WELCOME TO TAMPA: An Orlando man was driving his 1987 Lincoln westbound on E. Columbus Drive in Tampa. This presented an interesting dilemma, since westbound is the wrong way on the one-way side of the street. The situation got worse when the man didn't see a car crossing in front of him, and slammed his Lincoln into the driver-side door of the crossing vehicle. Worse still for our friendly visitor from O-town: The car he hit turned out to be an unmarked police cruiser. Not surprisingly, an arrest ensued.

WATCH WHERE YOU'RE GOING! At least the cop in the last story had a car to protect him. An officer who responded to a report of aggressive battery at the Palladium nightclub in Tampa was working in the rear parking lot when he was "struck on the back of his left shoulder by the outside rearview mirror of a vehicle." How drunk do you have to be to sideswipe an officer standing in the parking lot? The defendant was taken into custody and charged with DUI. The officer had minor soreness and bruising, but did not require medical attention.

VOCABULARY QUIZ: How do you define the word "threatening?" Two Tampa residents got a pretty vivid example. While sitting on the porch of their apartment, the couple was approached by a man "in a threatening manner." What exactly does that entail? The suspect (a gang member) "had attacked victim #1 the previous day and was apparently still angry with him." That's sort of vaguely threatening. More specifically, the man "armed himself with a machete and threatened to kill the victims and blow up their apartment." Clearly very threatening. "They retreated inside their apartment and locked the door. The defendant struck the door several times with the machete," and then finished up threatening the victims by kicking out the windows on their car.

DUMBEST OF THE DUMB: Two men carrying handguns entered the Safari Inn on Busch Boulevard with towels covering their faces. The men approached the front desk and demanded money from the clerk. The desk clerk freaked out and fled through the back door. These two geniuses had not planned for that. Per the report: "At this point there was no one left to give up the money and the suspects fled the scene empty-handed."

From the files of the T.P.D.

This article appears in Oct 4-10, 2006.