223: Grand Theft Forklift

Late night bites with friends already hard to beat that first too hot bite of fries you Goldin wait for followed by ice cold Pepsi. Now that hits different Suddenly the energy kicks back in, the night goes longer and the laughs don't stop because Pepsi brings out more flavor, more fun and more of the moment. Food deserves Pepsi. Grab A Pepsi. Zero Sugar Today this episode is brought to you by ChatGPT. Hey, it's Bill Simmons from the Bill Simmons podcast. Have you guys heard about ChatGPT work? It's the new way to use ChatGPT for bigger multi step projects and when you need more than just answers. Give ChatGPT work access to your apps and files and it can create real work documents like spreadsheets, slides and structured reports. Get started@chatgpt.com by selecting work mode or available on plus and pro plans. It began long ago, two young boys in an American town riding their bikes to school and little league practice. Over the years, the boys became fast friends, united in their love for stories where things would go horribly wrong. Pour yourself a strong beverage and buckle up. You're in the shallow end with Schnebly and Toth. Episode 223 of the Shallowband with Schneebly and Toth. And I just wanted to share a little sweet story. Yesterday was JG's birthday. Yu-Gi-Oh finally, finally turned 35. I had another one. So you can be. You can run for president now. And I asked what you did to celebrate it and this is all via text and you said, quote, perfect. Yes, I had a lovely day. Cat came over from dog sitting and brought me roses and a card. Right? Sweet. Also, comma, I had pie. It was the best day ever. What flavor of pie? It was apple, Jethro. Of course it was apple. Of course it was. Come on, what other flavor was there? Yu-Gi-Oh did you have a hot dog beforehand? No. No, I didn't. Not this time. Can't have everything. It's weird getting older, you know, And I don't feel like I am as old as the calendar says I am. And it reminds me of when I went to visit my dad, who was in a nursing home with a lot of elderly patients and some of them weren't really in good shape. And then there were a couple that were just sharp as tacks, right? And one of whom, he goes, hey, have you talked to Merle yet? And I'm like, no, Merle's 102. And he's like sitting there at the end of the table waving at me. And I said, merle, Congratulations. How did you do that? And he goes, I don't know. I just keep waking up. What wisdom, that Yankee ingenuity, Right? Right. By the way, if I look to you like I'm sitting a little taller than you've. You're used to seeing me, it's because I sat down this morning to record with you and I thought, I don't remember lowering this chair, but I swear it's lower. And I hit the little pneumatic handle on the side and instantly gained 3 inches in height. Yu-Gi-Oh I feel like James Tiberius Kirk on the. In my chair on the bridge of the Enterprise. I'm glad. I'm glad it was your chair. And you know, I was concerned maybe you were wearing an adult diaper. No, no shame in that. No shame. We're not here to shame anybody. Not at all. Or wearing anything. But at our age, it's inevitable, right? Just the. Just the pneumatic lift on my snazzy office chair. Well, I got something for you. Are you ready? I hope you do. I'm more than ready. All right. Of course there are crimes. The most successful ones one-of-one They begin with years of planning and the target is studied. Security cameras are mapped out, guard schedules memorized, specialty tools acquired, escape routes rehearsed. Every person involved understands exactly what is supposed to happen and when it's choreographed. That's how the pros roll. And then there are these guys. Crimes that begin with somebody who just wants another drink. Okay. All right. On the night of February 9, 2026, 26 year old man identified in Turkish reports as Mahmet C left his home in Kayseri, which is a large city in central Turkey. Ever been to Turkey? No, but I've seen Equalizer 2. Well, that's the next best thing. Which, the opening scene takes place on a train to. Headed to Turkey. I think I've seen that film 173 times. Probably a lot safer. Yu-Gi-Oh Yu-Gi-Oh Yu-Gi-Oh No desire to go to Turkey. Not knocking Turkey, but Yu-Gi-Oh Too many stories about people getting drugs planted on them and you know, blah, blah, blah, blah. Hey, I saw Midnight Express. Come on. Yu-Gi-Oh I don't have to, I don't have to lecture you. No, no. So this guy Mamet, C, letter C. He reportedly told his family he was going to Merson, which is a city about 200 miles away on the Turkish Mediterranean coast. Okay. But according to a statement later given to police, he had been drinking and just wanted more alcohol. And this created a problem for that evening. Their liquor store that he visited was closed of Course, I would probably just instacart more liquor. I don't want to have to go get it, and I certainly don't want to drive. Not turkey, no. Good Lord, no. But most people would call that the end of the night. You go home, you drink a bunch of water, you make some toast and eat it over the sink, and then you try again tomorrow. There you go, Mom. Had