XJ Selman
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In the broadest sense, criminals are bad people, as they go out of their way to make other people's lives worse. But every once in a while, the criminals of the world receive karmic retribution for their misdeeds -- and sometimes that karma is frighteningly instantaneous. Here are four times in recent history when the cosmic scales came crashing down mercilessly.
A mugger at a bus stop in Bogota, Colombia, casually strolled up to a woman waiting by the exit doors and snatched her phone from her hands, presumably because he wanted a new Droid (but still had a year left until his next upgrade). After struggling with a woman half his size for entirely too long, he finally managed to wrestle the phone away from her and darted out of the station, where he was immediately smote by public transportation.
As the mugger lay trapped beneath the bus, the woman he just robbed ran to his side, probably to see if her phone survived the collision. Many other people on the platform rushed in to aid the poor bastard as well (we hasten to point out that, seconds before, they were all only too happy to stand there and watch a woman get mugged). Miraculously, the guy wasn't seriously injured, and was in perfect condition to be arrested after a quick visit to the hospital.
A man in Louisville, Kentucky, got supremely angry at the owner of a PT Cruiser parked along a neighborhood street and decided to vent his frustrations by smashing out the vehicle's window and lobbing a lit Molotov cocktail into the driver's cabin. (It is unclear whether his rage was fueled by the car's owner or by a general dissatisfaction with the Chrysler corporation.) Whatever the motivation may have been, he was so blinded by his fury that he managed to set himself on fire in the process, and the flames quickly engulfed his Chevrolet Tahoe.
WDRB
It was the fire of bitter irony.
After turning himself into a Michael Jackson Pepsi commercial, the man panicked and sent his flaming vehicle careening wildly into several other cars along the street before finally jumping the curb and slamming into the side of a house (please remember, the car was on fire the entire time). The arsonist was brought to the hospital after his embarrassing accidental rampage, but was somehow able to escape, because apparently the police didn't think it was important enough to keep an eye on a guy who almost burned down an entire neighborhood.
A Florida police officer pulled Bryan Zuniga over for a routine traffic stop when Zuniga suddenly decided to leap out of the passenger side of his car and sprint off into the night rather than face the DUI arrest he was almost certainly about to be hit with. The cop gave chase, but Zuniga booted his way through a vinyl fence and disappeared, presumably to tumble down a hill into a testing area and get turned into the Sandman. At any rate, the police issued an alert to be on the lookout for Bryan Zuniga and waited for him to turn up.
Darrin Klimek/Digital Vision/Getty Images
"He looks like a guy who can outrun a Florida cop. In other words, any guy who isn't a Florida cop."
Several hours later, they received a call from the police in a neighboring city about a man who was just admitted to the emergency room for an "animal attack." As you may have guessed, the man was totally Bryan Zuniga.
Tampa Bay Online
Luckily, his hair was perfect that day.
In his frantic escape from the police, Zuniga stumbled behind a water treatment plant and ran directly into an alligator. The animal responded by trying to eat his face, at which point Zuniga decided that he'd rather go to jail.
A trio of burglars stormed into a man's house in Houston, Texas, and forced him into an upstairs closet while they ransacked his home, because they either were under the impression that closet locks are impenetrable or held an unwavering belief in the honor system.
Digital Vision/Photodisc/Getty Images
"Welp, guess there's nothing to do in here but look incredibly fly."
Unfortunately, what the burglars didn't realize is that they'd stuffed the man into his own gun closet. This being Houston, it is unclear whether the guns in question actually belonged to the homeowner or simply came with the house when he bought it.
ABC
Both, probably.
Unsurprisingly, the man armed himself, waited for a few minutes, and carefully went downstairs to see if the coast was clear. One of the bandits was still there, however, and the two traded bullets until the burglar eventually took one in the neck like Morg from Flight of the Intruder. The other two burglars bailed, leaving their partner bleeding on the sidewalk to be scraped up and carried to the hospital by incredulous emergency crews.
Tired of cliche wizards and space opera? Check out XJ's $0.99 science-fiction/fantasy novella on Amazon here, with the sequel OUT NOW. Want a free copy? Read about how you can get it on XJ's writing blog. Poke him on Twitter, too.
