Thursday 26 May 2011

"Go on, take the money and run..."

Police evacuated Darwen’s main post office after a radio stunt was mistaken for a robbery.
Sounds familiar!
Hundreds of people were in the town centre looking for the ‘Real Radio Renegade’ - a mystery man with a £4,000 ‘bounty’ on his head - who was posting clues to his whereabouts on the station’s website.

One clue handed out during an hour’s search yesterday was a photograph of the Post Office counter in The Circus.

As crowds dashed into the building looking for the renegade, two police vans with lights and sirens arrived outside and officers cleared the building, fearing a robbery was underway.
I’m clearly unfamiliar with modern bank robbery techniques, but is it really done in huge mixed groups?
A police spokesman said: “Two response officers attended as they were aware there was a lot more people in the town centre than normal, and the post office was cleared as a precaution, though there was no incident.”

Officers have not spoken to Real Radio about the stunt.
Well, no. I'd expect thet're too embarrassed, what with the recent instances of overreaction and red faces...

7 comments:

Bucko said...

Oh FFS!
That's just five minutes down the road from me. I wish I had been there to point and laugh.

Chuckles said...

Darwen? Sounds like Nominative Determinism at work.

Angry Exile said...

Ah, it's probably an escalation of all these flashmob burglaries that have been going on.

/facepalm

Zoom lens said...

I once heard that a real bank robbery took place while the criminals pretended to make a movie, so no one reacted 'cos of the camera crew.

May be apocryphal but it ought to be true...

MTG said...

I wasted twenty minutes explaining this news to our Village plod.

He might have stayed longer but for fear of birds eating his crumb trail.

Mjolinir said...

They should have called for assistance from the Hampshire "Stuffed Tiger Protection Unit"

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-13507026

JuliaM said...

"Ah, it's probably an escalation of all these flashmob burglaries that have been going on."

Indeed!

"May be apocryphal but it ought to be true..."

I couldn't find anything at Snopes, but yes, it really should be... ;)

"They should have called for assistance from the Hampshire "Stuffed Tiger Protection Unit""

They'll never live that one down. Well, not if I have anything to do with it...