Published 11:04 am, Thursday, March 8, 2018

A 14-year-old boy in Southern California, not yet old enough to drive, has been arrested and booked after dressing up in a San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department uniform and driving around, occasionally attempting to investigate nonexistent crimes, police say.

The minor, who was not identified, took his great-grandfather’s car, a white Ford Explorer, and outfitted it with red and blue emergency flashing lights behind the windshield. The car had had its license plate removed.

But his cover was soon blown on March 5 after he pulled into a driveway in Victorville and told the house’s occupants that he was there to investigate a domestic disturbance, according to the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department.

The owner of the home told him that there was no problem there, and closed the door. The teen then tried to enter, but the door had been locked. The homeowner, apparently suspicious, then followed the teen to the driveway before words were briefly exchanged and the teen left. The Victorville resident then called the police to report what had happened.

Photo: San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department

A teenager not yet old enough to drive legally posed as a police officer in early March.

A teenager not yet old enough to drive legally posed as a police officer in early March.

Photo: San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department

These crime stories from 2017 in the Bay Area were some real head-scratchers, or should we say bread-scratchers? Check out the craziest crimes by clicking through.

These crime stories from 2017 in the Bay Area were some real head-scratchers, or should we say bread-scratchers? Check out the craziest crimes by clicking through.

Photo: Photo Courtesy SCPD

“Man cited for eating pizza at SF bus stop”

Few stories raised public ire in 2017 as much as this one. In March, a homeless San Francisco senior citizen was cited for eating pizza in a bus stop, a public transit rule that is almost never enforced. The man took his $250 citation to homeless outreach workers, and the citation was eventually tossed by a judge.

“This is a real waste of police services,” said Kelley Cutler, an organizer with the Coalition on Homelessness.

A burglar with a sweet tooth and case of the sweats stole seven ice cream cakes from a Vallejo Baskin Robbins one hot September night. The burglar apparently waited until the staff left before breaking the glass door with a rock and nabbing the cakes out of the freezer. The cold treats procured, the burglar left the money untouched.

“Man driving van with ‘drugs’ written on the outside arrested for drug dealing”

Great marketing, poor logical thinking skills. Back in April, Santa Cruz police made the world’s easiest drug bust when they pulled over a van with the word DRUGS painted on the side. Inside the van, police said, were … drugs. Police also found tear gas, knives and almost $1,500 in cash. Oh, and the van was unregistered with non-working brake lights.

It wouldn’t be a weird Bay Area crime roundup without a little BART action. And nothing stranger happened on the transit system this year than this unbelievable encounter. A 32-year-old woman was riding BART in September when a handwritten note was handed to her. It read: “There are 2 guns pointed at you now. If you want to live hand back your wallet + phone NOW + do not turn around and be descreet.”

The quick-thinking woman faked a medical emergency, drawing the attention of her fellow passengers. The note-passing woman was found on BART’s surveillance cameras, but no announcement about her apprehension has yet been made.

A shocked employee of a winery in Modesto called police back in August, worried he’d just seen a dead body floating in Dry Creek. Responding firefighters breathed a sigh of relief when they saw the body was, in fact, a smiling Dracula doll. No one knows how the Prince of Darkness found himself in the creek.

One man decided a baguette was close enough to a sword for him, hitting a Safeway employee with the loaf of bread during an episode in September. Police said the man was causing a disturbance in the store when he was approached by an employee. The man responded by grabbing a baguette and smacking the employee with it. Although the employee thankfully didn’t suffer major injuries, he still wanted to press charges, police said. Assault is, after all, still assault. Even if you do it with bread.

The oddest item stolen in San Francisco this year, by far, was a ventriloquist dummy, taken off a man in Polk Gulch. The 20-year-old victim was assaulted by two men, who fled the scene with the doll. We don’t know why those assailants wanted a dummy so badly — and perhaps it’s not something we want to dwell on.

A poor gentleman hoping to sell a pair of shoes lost his pants in the process when he was robbed near the San Francisco Zoo in July. Police said the man arranged online to sell the shoes to two men but, once he met up with them, they demanded he take off his pants and shoes, and hand over his wallet and phone. “Everyone should be wary of transactions originating from these platforms,” a police spokesman said at the time.

Doing any stunt for attention on YouTube is a bad idea, but it’s a particularly awful one when your stunt involves climbing the Golden Gate Bridge. Two YouTubers, Peter Kurer, 18, and Thomas Rector, 21, of Wisconsin posted video of themselves illegally scaling a tower back in April. The video, which quickly racked up nearly 200,000 views, outed the pair to law enforcement, who saw the video and charged them with trespassing and climbing on a toll bridge. They took a plea deal, but they’re still facing a civil suit by the Golden Gate Bridge, Highway and Transportation District alleging trespassing and “self-enrichment by filming their antics and sharing it online.”

The disproportionate reaction of the year goes to 29-year-old Victor Flores, who Fremont police said stole a FedEx truck in a fit of anger. Flores’ day started early one November morning, when police arrived at the scene of a car accident. Police discovered Flores was driving on a suspended license and had his vehicle towed. Police say Flores, with a head full of steam, walked three miles to a shopping center where he found an idling FedEx truck, hopped in and took off.

Police found it a rather conspicuous getaway car and tracked him down in short order, ending Flores’ brief stint as the world’s least effective delivery driver.

As it turned out, that wasn’t the boy’s only encounter that night. Police discovered that not only had he fabricated another domestic disturbance claim as reasoning to visit another house, but he also “initiated a traffic stop” on a woman driving a red vehicle. In that instance he issued the woman “a warning and let her go.” That stop was caught on a homeowner’s driveway camera.

The following day, Sergeant J. Monroe saw and pulled over a car he believed was a match for the white Explorer. When it was confirmed, the 14-year-old boy was detained and his house was searched, revealing that the teen had been collecting police equipment, including simulation firearms, ballistic vests, counterfeit money, and uniforms.

The boy was arrested and booked at High Desert Juvenile Detention Center, but local police are seeking more information.