Most Outrageous Crime Reports of 2011

Can you believe it? The site you’ve come to know and love, Norcross Patch, is over one year old. And what a year it has been. 

Inspired by the Darwin Awards, which call out those individuals who “self-select” themselves to lose in the survival of fittest, Norcross Patch brings you these outrageous crime reports. 

Please note, these stories only indicate the report of a crime. They do not indicate a conviction and many of the cases are still being decided in the courts. 

10. Now, we know that this driver wasn’t the only one to try this all year. It is a classic Norcross tale: Tractor trailer driver follow GPS to downtown Norcross. Tractor trailer driver either does or does not see signs that say “No Trucks.” Tractor trailer driver decides to go for it anyway. You know the rest.   

9. You may think to take away a friend’s car keys if they’ve tipped back a few, but what about their bike lock key? A man was observed swerving across lanes of traffic and “driving erratically” on his bike, and then was arrested for DUI. 

8. The moral of this story? If you didn’t order pizza, don’t open the door.

7.
The downtown Norcross watering hole The Iron Horse Tavern was broken into in August, with the burglars apparently carrying the entire safe out of the bar. Instead of walking the safe out on a visible sidewalk, they cut a square in the fence around the deck, likely as a way to shimmy the safe through and into a getaway car.

6.
Norcross Police were part of a larger investigation of at least 27 Waffle House robberies. (One of the first stores to be hit was on Brook Hollow Pkwy in the City of Norcross.) The guys followed a similar pattern in all of the stick-ups, ordering food to go in the early morning hours, then pulling a gun out to rob the joint. They were eventually caught up with in Alabama. 

5. A Norcross man thought he would do some scheming from jail, unwittingly offering an undercover officer $4,500 to put a hit out for a woman who crossed him in the past. Instead, he may have added more time his jail sentence. 

4. When a 5-year-old girl got on the bus to go to La Petite Academy in unincorporated Norcross—her bus driver smelled something funny.  The little girl produced 19 grams of marijuana in small baggies that she said her mother allegedly put in her bookbag.

3.  
There actually is one genius move in this story—and it definitely wasn’t the guy who left his car running with the keys in it while he broke into a home. The owner came home and swiped the keys, killing his getaway. Oh wait, it gets better. Police believe he broke into another home, logging onto Facebook and leaving his account open so they could track him down. 

2.
A young man allegedly trying to rob a house, got wedged in the chimney and stuck. For 10 hours. He was rescued after a neighbor hear the cries for help coming from the roof.

1.
A group of guys who thought they’d steal stuff from cars took a wrong turn indeed when they ended up in Sunset Hills in downtown Norcross. With collective quick thinking they were all caught red-handed by the Norcross PD.