September 30, 1999

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Bozo criminal for today comes from Hartford, Connecticut where bozo Fidel Hernandez thought it might be fun to have a siren on his car. He found one, hooked it up and drove out onto the highway to test it out. He pulled up behind a car, turned on the siren and much to his surprise the other vehicle pulled over. He was even more surprised when the driver of the other vehicle turned out to be a police officer driving an unmarked car. He was charged with impersonating a police officer.

September 29, 1999

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Bozo criminal for today comes from Newark, New Jersey where bozo Reginald Carson needed some money to buy drugs so he decided to hold up the Hudson City Savings Bank there. Our bozo walked in, placed a canvas bag on the counter and handed the teller a note saying that the bag contained a bomb and that she should hand over the cash. The teller gave our bozo $1500 and he sprinted out of the bank, leaving his bag behind. Of course his bag did not contain a bomb, but it did contain a rather nice picture of the bozo. Outside the bank, he dropped a deposit slip with his name and address on it. He also hailed a cab, whose driver was able to identify him to the cops. Need we say he was arrested?

September 28, 1999

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Bozo criminals for today come from the Domestic Dispute Division. From Carrollton, Texas comes the story of an unidentified couple, a 92 year old woman and her 86 year old husband. It seems the two lovebirds got into a verbal altercation in which the 92 year old woman swatted the 86 year old man with a rolled up newspaper (well, it does always work with the dog). The dispute became more and more heated and police had to be called to calm the two parties down. The cops arrived and discovered the fight was over laundry. The woman was upset because, as she said, she couldn’t remember how many times she’d told him not to put her red sox in with his white T-shirts. For his part, the man, who is hard of hearing, said he’d rather go to jail than put up with any more of her complaining. Cooler heads prevailed and no charges were filed. Maybe they can just have their laundry sent out…

September 27, 1999

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Bozo criminals for today come from Atlanta, Georgia where our bozos decided to hold up a highway toll booth. The two bozos drove up to the booth after midnight, flashed a handgun and demanded that the three toll collectors throw all their money into a large plastic trash bag, which they did. Only one problem, our bozos bought the cheap, discount store type trash bags instead of the heavy duty ones. So when they lifted the bag filled with quarters, it split open, spilling money all over the roadway. The bozos grabbed what they could and sped away. The cops later found the car abandoned, with quarters scattered all over the inside of the car. They haven’t found the bozos yet. Maybe they should check the video arcade…or the laundromat.

September 24, 1999

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From Bristol Township, Pennsylvania comes the story of Bozo Joseph Karnes who entered a tavern intent on stealing a purse to get money to buy drugs. He sits down, orders a drink and strikes up a conversation with the drunkest guy in the bar, figuring he won’t remember anything anyway. Soon an opportunity presents itself–a woman and her boyfriend get up to go play pool, leaving her purse behind. The bozo grabs it and makes a quick getaway. Police are called and they interview everyone in the bar without getting any useful information. Then, as a last resort, they decide to talk to the really drunk guy, the one the bozo sat next to. He doesn’t remember much about the bozo either, but he does remember one thing. While sitting at the bar the bozo filled out a Marlboro sweepstakes entry form which he handed to the barmaid. The barmaid then remembers the drunk is right and she finds the bozo’s entry form, which of course contains his name, address and phone number.

September 23, 1999

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Bozo criminals for today come from Boston, Massachusetts where an automobile was stolen. The cops were called and during the investigation, the officer asked the owner of the car if there were any valuables in the car at the time it was taken. Yes, said the owner, as a matter of fact there were a pair of tickets to that evening’s Boston Red Sox baseball game in the glove box. Figuring he had nothing to lose, the cop went to the game, checked out the seats and sure enough there sat our bozos, who had conveniently driven the car to the game, too. They didn’t even get to stay for the seventh inning stretch.

September 22, 1999

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Thanks to Bozo News Hawk Dick Coleman for passing along today’s story. From Santa Rosa, California comes the story of Bozo Lloyd Jacobsen who was burglarizing a house when he was surprised by the home’s owner. As our bozo tried to make his getaway, the homeowner yelled for him to stop. When he didn’t, she grabbed his sweatshirt and proceeded to call out for help. Our bozo quickly slipped out of the sweatshirt and headed for the door. The homeowner then grabbed his sweatpants and held on tight. The pants eventually came off, too, along with his shoes. The now naked bozo then ran to his bicycle (quite a getaway vehicle, huh?) and jumped on, pedaling furiously down the street. In the meantime, the cops received a call of a crazy naked guy riding a bicycle down a city street. Officers were dispatched and spotted a bicycle leaning up against a tree. And up in the tree was our naked bozo. The policed helped him down and arrested him.

