Last Year's Darwin Awards

Here is the glorious winner:

1. When his 38 caliber revolver failed to fire at his
intended victim during a hold-up in Long Beach , California
would-be robber James Elliot did something that can only
inspire wonder. He peered down the barrel and tried the
trigger again. This time it worked.

And now, the honorable mentions:

2. The chef at a hotel in Switzerland lost a finger in a
meat cutting machine and after a little shopping around,
submitted a claim to his insurance company. The company
expecting negligence sent out one of its men to have a look
for himself. He tried the machine and he also lost a finger.
The chef's claim was approved.

3. A man who shoveled snow for an hour to clear a space for
his car during a blizzard in Chicago returned with his
vehicle to find a woman had taken the space.. Understandably,
he shot her.

4. After stopping for drinks at an illegal bar, a
Zimbabwean bus driver found that the 20 mental patients he
was supposed to be transporting from Harare to Bulawayo had
escaped. Not wanting to admit his incompetence, the driver
went to a nearby bus stop and offered everyone waiting there
a free ride. He then delivered the passengers to the mental
hospital, telling the staff that the patients were very
excitable and prone to bizarre fantasies. The deception
wasn't discovered for 3 days.

5. An American teenager was in the hospital recovering from
serious head wounds received from an oncoming train. When
asked how he received the injuries, the lad told police that
he was simply trying to see how close he could get his head
to a moving train before he was hit.

6. A man walked into a Louisiana Circle-K, put a $20 bill
on the counter, and asked for change. When the clerk opened
the cash drawer, the man pulled a gun and asked for all the
cash in the register, which the clerk promptly provided. The
man took the cash from the clerk and fled, leaving the $20
bill on the counter. The total amount of cash he got from
the drawer... $15. [If someone points a gun at you and gives
you money, is a crime committed?]

7. Seems an Arkansas guy wanted some beer pretty badly. He
decided that he'd just throw a cinder block through a
liquor store window, grab some booze, and run. So he lifted
the cinder block and heaved it over his head at the window.
The cinder block bounced back and hit the would-be thief on
the head, knocking him unconscious. The liquor store window
was made of Plexiglas. The whole event was caught on
videotape.

8. As a female shopper exited a New York convenience store,
a man grabbed her purse and ran. The clerk called 911
immediately, and the woman was able to give them a detailed
description of the snatcher. Within minutes, the police
apprehended the snatcher. They put him in the car and drove
back to the store. The thief was then taken out of the car
and told to stand there for a positive ID. To which he
replied, "Yes, officer, that's her. That's the
lady I stole the purse from."

9. The Ann Arbor News crime column reported that a man
walked into a Burger King in Ypsilanti , Michigan at 5 A.M.,
flashed a gun, and demanded cash. The clerk turned him
down because he said he couldn't open the cash register
without a food order. When the man ordered onion rings, the
clerk said they weren't available for breakfast. The
man, frustrated, walked away.


10. When a man attempted to siphon gasoline from a motor
home parked on a Seattle street, he got much more than he
bargained for. Police arrived at the scene to find a very
sick man curled up next to a motor home near spilled sewage.
A police spokesman said that the man admitted to trying to
steal gasoline, but he plugged his siphon hose into the
motor home's sewage tank by mistake. The owner of the
vehicle declined to press charges saying that it was the
best laugh he'd ever had.