Last night some asshole smashed a glass door at the Singer Laren museum near Amsterdam and stole Vincent van Gogh's oil painting “The Parsonage Garden at Nuenen in Spring 1884." The museum has been closed due to COVID-19. From the Associated Press:
The value of the (10" x 22") work, which was on loan from the Groninger Museum in the northern Dutch city of Groningen, was not immediately known. Van Gogh’s paintings, when they rarely come up for sale, fetch millions at auction...
A team including forensics and art theft experts was studying video footage and questioning neighbors. [Museum General Director Evert] Van Os said the museum’s security worked “according to protocol,” but he added: “Obviously we can learn from this.”
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Katie and Josh Camarena of Portervilla, California came up an excellent theft deterrent during a rash of crime in their neighborhood. From LADbible:
In a post on Facebook, she explained: "We have been having issues with people coming into our neighborhood to try and steal tools out of vehicles (And anything else they can get their hands on).
"Our flood light didn't seem to scare them off, so we decided to have a little fun with a motion activated sprinkler that has an impressive amount of pressure." Read the rest
A man will go to jail for the crime of videoing himself licking ice cream and then returning the beslobbered dessert to the freezer, despite checking it out afterwards. The social media stunt earned D’Adrien Anderson, 24, much attention online, but now it's earned him 30 days in jail. He'll also have to pay a $1000 fine and reimburse Blue Bell Creameries, which apparently destroyed the entire freezerful of products.
Security footage proved that after the video ends, Anderson took and paid for the ice cream he licked. But it was to no avail.
The incident happened Aug. 26 at a Walmart in Port Arthur. Store surveillance cameras showed that he finally took the Blue Bell ice cream from the freezer and bought it, which wasn’t captured in the social media video, authorities said. Anderson could have been sentenced to up to a year in jail and fined $4,000 for misdemeanor criminal mischief.
As reported by the A.P., the crime here was partially consuming a product before checking it out -- something a lot of people do every day. I suspect he was prosecuted because his gross viral video made people like District Attorney Bob Wortham experience anger and resentment. Read the rest
In the surveillance footage above, a fellow is seen using a fishing rod to snatch a designer necklace from a mannequin's neck inside a Melbourne, Australia shop. Police are asking for help identifying the suspect. From CNN:
Authorities believe the man made a hole in the storefront glass window, then slid the fishing rod through the hole into the store to lift the necklace from the mannequin inside, according to CNN affiliate Nine News.
"It appears that the burglar was fishing for about three hours before landing his catch," said police in the statement.
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Last night, someone stole a Lincoln Navigator hearse with a body inside. The police search just ended this morning with a high-speed pursuit on the 110 freeway that ended in the Lincoln Navigator crashing. They apprehended the suspect and the body was still inside the vehicle.
According to CBS Local, the SUV "was stolen from out in front of St. Anthony’s Greek Orthodox Church in unincorporated Pasadena. A casket holding a woman’s body was inside the vehicle at the time of the theft."
News video below.
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A gentleman on an easyJet flight from Manchester to Iceland apparently began disassembling and chewing up parts of his mobile phone, causing the battery to smoke and alarming passengers. Prior to this snack, Matthew Flaherty, 44, was simply acting like a drunk asshole violently threatening passengers and crew. The pilot diverted the plane to Edinburgh Aiport. Upon Flaherty's arrest, he screamed racist remarks to the police. The incident happened last year and Flaherty was just in court to face the music. From The Scotsman:
Solicitor Richard Souter, defending, said his client was “aghast at his behaviour” on the flight and had little recollection of the events due to mixing alcohol with painkillers he had taken for a trapped nerve.
Mr Souter said the combination of medication and alcohol had “an adverse effect on his behaviour”.
Sheriff Thomas Welsh QC said Flaherty had carried out an “extremely serious offence” and deferred sentence to next month for the preparation of reports.
The sheriff added: “This is an extremely serious case and you should prepare yourself for custody.”
image credit: Adrian Pingstone (public domain)
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Yet again, Donald Murray, 38, was arrested following a police chase. Apparently he escaped the cops but they nabbed him later. I wonder how they managed to identify him. From Fox4:
According to the Terre Haute Police Department, Donald Murray was charged with resisting law enforcement, reckless driving, possession of methamphetamine, maintaining a common nuisance and auto theft after the short pursuit Monday morning.
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Michael Avenatti, the pugnacious lawyer who rose to fame representing porn star and Trump mistress Stormy Daniels, is now a convicted criminal. A jury found him guilty today of trying to extort millions of dollars from fashion brand Nike by threatening to publicly accuse them of making illegal payments to amateur athletes. He'll be sentenced in June, and faces two other trials: one on a count of fraud, and another for allegedly stealing Daniels' book advance.
Avenatti made the sign of the cross prior to the verdict being read, stared at the jury and looked down at the table. He told the lawyers, "Great job, you guys," and hugged one of them as he was led away to a backroom. He was not handcuffed.
"Of course there will be an appeal," Scott Srebnick, Avenatti's lead defense attorney, told CNN. Srebnick said he was going to meet with Avenatti before his cient was taken to the Metropolitan Correctional Center, where he's been in custody throughout the trial. ...
Nike lawyers who took the stand during the trial said Avenatti told them he would hold a press conference claiming the company illegally paid players. In exchange for not going public, Avenatti told the lawyers in one meeting Nike would have to pay Franklin $1.5 million for any claims he had and immediately pay Avenatti and another attorney $12 million, and guarantee $15 to $25 million in payments for an internal investigation, prosecutors said.