apparently decided to keep things moving. As he traveled through the streets of casery, he noticed an unattended vehicle parked outside of a business. And he noticed that the wiring in the steering controls was exposed. He said he had no intention of stealing it at this point, but according to his later statement, this is how it escalated. He. He claimed that he started the vehicle by touching the exposed wires together because he wanted to drive around and find a liquor store someplace. Pursuit would. Would sell him alcohol. This is an important point because it means the entire robbery was followed. Which followed may have been an impulse decision made by search for an open liquor store. Mamet got the vehicle running, continued through the neighborhood. A few streets later, he saw something that changed the direction of the evening. A jewelry store. Oh, boy. Okay, so the shop was closed, the lights were off, its security shutters were pulled down. Everything of value, gold and jewels, locked safely inside. And Mammit later told investigators that seeing the shop reminded him of his financial difficulties. Hmm. So we've escalated from I just need another bottle of booze to look at all Those vehicle theft 2. Look at all that shiny jewelry probably tucked away in there. Right. And that reminded him of his financial problems. It apparently occurred to him that the answer to those problems was sitting right behind those metal security shutters. So he was wearing a knit cap, and he had a surgical mask on, which did offer him some concealment, degree of anonymity. He had a vehicle also capable of doing considerably more damage than just transporting him to another liquor store because he had drunkenly hotwired a forklift. Didn't see that one coming, did you? No, I did not. Nicely played, sir. So the vehicle approached the jewelry shop. Rather than quietly picking the lock or cutting through the window, he just drove it straight through the metal shutters and smashed into the storefront. Sure. Use what you got, right? That's right. How many people do you think could just not only hotwire a forklift, but know how to operate it? I know that's crazy, because apparently he knew some of the operating procedure because he used the forklift to pry the shutters off. Okay. They buckled. And part of the interior was. Was Damaged of the store, not the forklift. And at least one display counter was knocked over. So whatever advantage he gained by wearing a mask was somewhat undermined by the fact that he opened the building like a can of soup. Yu-Gi-Oh that had to make some noise. It made a lot of noise. And it also triggered the store's alarm system. Right, of course. So with police potentially on the way, the masked man climbed out of his vehicle and entered the darkened shop. He located the safes, but didn't have the presence of mind to think, well, maybe I can just use the forklift to steal them. He was in a hurry, so he just basically did a smash and grab. He grabbed whatever gold that he could see. He later described it as approximately a handful. He remembered some rings, necklaces, a couple of earrings. Although he said he. He did not know the exact quantity. He stuffed the jewelry in his pants. Of course, some of the gold, reportedly, even though it wasn't much like a handful, reportedly fell from his Beckett before he even left the area. He claimed he didn't realize this until police later pointed it out. Okay, tell me he didn't use the forklift as his getaway vehicle. No, no, he did not. He had the presence in mind to not use it. Okay, good, good. When officers arrived, they found the jewelry store with its security shutters destroyed. The window shattered, its interior destroyed. The person responsible, gone. But of course, he left behind this monstrous abandoned construction machinery. The most important thing that they found was the security camera footage. Apparently that that neighborhood, there were a lot of cameras, not just in the store, but everywhere. Okay. Investigators from the Casery Police Department's theft division began collecting recordings from the store and surrounding streets. The camera showed the masked figure arriving, forcing his way into the building, grabbing the gold and escaping. By following his movements across multiple recordings, police identified Mamet as the sub suspect, and they arrested him soon after. But there was still a matter of the missing jewelry. Mamet told investigators that after leaving the shop, he traveled to a stream nearby, and from there, he swam. He jumped on a donkey and rode away. Huh? Yu-Gi-Oh A forklift and a burrow. Yes. He hid the jewelry inside a plastic bag placed in a bag underneath mud brick in the barn's hay storage area. He rode his donkey back back to the barn. Police recovered the gold from the hiding place. Reports said about 150 grams had been stolen. Okay. And it was recovered and returned to the store owner. Mahmut reportedly admitted that he was the masked person seen on the surveillance videos. And after questioning, he was taken before a judge and Jailed while the case proceeded. It was an unusual and reckless robbery, but none