While clearance rates for armed robberies are generally well below 50%, meaning criminals have a better than average chance of getting away with that crime, one suspected armed robber in Indiana made it awfully easy for police to find and arrest him after he shared his social media profile with the woman he’d just robbed at gunpoint.
I’ve run across plenty of stories about stupid criminals over the years, but this might be the dumbest crook I’ve run across.
According to authorities in Indianapolis, a woman was outside her home checking her mail at 4 a.m. one day last month when a man approached her with a gun in his hand. Pointing it at her heard, the man demanded cash from the victim and then made a bizarre request to the woman: add him to her Facebook friends.
Court records show the suspect, later identified as Damien Boyce, opened his phone, pointed at his profile and watched the woman add him, saying he would pay back. He then fled the scene on a bicycle.
The probable cause affidavit shows the two exchanged messages later that day.
Boyce said, “Look just know imma pay you back, it’s an (expletive) way to meet but (expletive) you was to pretty to rob.”
The victim replied, “I believe you man. I can tell you’re sweet. Times just get rough I know that.”
“You was to [sic] pretty to rob”; words that will set any woman’s heart aflutter, I’m sure.
Somehow, however, the victim of the armed robber was able to resist Boyce’s charms and alerted police to his messages. The Indianapolis police took Boyce into custody this week, and not for the first time. In fact, it’s only been a couple of days since Boyce was last placed in handcuffs.
Boyce was arrested and charged in a separate incident last week for robbery resulting in bodily injury and battery by means of a deadly weapon amongst other charges.
In that incident, he allegedly shot two people and hit someone else in the head with a brick.
Sounds to me like the victim of the armed robbery was lucky to get away unscathed, but now the question is why was Boyce let go so quickly after allegedly shooting two people during another robbery? Those are pretty serious charges, but Boyce was allowed to bond out despite the circumstances of this arrest.
Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department officers were dispatched to South State Avenue and Palmer Street around 8:20 p.m. on reports of a person shot.
Upon arrival, officers found two individuals suffering from gunshot wounds. Their conditions are currently unknown. IMPD said a third victim was located with “injuries consistent with trauma.” The type of injury was not specified.
The IMPD Special Weapons and Tactics team is on the scene to deal with a barricaded individual.
IMPD confirmed that two people are currently in custody and that their role in this incident is under investigation.
Boyce was arrested on preliminary charges of burglary, unlawful possession, criminal recklessness and battery, though it sounds like prosecutors upgraded the initial charges that led to his arrest. The unlawful possession of a firearm also suggests that Boyce is prohibited from lawfully possessing firearms, which makes the decision to release him on bond so quickly even more inexplicable.
Indianapolis Mayor Joe Hogsett has recently made headlines by proposing the city adopt a number of gun control measures in violation of the state’s firearm preemption law, including requiring concealed carry licenses, raising the age to purchase a firearm from 18 to 21, and imposing a ban on so-called assault weapons; all ordinances aimed at individuals who want to comply with the law while exercising their right to keep and bear arms. Does Hogsett or the city council members who voted in favor of these ordinances honestly believe that guys like Boyce really going to pay attention to a local misdemeanor ordinance when the felony statutes in place at the state level aren’t dissuading him from (allegedly) using a firearm in an armed robbery just days after he was arrested for a similar offense? I doubt it, but if they do then they’re just as moronic as, say, an armed robber who’d share his social media with his victim.
Once again we see that it’s a repeat offender to blame here, not a responsible gun owner. Despite Hogsett’s proclamations to the contrary, Indianapolis doesn’t need more local gun control laws on the books in order to reduce crime. Taking serious (and serial) offenders seriously would be a good first step, but anti-gun Democrats like Hogsett would much rather criminalize a constitutionally-protected right and crack down on lawful gun owners instead, leaving guys like Boyce to repeatedly be arrested and released for violent crimes with little to no consequences.
