The Week in Stupid Crime

David Davis was in the middle of a haircut when he got into a scuffle and was then arrested.

Fruscione signs burned

Police won’t say one way or the other, but we’re suspecting rabid supporters of the deal to sell Buffalo corporate welfare king Mark Hamister what is likely the most valuable piece of city-owned property downtown for a measly $100,000, may be responsible for a series of Saturday night conflagrations that saw at least 10 campaign lawn signs put out by fans of City Councilman Sam Fruscione go up in flames.

The signs, adorning front lawns throughout the city, were torched sometime late Saturday night or early Sunday.

Fruscione has been an eloquent opponent of the smelly Hamister deal, in which the Buffalo-based developer - famous for his unabashed sucking at the public teat - is seeking the downtown property known as Parcel 4, along with more than a decade’s worth of tax breaks, in order to build a small, heavily subsidized and architecturally undistinguished hotel in a neighborhood that’s already lousy with them.

Fruscione has been crucified repeatedly on the pages of both local daily newspapers for questioning the giveaway, and for having the bad taste to point out that the property has been valued at 15 to 20 times the paltry amount the city is asking for it.

Aside from the First Amendment issues involved, the sign burning also amounts to arson, something the morons who perpetrated the crimes most likely didn’t consider.

Scorned Woman Takes Revenge on Car

Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, as the Niagara Falls owner of a late model Lexus found out last week, police said.

According to reports, the man refused to answer the door when a young woman came knocking. The woman, who is described as 4’ 11” and weighing 105 pounds, grew frustrated and left, but not before scratching the left front quarter panel of his shiny new car using some sharp object, most likely a key.

Cops say the guy told them the woman had become obsessed by him, presumably because of his insane good looks and potential money making ability, which in Niagara Falls translates to not having any birth defects or facial scars and earning more than $20,000 a year.

He maintained - somewhat improbably, we think - that he had never been in a relationship of any sort with the woman and could not explain her actions.

Police are investigating, but in all likelihood the guy was probably lucky to get off as lightly as he did.

Niagara Lacrosse Players Play Dirty

And hell hath no fury like a college hockey or lacrosse player reprimanded for urinating on the neighbor’s lawns, as two Clifton Street women discovered last week, police reported.

The two women grew sick and tired of the Niagara University hockey and lacrosse players getting drunk, driving drunk, being loud and obnoxious, parking illegally, urinating and throwing garbage in yards and just generally making nuisances of themselves.

Niagara University’s lacrosse and hockey houses are located close by Clifton Street on Lewiston Road, and the lacrosse house is just coming off of probation for a series of similar disgraces that occurred last year.

After one of the women attempted to confront the college boys, they ran away, breaking the antennae off of the woman’s car before disappearing into the night like cockroaches.

A police report was filed and a complaint lodged with the powers that be at the university.

Black, White Hoods Attack Man

In most instances, it’s nice to see black men and white men working together on some worthwhile goal. Such was not the case last Monday, however, when city police responded to a call of shots fired in the 600 block of Pine Avenue.

Arriving at the scene, officers found Leonard Lamont Sistrunk Jr., 19, of Niagara Falls, slumped in the back seat of a 13-year-old Chevy Impala, bleeding profusely from three bullet wounds in the chest.

Sistrunk’s mother, who was also at the scene, said her son called to tell her that some guys were at his apartment trying to kick in the front door. The mother drove to her son’s house, where she found him engaged in a confrontation with two black males who were apparently in the company of a white guy, who was waiting for them behind the wheel of a “nice, newer looking sedan.”

One of the black men pulled a rifle from the back seat of the vehicle and opened up, wounding Sistrunk grievously.

He was treated at Niagara Falls Memorial Medical Center, which deals with a large number of gunshot wounds on an almost daily basis despite the small size of the community that surrounds it.

The shooter, evidently a proponent of the “spray and pray” school of combat marksmanship, also managed to shoot the window out of a passing car driven by some poor sap who had nothing to do with any of it, police said.

A manhunt is on, and police may have suspects in custody by the time you read this.

How Not to Commit a Robbery

A Niagara Falls car wash employee provided an object lesson in how not to commit a robbery last week, doing everything she could possibly do wrong in some apparent manifestation of the “stop me before I do something else stupid” syndrome.

The Delta Sonic employee, 18-year-old Kayla Steinbronner, removed $150 in cash from a safe and took it into a restroom at the car wash, all in full view of security cameras.

That was mistake Number One.

When she was confronted by a loss prevention specialist brought in by Delta Sonic, Steinbronner confessed to the whole thing and then repeated her confession in writing without the police even being called or her asking to see an attorney.

Those were mistakes Numbers Two, Three and Four.

She then waited patiently in the car wash’s employee break room for police to arrive, which may or may not have been a mistake depending on what sort of pressing business she might have been able to take care of prior to being transported to the city’s Taj Mahal - like city courthouse, where she was locked in a tiny cell and given time to contemplate her own lack of common sense.