This edition first broadcast July 17, 2001

YOSEMITE SAM'S FOURTH OF JULY
A Kansas City, Missouri man celebrated the recent Fourth of July holiday by shooting some fireworks with friends. But the party got a little too loud for the neighbors, who complained to local police. Since fireworks are illegal in Kansas City, one of the group hid the remaining noisemakers inside the host's house. When the cops arrived, they found no evidence of the fireworks, so they warned the group to keep it down and left. About 3 am, the host of the party got hungry and stumbled into the kitchen to warm up some leftover lasagna. That's when he discovered his buddy had hidden the fireworks inside the oven. The kitchen was heavily damaged, but there were no serious injuries.

AMERICA'S SCARIEST POLICEMEN
Seattle, Washington police sent out an An A.P.B. when an 18-year-old man stole a marked police cruiser and went for a joyride. A short time later, a local bicycle patrolman radioed headquarters that he'd spotted the stolen car. An officer in the area heard the call and responded. as Officer #1 sat at a stoplight, a second officer arrived. Officer #2, thinking he'd just spotted the stolen patrol car, rammed Officer #1. Officer #1, thinking he'd been attacked by the stolen cruiser, opened fire on Officer #2. The two cops exchanged more than 20 shots before they realized their mistake. Meanwhile, the man who'd stolen the police car got cold feet, returned to the police department, and gave himself up.

STICK WITH WHAT YOU KNOW
Four car thieves looking for the perfect car to steal picked the worst possible location for a heist -- the parking lot of the East New Jersey State Prison. The quartet were circling the lot cruising for the right target when they were surrounded by prison guards. Cops say at least one of the men should have known better -- he'd spent 15 years of his life locked up at the very same prison.

THEY'LL PUT THIS GUY AWAY FOR A "TASSINE" YEARS
Upon his release from a four-month jail sentence, a 44-year-old Fort Pierce, Florida man had been given a check by the sheriff's department for the amount of cash he'd had on him at the time of his arrest: $34.65. But instead of simply cashing the check, the man altered the numbers to read "34 million dollars." He also changed the written dollar amount on the second line of the check to read "tety four hundred tassine dollars." When the man tried to cash the altered check, a bank teller easily spotted the funny numbers and misspellings, and alerted police. The man told arresting officers he'd received the check in the mail exactly like it was, but they didn't buy it.

WHY DO YOU THINK THEY CALL IT DOPE?
A man rushed into a New York City police station and told the officer on duty that two men in a BMW had waved a gun at him and tried to cut him off in traffic. In fact, he said, the men were waiting for him outside at that very moment. Sure enough, the officer lookd outside and saw two suspects trying to break into the man's Malibu, parked right in front of the police station. After arresting them, the cop decided take a peek in the Malibu's trunk -- and discovered almost half a million dolars worth of cocaine. He arrested the driver of the Malibu and locked him up alongside his stalkers.

IF HOYT AND DELBERT TURNED TO CRIME...
A Pasadena, Maryland man suffered a serious injury when he shoved a .22-caliber pistol into the waistband of his pants and it went off, shooting him in the groin. The injured man hobbled over to a friend's house and called 911. While the pair waited for the ambulance, the friend apparently decided to hide the gun by sticking it into his back pocket. The gun went off again, shooting the second man in the buttocks. Fortunately, police arrived a short time later and were able to confiscate the gun before anyone else managed to shoot themselves with it.

THIEF FLUSHES HIMSELF OUT
A burglar broke into a home late one evening in Etten-Leur, Holland and began quietly going through the house collecting his loot. In the middle of the heist, the thief was interrupted by the call of nature. After finishing his business, he did the polite thing and flushed the toilet. Unfortunately for him, the flush woke up the family dog, whose barking alerted the home's occupants. The victims called for help, but The thief got away before the cops arrived (also before he had time to steal anything).

THE DUMBA-BOMBER HAS BEEN CAPTURED
A 50-year-old British electrician has been charged as the man who'd been threatening to blow up customers of the Tesco department store chain unless the company paid him money.The man sent four actual bombs, one of which exploded weakly without causing any injuries or damage. The other three bombs never made it to their targets because the man had failed to put enough postage on the packages. Investigators say the "mad bomber" gave himself away when he went to a newsstand to make photocopies of his extortion notes and forgot to take the original out of the machine when he finished.

NOW GET OUTTA HERE BEFORE I SAW YOU IN HALF
Hong Kong magician Lue Yin Wai was awakened one night by the sounds of a scuffle coming from the house next door. When he went to investigate, Wai found a man threatening his neighbor with a knife. Wai quickly whipped off his coat and threw it over the assailant's arm. He then shouted the Chinese equivalent of "abracadabra," which distracted the suspect long enough for Wai to grab the knife from the man's hand. Wai then pulled his coat away and told the burglar he'd made the weapon magically disappear. The burglar was apparently so befuddled by the impromptu magic show that he gave himself up and waited for police to come and arrest him.

USE ONLY AS DIRECTED
A man in Amman, Jordan apparently didn't have the nerves of steel it takes to be a burglar. Authorities say the man broke into a hospital pharmacy by crawling through the air conditioning system, with the intention of helping himself to the drugs inside. But in the middle of the heist, the burglar had an attack of nerves, so he downed three tranquilizers from his haul to calm himself down. The pills were apparently more powerful than he thought -- hospital personnel discovered the man sound asleep in the floor of the pharmacy the next morning.

AND FINALLY...
A shoplifter in a Wal-Mart store in Grand Rapids, Michigan tried on a pair of jeans and liked them so much he decided to remove the tags and wear them out of the store without paying for them. What makes this a dumb crime? The pair of jeans the man stole were on sale for $9.99, while the old pair he left behind had $12 in cash in the pocket.