"An old fashioned shakedown," as the prosecutor put it. Read the rest
NBC5 Dallas/Fort Worth reporter Katy Blakey posted impressive video from a road in Southlake, Texas where thieves picked a Chevrolet Silverado clean, leaving not much more than the shell of the cab behind. There's been a rash of Silverado thefts in the area, possibly because the OnStar tracking systems are easily disabled, according to police. From NBC-DFW:
“Within 3 minutes [thieves] were able to pop the lock, pop the hood, change the computer, disable the OnStar and steal my truck,” (said Silverado theft victim Jarrod Hamlin, who reviewed surveillance footage of the crime.)
He tried to log on to his MyChevy app to use OnStar to track the vehicle, but it showed a failed connection and he realized OnStar had been disabled.
So he called police, filed a report, then turned to social media and started hearing similar stories from other Silverado owners in the area.
“They all said the same thing: no glass was broken, their keys weren’t used and the OnStar was disabled so fast that a lot of these people said OnStar’s last known location was in front of my house,” Hamlin said.
(via Geekologie) Read the rest
At Minnesota's International Falls Port of Entry, US Customs and Border Protection seized $900,000 in $1 bills in a shipping container from China making its way on a train from Canada into the United States. The bills were packed inside 45 cardboard boxes. From US Customs and Border Protection:
Due to the vigilance of CBP officers, a rail container was referred for a Customs Exam Station inspection on Dec. 14, 2019.
During the examination, CBP discovered 45 cartons of possible counterfeit currency in the form of $1 bills with a total face value of $900,000. The United States Secret Service was contacted (and) determined the currency is counterfeit.
The counterfeit currency was seized and will be turned over to the Secret Service.
(via CNN)
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Not all heroes wear capes; sometimes they wear fluffy, pink animal costumes. Outside San Jose's Further Confusion (FurCon) this weekend, a group of furries spotted a man abusing a woman in a car. So they intervened. From CNN:
"We heard a woman's screams coming from inside and saw the passenger throwing full fists at whoever was driving," (FurCon DJ Robbie) Ryans told CNN.
"We got up and ran towards the car, my friend pulled open the door and we both held onto the attacker. The girl driver was yelling for him to get out, as he started trying to fight us off."
Four other people who were attending the convention joined in and helped grab the man, drag him out of the car, and restrain him until police arrived.
Once he the felt the situation was under control, Ryans said he backed up and began filming the incident.
When police arrived, they alleged that the suspect, 22-year-old Demetri Hardnett, assaulted his girlfriend in their car, according to the police report. Hardnett was arrested and booked into Santa Clara County Jail for domestic violence.
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In Winter Haven, Florida, this gentleman rolled right into a Walmart, loaded up his cart with a TV, flowers, and other goods, and glided right out the door without paying.
"Back to the Future’s McFly he’s not! But his Hover Shoes, Voyagers, Moto Kicks, Space Shoes or whatever you want to call them makes him our first futuristic thief!” the Winter Haven Police Department police posted on Facebook.
(<a href="https://www.wfla.com/news/polk-county/police-futuristic-thief-steals-television-flowers-from-winter-haven-walmart/">WFLA, thanks UPSO!)
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This remarkable security video is from inside a box truck traveling at 50MPH. The thieves tailgate it so closely that one of them can stand on the hood, break open the truck doors, climb inside, steal the best stuff in there, then leap back into the pursuing vehicle.
From PostNord Sverige, the Swedish state postal service:
Theft of goods is a widespread problem in the logistics industry, and thieves are becoming ever more cunning. But as a result of comprehensive and thorough preparatory work and good cooperation with the police, PostNord recently succeeded in catching a gang in western Sweden while they were stealing goods – traveling at 80 kilometers per hour. The evidence can be seen on a surveillance film from one of PostNord’s trucks.
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On Tuesday, Colorado Springs police arrested David Wayne Oliver, 65, at a Starbucks for allegedly robbing a nearby bank. After departing the bank with the loot, Oliver apparently started tossing the cash into the air while yelling "Merry Christmas." From Reuters:
(Witness Dion) Pascale said bystanders retrieved some of the money and returned it to the bank as Oliver walked to the Starbucks, sat down and appeared to be waiting for police to arrest him, KKTV reported.
The Denver Post quoted police as saying “thousands of dollars” remained unaccounted for, adding there was no indication Oliver used a weapon in the heist.
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Earlier this month at the Festival of Lights event in Riverside, California, a gentleman requested that a caricature artist paint his portrait. Once the drawing was finished, the subject snatched the artist's bag of earnings containing around $500. He left his portrait behind. From KTLA:
“Do you recognize this caricature? And no, we are not kidding,” police said in a Facebook post sharing the drawing. “This caricature is of the suspect, but of course, has exaggerated characteristics and features.”
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There are interesting details in today's federal criminal indictments against two jail guards at the Manhattan jail where pedophile and child sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein died. Read the rest
In Arkansas, Henderson State University chemistry professors Terry D. Bateman, 45, and Bradley A. Rowland, 40, were charged on Friday with making methamphetamine. They had been put on administrative leave on October 11. From the New York Times:
(Tina V. Hall, a university associate vice president of marketing and communications) said the school’s Reynolds Science Center had been closed on Oct. 8 because of “a report of an undetermined chemical odor.” Testing revealed an elevated presence of benzyl chloride in a lab, she said...
Stephen J. Madison, who is on the chemistry faculty at Quinnipiac University in Hamden, Conn., said that benzyl chloride could be used to help make methamphetamine...
It was not clear whether the chemical smell in the school building had prompted the investigation by law enforcement.
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