Every week, I try to come up with a theme for the DGU Week in Review. Small towns, DGUs gone wrong, old folks fighting back. With another thirty articles to peruse from this week’s newsrags, I read each one, looking for a common thread. Home invasions, pawn shop robberies, drunks in the wrong house; the news reports covered the gamut. Aside from the fact that burglars often get shot while climbing through a window, nothing struck me as having a common theme. Until I realized…
Criminals are stupid. Some, just to the point of being bad decision-makers. Others, well, let’s just say that there’s no shortage of dumb crooks doing bad things in ways that make you shake your head and wonder, WTF were they thinking? Luckily, the apex of criminal stupidity is held by weirdos wrapped up so thoroughly in their own Scooby-Doo episode they don’t even consider using a gun.
Take the dastardly Joshua Pinney, for example. Yes, I know this isn’t a DGU, but I just couldn’t pass up the chance to share this nugget of comedy gold.
Of course, there’s nothing funny about being a victim of a violent, deranged neighbor. More than one of last week’s stories told the tale of someone who lived just down the street from their attacker. Or, in the case of David Pelican, you might get shot by the guy who rents his garage to you.
Attacks by neighbors (hey, a sub-theme!) may involve a stranger, or it might be the crazy old man that everyone avoids. John Gallik, of Apollo Beach, Florida was fatally shot after confronting neighbor David Cockerham with a butterfly knife. Gallik was no stranger to confrontation, having pissed off most of his subdivision with handmade signs and crazy antics.
Cockerham was walking his dog, and attempted to move a sign on Gallik’s lawn that was blocking the sidewalk. Gallik thrust his knife at Cockerham, who was legally carrying his concealed .38 revolver. Fearing for his life, Cockerham put two rounds into Gallik’s chest.
Breaking and entering is dumb, especially when the burglar isn’t being protected by gun-free zones. It doesn’t matter if you’re in Kenosha, Wisconson or Dallas, Texas; entering a castle while the King (or Queen) is home will likely get you shot. It only gets dumber when the cornered crook starts lying.
“Oh, I just came for something to eat. I’m really hungry. My babies at home don’t have nuthin.” Really? Then what’s that TV doing on the lawn?
What other dumb criminals took one for the team? Well, if you try to rob a New Orleans cabbie, you’ll end up with a bullet in your face. Score a 50-inch flat screen, then decide to come back the next night for more? You get to die on a couch. A little girl, home alone, should be an easy target, right? Not if she’s trained to use the family gun.
When dealing with a threat to yourself or your family, you don’t always have time to assess the intent of your attacker. How can you be sure that the burglar will just take what he wants and leave, or that crazy neighbor won’t get violent? There’s no way to know in advance.
A self-defense gun is bona-fide life insurance, and no law-abiding man or woman should be stripped of their right to protect themselves. Armed self-defense is the smart thing to do.
This may be the only documented case of a criminal turning over their gun.
It seems the crooks in St. Louis are now shooting their victims even after the victims do exactly what they are told and give up their personal belongings. So much for the LE’s mantra of just do what they say and don’t fight back, because your belongings are not worth getting shot over!
Sources please.
Link?
Robert, it was on the local CBS affiliate here in STL last week, since I’m kind of new to posting photos and such, I’ll see what I can do!
http://www.kmov.com/news/local/Unnerving-crime-trend-increasing-in-south-St-Louis-174689581.html
TX
Yikes.
You’d think with the Cards being in the playoffs and all, people would have better things to do.
“Jones apparently pleaded with the homeowner to let him go, saying at first that he had six kids, and then it was four kids to feed.”
We all saw Total Recall, Dude… it was released a hundred years ago… jeepers.
I ran a Parole office for thirty years. 95% of the folks on the caseload were “dumb criminals”; the rest, who got caught at a lower rate, were true professionals. They took their work as serious as cancer, they planned, prepped and executed with determination and some measure of pride. Underestimate them at your own risk.
Crooks are stupid? Well, aside from corporate CEOs who routinely steal millions and get away with it (usally because their lobbyists have bribed the congresscritters to make the theft legal)… a wise man once said that one smart man with a briefcase can steal more money than a hundred punks with machine guns. But the dumb crook stories make for better reading.