The-Hogs.net - Washington Football Discussion, Redskins to Commanders Era

HARRISBURG, Pa. - An escaped inmate made it easy for police to track him down: He used his prisoner ID card to check into a hotel after fleeing from a halfway house.

Shane E. Betts' decision to use the ID "isn't as stupid as it sounds," Comfort Inn manager Will Koonse said Monday. He said the hotel requires identification from any customer who pays in cash, and it isn't unusual for people who aren't fugitives to show prisoner IDs.

"Many times when they're released, that's all they have," Koonse said.

But Koonse said seeing the ID on Sunday helped the clerk remember a newspaper story about Betts' escape from the Harrisburg Community Corrections Center.

The clerk called police, who checked Betts' room and found only a woman inside. Police said the woman told officers that Betts had gone out for beer. Officers arrested Betts when he returned.

Betts, 29, was in the halfway house for a burglary conviction.

TULSA, Okla. - A would-be burglar in Tulsa, Okla., has forgetfulness to blame for his arrest.

Police say the suspect took clothing from a store Tuesday night and removed the sensor tags from them.

But as he was leaving the store, alarms that detect the sensors in the tags went off.

Police say he told store employees he forgot he put the 12 tags in his pants pocket.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - This burglar could have used some lessons from Santa Claus.

A man became wedged in the chimney of an Italian family restaurant in Queens, New York, for almost three hours during an early Friday break-in, police and the owners said.

Police were called to Luigi's Italian Cuisine at 2:15 a.m. to rescue the man. Officers and firefighters broke through part of the chimney using jackhammers and drills, eventually dislodging him three hours later.

Co-owner Josephine Napolitano said she and her husband had been up late Thursday night watching a videotaped show of funny things caught on camera -- including one about a burglar who had to be greased with butter to be freed from a chimney.

Okay, You Be the Look-Out...

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (Reuters) - Police in the central Argentine city of Cordoba foiled a predawn street hold-up on Thursday -- and were staggered to find one of the assailants was blind.

"When a police car arrived at the scene, the pair took off running. What caught the attention of the officer was that they were running holding hands," Police Commissioner Luis Ceballos told Reuters. "On apprehending them, the officer found one of them was blind."

Police recovered a fire-arm from the scene, and are still trying to work out what was going through the blind robber's mind. It was not immediately clear which of the pair was wielding the gun.

"We don't know what they were thinking," Ceballos said. "This is the first time I've seen anything like this in my life." <thank gawd!>