September 21, 1999

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Bozo criminal for today comes from Racine, Wisconsin where bozo Gerald Williams purchased what he considered to be some bad cocaine from a local dealer. Our bozo was arguing with the dealer in question, demanding a refund. Suddenly he came up with a bright bozo idea–he would call police headquarters and have them send an officer over to settle the dispute. A patrol car was dispatched and unbelievably the bozo let the officers into his house, showed them the drugs and asked them to help him get his money back from the dealer, who was still there. (Obviously there’s more than one bozo in this story) The officers tested the drugs and settled the dispute by arresting both bozos.

September 20, 1999

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Bozo criminal for today comes from Miami, Florida where bozo Walter Reynolds stole a $15,000 set of golf clubs at the PGA Doral Ryder Cup Open. Now, if you’re a bozo and you suddenly find yourself in possession of $15,000 worth of golf clubs, what do you do? Tyr to sell them to a professional golfer for $5 apiece, of course. When our bozo offered the clubs to Senior Tour player Raymond Floyd, he immediately recognized the clubs were worth far more than the $5 asking price and called the cops. The police arrived and found the bozo still on the course, still trying to sell the clubs. He was arrested.

September 17, 1999

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Bozo criminal for today comes from New Britain, Connecticut where bozo Paul Brown was definitely doing the wrong thing in the wrong place at the wrong time. Our bozo set up a booth to sell candy for a non-existent charity for state lifeguards. He set the booth up right next to the police station and had sold about $59 worth of candy, mostly to police officers, before someone decided to run a background check. The check not only found the charity to be bogus but that our bozo also had a lengthy record for fraud. The cops walked him next door and booked him.

September 16, 1999

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Bozo criminal for today comes from the International File. This bozo didn’t really commit a crime, but there was no way we could pass up this story. From Capetown, South Africa comes the story of Welsh tourist Robby Perkins who was in a tour bus in a busy section of the city when he decided it might be rather funny to "moon" the passing cars. So, our bozo dropped his pants and pressed his bottom against the rear window of the bus. Unfortunately for Robby, the window he pressed his behind against was the emergency exit which is designed to come free under pressure. So, the window popped out and so did our trouserless bozo, landing in the middle lane of the highway. Luckily for him the bus was traveling at a slow rate of speed and he received only minor cuts and scrapes and a large amount of embarassment.

September 15, 1999

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Bozo criminal for today comes from Cleveland, Ohio where Bozo Jesus Ramirez walked into the Firstar Bank carrying two grocery bags, large ones, crammed full of cash, which he says he wants to deposit. The teller tells him that since he has more than $10,000 in cash, the transaction will have to be reported to the IRS. She then gives him the necessary forms, which he fills out and gives back to her. The teller notices something suspicious when she is looking over the forms. On the line asking what he does for a living, the bozo, who had just brought in grocery sacks filled with cash, wrote "unemployed." This sent up a few red flags and when the cops went by his apartment to investigate they found an additional $156,000 in cash, which they allege came from Ramirez’ sale of 22 kilos of cocaine. He’s been arrested.

September 14, 1999

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Bozo criminal for today violated Bozo Rule Number 0220: It’s usually a good idea to take care of your personal business before robbing a bank. From Port Christian, Mississippi comes the story of Bozo Darryl Evans who held up the People’s Bank there. Our bozo handed the teller a note saying he was armed and to hand over the cash, which she did. Our bozo got only a short distance away from the bank before nature called. And you know, when you gotta go, you gotta go. And just like in that Adam Sandler movie, he decided to relieve himself in public. Unfortunately, a police cruiser happened by about this time and when the officers noticed he seemed a little nervous, they checked his pockets and found the cash and the hold up note. He was arrested.

September 13, 1999

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Bozo criminal for today wins our Bozo Excuse of the Week competition. From Washington, DC comes the story of bozo Fred Barrito who was arrested for possession of drugs with intent to sell after police pulled him over on a routine traffic stop. While the cop was talking to him, our bozo started acting a little strangely, leading the officer to take a look inside the car, where he found 13 bags of crack cocaine. Our bozo then told the cops that the bags had simply flown into the open window of his car just before he was pulled over and he was merely inspecting them to see what they were. He’ll have plenty of time in jail to come up with a better story.

