Thursday, January 22: Femme Fatale
DUMB AND DUMBER
by Deborah Elliott-Upton
You know something out of the ordinary is going on when several squad cars and a couple of state trooper vehicles block the entrances of a Walmart super center with their lights flashing. It isn’t just a shoplifter being apprehended and for some of us, whether we’re writers or bystanders, it isn’t something from which you walk away without being curious.
Yesterday, a woman took her grandson into the Texas Department of Public Safety to find out why his state-issue ID card had not been mailed. Obviously unknown to her, the 19 year-old was wanted on a felony warrant. He bolted when the deputy began to read him his rights and ran across the Interstate almost being hit several times. The officers thought he may have entered Walmart, so they were checking inside. In reality, surveillance tapes show he ran beside the building, but did not go inside. The man had not been handcuffed while his rights were being read.
I’m not sure who was dumb and who was dumber here, an officer thinking handcuffs weren’t worth the trouble or the felon going inside a building filled with state police officers.
The toilets at a local police station have been stolen. Police say they have nothing to go on. – Ronnie Barker
The TV programs about dumb criminals always seems too stupid to be true, but from the stories my police officer friends share, they are too common not to be expected.
It doesn’t work that way in fiction. The criminals are usually close to brilliant as are those who are investigating the cases. Would we read an entire story about murders, robberies or scams if the criminals were as dumb as most of those we see on reality-based television programs? I doubt it.
The reading public wants to figure out the puzzle, to find whodunnit and just as important, the why they did it in the first place.
In fact, many crimes are committed on the spur of the moment without any thought of premeditation or planning. Even if they are planned, often things go wrong. I wonder how many professional criminals have done their chosen profession without getting caught? If they’ve spent time in the prison system, does this mean they weren’t very good? How does one get to be a professional criminal except for being caught repeatedly?
I remember stories by Charles Dickens of homeless, young runaways being taught the trade of pickpocketing by those befriended by them on the streets. Does this happen in real life? Probably. Is there such a “schooling” process for those who specialize in robbery? I suppose Mafia hitmen are trained by someone, or is it on-the-job training? Who chooses when they are good enough to go out on their own to kill for hire?
I’ve heard of people contracting a stranger to kill their spouse or boss or even their family members while they set up their own alibi. Where do you find such a person? Do you ask for references?
Okay, I realize this sounds a bit naive, but if I’m asking, wouldn’t a reader? I can’t tell you how often I’ve judged a short story contest and have a writer subject the reader to such moments of pure disbelief and then wonder why his story didn’t sell, much less win a contest.
There has to be a believability to the plot, to the characters and to why we’d think the plot plausible. To suspend the disbelief is not trickery by the writer, but truly a skill.
When writers think the reader is dumb, it’s really the writer who is dumber.
I loathe stories about super brilliant criminals. Just keep in mind that the profession of criminal has no entrance exam.
Could be everyone just has ‘mad cow’
Deborah:
I harbor an unprovable/undisprovable suspicion that criminals are, as a class, rather stupid. Lacking the willingness personally to inflict physical pain on someone, many of them undoubtedly go into politics.
Unlike Rob, however, I don’t loathe stories with criminal masterminds. Supercriminals are but one component of that vast and sprawling genre known as crime fiction; they deserve their own niche, I believe.
But not all fictional superbaddies are equal: I NEVER found Professor Moriarty to be a credible character, and I have just recently learned that his appearance was prompted by Conan Doyle’s eagerness to do in Sherlock Holmes with an opponent of equal but opposite abilities.
Doyle’s reasoning is all too human: Some people flatly refused at the time to believe that a pipsqueak like Lee Harvey Oswald could possibly have killed such an eminence as JFK.
An interesting column, Deborah, and you are so right about the stupidity of amateur crimininals. An occasional career criminal is the same, but the majority are intelligent men (few women seem to devote a lifetime to crime). I have written a few fictional accounts of the career criminals I encountered as a Pinkerton detective. Later, as a newspaper reporter covering the criminal court beat, I became acquainted with a number of career types. Underestimating the intelligence of a freelance professional would be a mistake. While they are in it for money, of equal importance is the excitement, the thrill of it all. If they hadn’t chosen crime they would be driving race cars or working at some other dangerous occupation. The same is true of the specialists who work with an organized gang in large cities. Neither type makes for good drama so we rarely see them on TV shows or in movies and never on “most wanted” shows. The freelancers often spend years behind bars, and accept that as part of the business, but many of the specialists are never arrested even though big city detectives frequently can name every man who played a role in one stage or another of a major crime. Wish I could cite a few examples but I’ve already used more than my share of space.
20-some years ago I worked in a shopping mall with a bunch of guys (mostly 20-somethings) who were on work-release from prison, and they all admitted (even the ones who swore “I didn’t do it!”) that their getting involved in the crime in the first place was “stupid.” I got to know a couple of them pretty well who actually did turn their lives around and make lives for themselves on the outside. (And the bulk of those guys, when they used the word “stupid” to describe their crimes would laugh. A laugh at themselves. But some of them went right back and screwed-up again!!)
I always thought there were two types of criminals, skilled and unskilled. Most unskilled criminals are there either out of desperation for some need or just to lazy to get a real job. The skilled criminals are looking to improve their methods and knowledge, usually through an apprenticeship or something similar. Maybe the skilled have a better work ethic, strive for promotion and advancement while the unskilled criminals are content where they are.
This is not to say that unskilled criminals cant pull off masterful crimes, but those seem to be more of an exception that the rule. We have all seen skilled criminals get caught, but then they go to criminal trade school and come out smarter and wiser and with more contacts.
Are morals and fear the only thing that separates criminals from non-criminals? The distaste to do something wrong or the fear of getting caught and punished.
Another great post Deborah
but then they go to criminal trade school and come out smarter and wiser and with more contacts.
Sad, but true.