to the sledgehammer, had a cut on one of his knuckles, and was the only one showing up in the surveillance video.

King says that this wasn’t all there was to the story.

“The fact that his footprints are the ones that match the dust in the office,” said King.

Detectives were quick to close the case and took our bungling burglar to jail.

He is now facing charges of burglary and criminal mischief.

A jittery robber lacked the patience to take the cash before leaving a Walgreen’s in Des Moines, Iowa, the afternoon of November 29.

Forty-one-year-old Midge Cantrell told police that she was working the cash register inside the front doors of the of the store at 1330 East University Avenue when a man in his 30s walked in and went straight to the cash register just after 2:00 PM, according to a police report.

The man had his right hand in a pocket of his coat and was pointing it in the shape of a gun. He then told her, “Be quiet and nobody will get hurt. Open the drawer.”

When the Cantrell told the man that she couldn’t open the drawer, he repeated his demand. The robber then got nervous and left the store.

Employees ran out of the store and saw the man leaving in a vehicle. As of this writing, no arrests have been made.

A frustrated robber left with a grand total of $0.00 the night of November 28 at a Save-a-Lot store in Henderson, Illinois.

Police there say that a man came into the store around 7:00 PM wearing a Halloween mask (a little late in the year to wear one, don’t you think?). He demanded that the clerk open the cash drawer. But when she couldn’t open it, the robber, tried and tried some more. Frustrated, he bolted out the door without a penny.

The man said that he had a weapon, but he didn’t pull one.

As of this writing, the suspect hasn’t been found.

A thief in Qingyuan, in the Chinese province of Guangdong, had to be rushed to the hospital for surgery after swallowing a gold necklace he stole from an old woman there on November 27.

Police chased the 30-year-old man, identified only as Liu, after they say he stole the necklace from the woman in the city’s Qingcheng District in the early hours of that morning.

In the hope of escaping punishment, Liu swallowed the necklace on a street corner before he was caught.

But 20 minutes later, he got a serious stomach ache and had to be taken to a nearby hospital to be treated.

Doctors operated on Liu to recover the necklace.

I guess it was too big to pass through his digestive tract.

Police in Williston, Vermont, say that a Wal-Mart there wouldn’t allow Walter Putnam to return a 20-inch flat-screen TV because some employees witnessed him pulling it off a store shelf a few minutes prior to his trying to return the set.

Putnam left the store with the TV, according to authorities. He made it all too easy for police to track him down, though, because of the documentation he left behind at the customer service desk. Williston police officer Chris Simays says that Putnam left on the counter a citation for retail theft, issued by Colchester Police a day earlier.

Forty-four-year-old Putnam appeared in court on November 28 to answer charges of retail theft and false pretenses. The TV sells for about $250, according to Simays.

Retail theft, fraud and other crimes are commonplace in Williston’s retail hub. “It happens throughout the year. This time of year they’re looking for a gift they cannot afford,” Simays said. Or, he also pointed out, people are looking for cash to feed a drug habit.

People who commit these crimes don’t usually make it as easy on police as Simays says that Putnam did. With the Colchester citation in hand, Essex Police stopped by Putnam’s home and cited him on the new Williston charges, Simays said.

Details of the Colchester retail theft charge were not available the afternoon of November 27 because the officer handling the case was not on duty, Colchester police said.

Police in Bridgeport, Connecticut, have caught a man after he kept stopping during the chase to smoke crack cocaine.

The man, identified as as 45-year-old Perry Quinton, of Stratford. Police say that he had been driving a stolen car and was attempting to pay for gas with cards belonging to the car’s rightful owner.

According to the Connecticut Post, the pursuit started when Quinton dumped the stolen car close to the P.T. Barnum housing complex in the city of Bridgeport.

After he left the car there, with cops in pursuit, Quinton climbed over a fence. Having scaled the fence, he took a short break to have himself a little crack.

Since the police had not caught up with him by this point, he headed off through a seaport there, and went to stand on a boat. Feeling on cloud nine about his previous crack respite, he decided to smoke more crack.

He was still standing on the boat smoking his crack when police officers caught him. He is being held in jail in lieu of $25,000 bail.

Dumb thieves stole a load of expensive shoes from a designer boutique — all of them for the right foot only.

They grabbed 20 shoes and boots from a display while they were raiding Cricket, a store in Liverpool, England. Unbeknownst to them, the shoes’ mates were locked in a storage room.

“They have broken in and grabbed the shoes from the display, but they won’t be of use to anyone. They were only in there for about three minutes,” Stylist Lorraine McCulloch said.

On a positive note (for our hapless hoodlums, that is), they escaped with £70,000 (US$135,310.15) worth of dresses and bags from the shop on Mathew Street, which is a popular place for fashionistas such as Wayne Rooney’s fiancée Coleen McLoughlin and Steven Gerrard’s partner Alex Curran.

“If anyone is offered any designer gear, don’t buy it — it’s not worth it,” McCulloch said.