You Will Shoot Your Eye Out

Cut In Line, Go To Prison

If you’re going to rob convenience stores during peak business hours, you should at least have the courtesy to wait your turn in line, letting other customers get their Fritos and Snapple before disrupting transactions.

In Oklahoma City, a guy named Joe Campbell, Jr., recently learned his lesson in convenience store courtesy the hard way. Campbell suffered from both poor timing and atrocious manners when he apparently got tired of waiting in line at the 7-Eleven. Joe cut in front of two husky young fellows, brandished his knife at the clerk, and reached into the open till.

Clutching the cash, however, probably formed Joe’s last conscious thoughts for a while. The two guys he shoved aside were Danny Fitzwilliam and Jon Whitekiller, both undercover Oklahoma City cops.

Campbell became the subject of a brisk take-down — like to tile-tasting, linoleum-licking level — and was promptly, if unceremoniously cuffed.

Moral: Never step between armed men and their burritos-to-go.

Next Time Pack A Gun

Robert Ruffolo may have thought he was escaping the wild rounds of regular deer season. He may have believed that altitude promoted safety. He may have thought he was perfectly secure when he lugged his bowhunting outfit up into his cozy treestand near Prosperity, Penn.

Not much chance of gettin’ doinked with a .30-30, tickled with a 12 gauge, rack-whacked by a crazed whitetail, or even skewered by a stray ground-level arrow.

Maybe he should have looked up. On a recent fall Saturday, Bob became the first deer hunter of the very first day of the Pennsylvania season to be struck by lightning.

The slightly overdone archer was listed in fair condition at a local hospital. He wasn’t giving interviews, but his 15-year-old son got some air time.

“There’s his long underwear that just got fried,” the lad announced, displaying a scorched swatch of fabric.

Cognitively Challenged

They had three-fifths of the elements necessary for a group armed robbery: a gun, a knife and a getaway car.

The two-fifths they were missing were a viable victim with something of value to steal and the requisite brains to commit a simple crime.

This last element proved critical for a trio of cognitively-challenged would-be “stickup persons.”

Thomas Bray and Todd Kirby, both 31, and 21-year-old Lori Stanton are enjoying nutritious correctional institution meals while trying to figure out what went wrong with their Spring Valley, Calif., crime spree. Their intended victim, a homeless fellow without two nickels to rub together, still wonders why they ever tried to rob someone so obviously penniless.

Bonnie and the two Clydes initially grabbed Richard The Homeless and impressed the heck out of him at gun-and-knife-point. Finding he had no money, they began beating him until he promised to come up with some cash via a loan from a friend.

This constituted armed robbery and aggravated assault.

Then they all squeezed into the getaway car and went in search of Richard’s monied friend. This completed the elements for kidnapping.

Richard directed them to a modest residence and persuaded the crooks to let him go in alone, as they might frighten his pal. They agreed.

Richard emerged a short time later, chagrined to find his buddy had neither money to loan nor a phone to call the cops. After a brief conversation, they all pushed on to another friend’s house. Same scene, same results: no money, no phone, though Richard wasn’t mentioning his growing desire to get some blue suits involved in the action

Doubtless, following a chorus of witty rejoinders like, “Duh, what?” and “No bucks? Bummer!” the vehicular ship of fools set sail for a third and final house.

Ron Williams, resident of the third house and an acquaintance of Richard’s, was also short of pocket change but the proud consumer of Ma Bell’s communication services.

First, though, after hearing Richard’s story, he waltzed outside in his bathrobe to satisfy himself; there were three bozos stupid enough to try adapting the rules of a suburban “progressive dinner” to armed robbery. He looked, he saw, they were.

The trio of mental mastodons may have been a bit suspicious when their intended benefactor sauntered up to their car in his slippers, but he put them at ease.

“Oh, I thought you were someone else,” he assured them. Ron went back into the house. “Then I called 911 because I didn’t feel like messing with those idiots.” Good choice.

The idiots relaxed and waited for their loot. Unknowingly, they were also waiting for several squad cars full of unamused cops.

Unless Messrs. Bray and Kirby and Mme. Stanton are offered top cabinet jobs in D.C., they’re going to have a hard time selling their saga to any producer outside of the Gong Show.

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Mark Moritz hung up his satirical spurs to a collective sigh of relief from America’s gun writers whom he had lampooned in Friendly Fire for two long, painful years. The 10 Ring is written by Commander Gilmore, a retired San Diego police officer who bases his humor, like Mark did, on actual occurrences. All the incidents described by the Commander are true.