Burglars strike again ... ineptly

January 27, 2012

Local schools seem good at sending motivated and studious kids to college and careers, but they're obviously falling short in teaching those students who choose to stray off the beaten path the education they need to successfully pursue a life of crime ... There are kids who are obviously not learning the skills needed for that high-risk career choice, and it appears likely that if they were offered a course, they wouldn't pay attention. Police worry that they're learning the system, though, and how to successfully beg the judge for leniency. But they keep coming back, much to the chagrin of victims ... and obviously they aren't well adapted to learning from their mistakes. Two separate burglaries were reported in Bonners Ferry today; in one of them, a culprit yet to be captured made off with an empty cash till ... in the other, two alleged culprits dropped the loot when the lady they stole it from told them they'd better, and who ran, each blaming the other after the were nabbed by police. Both are now sitting in the Boundary County jail. Burglary 1 ... as yet unsolved. Sometime after 10:15 p.m. last night, when the last employee closed shop and went home, someone drove up to the drive thru window at Zips, smashed it out, and crawled inside, according to local police. Once inside, the culprit ripped open the cash register in the drive thru booth, withdrew an empty cash drawer and apparently panicked, according to police, as nothing else in the business appeared to have been disturbed. While the cash register was worse for the wear, the only thing missing, store staff said, was the cash drawer, which had been emptied as a matter of routine before Zips closed down for the night. "We're seeking information from anyone who may have seen anything," said assistant Bonners Ferry Police Chief Joel Minor, who noted that there may have been many witnesses, as kids seem to be hanging outside AJs Lanes, right next door. Whoever it may have been, Minor said, they apparently got scared and beat a hasty exit back out the broken window; it doesn't appear, he said, that the culprit ever left the drive-thru booth. While that burglar may have been inept, another burglary was taking place downtown, and the two alleged to be involved proved even more inept ... Burglary II According to Minor, a short time after Papa Byrd's Bistro closed last night, a man snuck in and snatched a purse. That purse, Minor said, belonged to an employee still in the store, and as the culprit was fleeing, she ran out the door behind him, and yelled, "Danny Gondek, you'd better drop that purse!" He did. He was captured by police a short time later, along with alleged accomplice Daniel Nicholas, 19, nabbed while making a call from the pay phone at Panhandle Restaurant. It's no surprise that each is blaming the other. Gondek, 20, whose name has appeared several times in the last year in the court disposition records on this site and who was on probation, and his friend, Nicholas, who insisted to police that he was only there as a lookout, are both guests in the county jail facing felony charges of burglary; Gondek in lieu of $50,000 bond, Nicholas in lieu of $10,000. Local cops say they're tired of arresting the same dumb kids for the same dumb crimes. For Gondek and Nicholas, it might be different this time ... they're both now adults.