PAPER-TIGER 'BANDIT' KEEPS 30 COPS AT BAY FOR AN HOUR - New York Post
A group of cops in New Jersey looked like turkeys Thanksgiving night after an hourlong standoff at a bank with an armed "bandit" that turned out to be a life-size cardboard cutout of a man.
Some 30 officers surrounded a PNC Bank branch in Montgomery Township after alarms at the branch went off at 8:40 p.m.
Officers looked through a window and reported seeing a person crouching inside.
The cops proceeded to evacuate a nearby housing complex, stop traffic on an adjourning highway and try to negotiate with the cardboard crook through a bullhorn.
At about 10 p.m. a SWAT team stormed inside - only to emerge red-faced after they realized the "crook" they were trying to nab was made of cardboard.
"I think obviously there was some relief [that it was only a cutout] and then some humor was involved," said Sgt. Robert Mitchell.
"We didn't know we were going up against a cardboard cutout until we made entry."
Mitchell said the cutout was first spotted when an officer responding to the alarm looked through a window and saw it on the screen of the bank's surveillance monitor.
The cutout - for an advertising promotion - was gone yesterday afternoon. The bank refused to comment on the incident.
My friends neighbor once called the cops for a bear in another neighbors back yard after a short standoff one of the Troopers decided to move in he snuck up slowly at one point he stopped being stealthy walked up the bear and kicked it in the rear...It was a cardboard cutout too or a large stuffed bear I can't remember which one
