Rob all night? Time to pay

The Portland Daily Sun (portlanddailysun.me) ran a story by Matt Dodge a week ago that had the entire early morning coffee gaggle agog. The funny part? The story starts out normally enough, detailing the multiple charges of robbery, etc., levied against Paul Schlosser, 25, of Standish. It's not until you read the last line on page 1 that you have a clue there might be more interesting details on page 3... "'He's well known to Portland police,' said Portland Police Chief James Craig, who also said that Schlosser's crime spree was likely fueled by drug use, based on behavior witnessed by the arresting officers." What behavior, pray tell?

Schlosser started out by robbing the Cumberland Farms store on Pine Street. Officers were able to identify him from the surveillance camera tapes from the store. Then over the next couple of hours, there was a bunch of muddling around involving previously stolen cars and attempts to steal other cars, possibly an ambulance, etc, at Maine Medical Center.

By 3:00am, Schlosser had found his way to the Circle K on Commercial Street, where he committed another robbery at knifepoint. A few hours later, at 6:00am, the McDonald's on St John Street put the police back on Schlosser's trail after he robbed them as well. This is where it gets interesting.

Police learned that the suspect, again identified as Schlosser, entered the restaurant with a knife and demanded money from the register. The employee refused, and Schlosser came behind the counter to pry open the drawer.

Police say that as Schlosser tried to force open the register, a McDonald's employee threw hot coffee on the suspect.

Craig said that while he commends the McDonald's employee for their part in deterring the suspect, “I don’t recommend anyone attack an armed suspect.”

Schlosser reportedly recovered from the hot coffee, and left the restaurant with the cash register. As Schlosser attempted to extract cash from the register, officers say, police saw him fleeing the location.

Schlosser then attempted to enter the passenger side of a stopped, occupied vehicle and was taken into custody by Portland police.

[Source]
Read full article here: http://www.portlanddailysun.me/cgi/story2.pl?storyid=20100826047021000198

I can only imagine what a news crew on the scene would have made of the last moments of the chase (oh, if only we had news crews that actually investigated real news!). Here's this guy who's been up all night, covered in hot coffee and hauling a heavy cash register, running down the street and then trying to get into someone's car as the police are closing in on him.

Again, here's to Portland's not-so-bright criminal population. Thank heavens you make it so easy to thwart you!

Another interesting tidbit from the article is mention of how Portland deals with crack cocaine: "I recently learned that possession of [personal amounts of] crack is a misdemeanor," Police Chief Craig is quoted as saying. "That is not acceptable. That’s a felony anywhere else in the country."

Another local news website, myfoxmaine.com, reported Craig as mentioning that Schlosser had been arrested 30 times over the past five years for an assortment of crimes.