September 10, 1999

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Now, we’ve all heard this sort of bozo story before but it’s his excuse that makes David Smyth our Bozo of the Day. From Deerfield Beach, Florida comes the story of Bozo David Smyth who climbed up a palm tree, jumped over to the roof of a pizza restaurant and then shimmied down the exhaust vent. He got about three quarters of the way down before you can guess what happened. Right. He got stuck. Our bozo stayed stuck all night and was still in the vent in the morning when the pizza crew arrived for work. Hearing his calls for help, they called the cops who then called the fire department rescue squad. After failing in an attempt to pull the bozo out of the bottom of the vent, the rescue workers finally wound up pouring a couple of gallons of pizza restaruant grease (cool, thank goodness) down the vent. It loosened the bozo up enough that they were able to tie a rope around him and pull him out. To add insult to injury, our bozo was so greasy that he not only slipped out of the vent, he also slipped out of his pants on the way out. But, it was his excuse for being in the vent in the first place that earned him his place on the Bozo Honor Roll. Bozo David told the cops that he climbed up a palm tree, jumped over to the roof of the pizza restaurant and shimmied down the exhaust vent because he was looking for a quiet place to sleep.

September 09, 1999

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Ladies and gentlemen, we present for you today the first ever bozo criminal from our own industry (which has been known to have quite a few bozos in it over the years). From the Radio Division of the Bozo criminal files comes the story of the bozos who run the college radio station at Oxford University in England. It seems that the student run station at Oxford was in danger of losing its license because the station played a lot of music and not much of the science and arts programming that it was supposed to carry. So, the government agency charged with overseeing college radio in England asked the station for a tape of its March 1st programming. The bozos at the station knew they were in violation of the rules on that date so instead of sending them the actual tape, they decided to fabricate an entire day of programming. On March 8th, the station dropped the music programming and aired talk, news and education shows, all the while giving the date as March 1st. They then shipped those tapes off to the authorities. Only one problem—while acting as if it were March 1st, the bozos were reading news stories from the day they made the fake broadcast, March 8th, a week later. Needless to say the station was fined and all the bozo staffers lost their jobs.

September 08, 1999

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Thanks to many Bozo News Hawks who pointed out this story in a recent Ann Landers’ column. From Ottawa County, Michigan comes the story of a bozo who set the new Bozo World’s Land Speed Record for quickest return to jail. Twenty one year old bozo Reginald Phillips was released from the Ottawa County Jail Saturday morning at 12:01 AM. At 12:09 AM our bozo was spotted climbing over a chain link fence, back onto the jail grounds, and attempting to pass a cigarette to an inmate through a steel grate covering a window. At 12:10 AM our bozo was back in custody, charged with illegal entry into a prison facility and disorderly conduct. That’s nine minutes flat, bettering the previous record of 45 minutes held by a bozo who got busted for drinking beer to celebrate his release as he was driving home from jail.

September 07, 1999

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Bozo criminal for today comes from Lynnwood, Washington where bozos Jacob Scott and Timothy Weems held up a bank and then made quick getaway. Unfortunately for our bozos their getaway path took them right by the local mall and, since they had a lot of cash on their hands, the bozos decided they might as well go shopping. The cops noticed the getaway car in the parking lot and arrested our bozos as they came out of the mall with their purchases.

September 06, 1999

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Bozo criminal for today comes from Spokane, Washington where the police were having a community "Meet the Police" night. Residents were invited to stop by a neighborhood park, get to know the police and see some of the force’s newest technology. At one booth, the police were showing off their new drivers license computer that was connected directly to the state’s main computer. The police could "run" your drivers license and check to see if you had any outstanding tickets. To show how it worked, the police asked for a volunteer to come up and give them his license number. For reasons known only to a bozo, Sammy Smith walked up and volunteered. To the cops disbelief, when they ran Bozo Sammy’s license, they found he was a wanted man, with several outstanding warrants. He was arrested on the spot.

September 03, 1999

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Bozo criminal for today comes from Hermiston, Oregon where bozo Lucas White had a plan. He would rob the U.S. Bank branch there while wearing a bright red shirt and white hat, something that would be easy to identify. Then he would quickly run from the bank, jump in the trunk of his getaway car and change clothes, thereby making himself more difficult to recognize. Things started out OK, our bozo got his money, jumped in the trunk and started to change clothes. Then he heard a click. Yep, he had locked himself in the trunk of his car. He began pounding on the trunk and screaming for help and who should answer his cries but one of the police officers who was looking for him. The officer was kind enough to free our bozo from the trunk before arresting him.