Brad_in_ma was kind enough to send me the fourth "news of the weird" story for today"
Ho ho oh no: Chimney burglar convicted
It only took a King County jury about an hour to return a guilty verdict Tuesday against a would-be burglar who got stuck in a chimney last February while trying to break into South Seattle house.
Shon M. Shanell, 23, was convicted of attempted residential burglary for the Feb. 19 incident at a home in the 7700 block of Seward Park Avenue North.
...
Investigators said Shanell -- later dubbed the "Santa Claus burglar" -- made it most of the way down the soot-filled shaft, but the bottom proved to be too narrow, and he became stuck on top of the fireplace flue.
Why can I not get Weird Al's "Christmas At Ground Zero" out of my head: "but if someone's climbin' down your chimney/you'd better load your gun and shoot to kill"... I'm just trying to wrap my head about this sort of idiocy - this numbskull has apparently never seen a hearth, at least not one made in the past hundred years or so. While it's a good thing that nothing was stolen, something tells me that the homeowners would have been better off had he broken a window and stolen some electronics - repairing a chimney ain't gonna be cheap...
You know what bothers me? This:
He will be sentenced Aug. 5 and faces 15 to 20 months in prison.
15 months, meaning he'll plea bargain for 10 months and be let out in 6 for good behavior, if he even serves that much time. He committed several crimes, cost untold thousands in city services while police, fire, and EMS responded, damaged private property through sheer dumbassery, and will be out in less time than most folks spend for tax evasion (unless you're a Democrat, in which case you become part of the Øbama administration...).
He's just damn lucky that no one was home and enjoying a nice evening by a roaring fire - we would have had Shon's nuts roasting on an open fire...
That is all.
5 comments:
And you'd get more time in jail for having a pound of dried, smokeable plant in your house.....
Disgusting.
Do you want another one?
Man arrested for punching another man who wouldn't hug him.
Alcohol was involved...
I'd have loaded my fireplace, lit a few of those little wax coated pinecone fire starters, and left.
"He committed several crimes, cost untold thousands in city services while police, fire, and EMS responded, damaged private property through sheer dumbassery, and will be out in less time than most folks spend for tax evasion...."
It IS all about whose ox is gored: The Fedgov will send you away for 10 years hard time if you grow your own TOBACCO, make cigarettes out of it and sell it across state lines w/o the fedgov getting a cut.... if Joe Crackslinger beats Bob Crackslinger to DEATH over market share, Joe will be out in 2 years, less time served (18 months).....
Heath, you'd be looking at some serious smoke damage, at the very least....
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