of that fully explains why it attracted such international attention. According to investigators, this is. It was the transportation that he. Yu-Gi-Oh he chose. Yu-Gi-Oh he hot wired a forklift, he drove it through a neighborhood, used it in its lifting mechanism to rip open the jewelry store's metal shutters. He then smashed the glass, knocked over a counter, attempted to get the safes before settling for loose gold. But it did not explain how he escaped. So security cameras captured the alleged thief abandoning the forklift and making his getaway on and what appeared to be an elderly donkey. The donkey, according to Mahmud's statement, belonged to his family. After the robbery, he wrote it back to the barn and tied it up. Well, that was kind. He. He hid the gold beneath some mud brick. The getaway animal was not accused of any crime. You'll be glad to know it was not complicit. He was just doing what he was told by the human right. And the donkey may, in fact, have been the only participant that made no poor decisions. That that evening, Mahmet had allegedly stolen a forklift while looking for alcohol, used it to demolish a jewelry store entrance, failed to move the safe, Tribute some gold, left the forklift behind, escaped on a donkey, and hid the remaining evidence in a barn where the elderly donkey lived. Yu-Gi-Oh that's why I'm calling this story Mahmet and his tired old ass. Oh, look at you. The end. Look at you. I'm thinking it's probably safe to say in the history of mankind and the history of all crimes committed on this planet that this might be the only instance where somebody used both a forklift and a donkey as their transportation sources. Do you think that's safe to say? I think that's a good bet. Yu-Gi-Oh Yu-Gi-Oh I'm gonna put my money down on that one. And I would love to hear if somebody knows of other stories where somebody's used forklifts and donkeys to commit their crimes. Please email us lifeguard@shallowandpodcast.com and let us know what those stories are, because if they're anywhere near this good, I'm. I'm game for it. I got this information from the independent. The perfect lunch combo. That first bite of your favorite sub followed by ice cold Pepsi. Add a couple of friends, and now that's next level. Suddenly, the laughs get louder, the stories keep flowing, and the food tastes better because Pepsi brings out more flavor, more fun, and more of the moment. Food deserves Pepsi. Grab a Pepsi. Zero sugar. Today. This episode is brought to you by ChatGPT. Hey, it's Bill Simmons from the Bill Simmons podcast. Have you guys heard about ChatGPT work? It's the new way to use ChatGPT for bigger multi step projects and when you need more than just answers. Give ChatGPT work access to your apps and files and it can create real work documents like spreadsheets, slides, and structured reports. Get started@chatgpt.com by selecting work mode available on plus and Pro plans. As we just said, the email address is lifeguardalloendpodcast.com a listener named Alec A L, E C, which I think is a very, very cool name. Have you ever known anyone named Alec, Jethro? Um, no. I know several Alexes, but no Alec. I know one Alec, but it's a cool name. Is he smart? He's incredibly smart. Yu-Gi-Oh So he's a smart Alec. He's a smart Alec, but, um, Bum. Alec writes. Hi guys. We lost my Uncle Tim recently. And during the memorial, my dad pointed out that Tim had had a gift for telling stories of the most horrific events in a way that would have you laughing yourself silly. With that in mind, I thought it would pass along one of the stories I grew up listening to. You see, my Uncle Tim was a marine in Vietnam, and he came back with quite a few stories. This one involved a firefight where a member of his squad received a wound to a more tender area of the body. Oh, no. As I understand the story, there was a loud yelp and then silence fell as everyone in the area knew what had happened. He got hit right in the Da Nang. Good for you. Yes. After the fight, Tim went to the hospital to check on his injured comrade, his fellow soldier. But the nurses identified their patients by injury rather than by their name. Now, this presented a dilemma for Uncle Tim because he didn't know how to communicate this. He was asking an older woman who was a nurse for information. As delicately as possible, Uncle Tim tried to describe the injury as being shot in the lower region. Suddenly, recognition lit in the nurse's face and she loudly says, oh, you mean old one nut. I imagine they had their own shorthand, much like diner waitresses. You know, if you. You want eggs and toast on bread and you want it mixed up, that's Adam and Eve on a raft. Wreck em. Circus clown. No motor. Not sure what that means, but okay. Thank you, Alec, for that story. I am glad that your Uncle Tim left you with so many great memories and so many stories. And we trust that old one nut made it home with. Yu-Gi-Oh maybe one fewer nut, but hopefully it was his favorite one. Yu-Gi-Oh I think. I think we. We all have a favorite, don't we, Linds? I think we all have. Yes. Yu-Gi-Oh Yu-Gi-Oh I. Boy, there's so many things I could say right now, but. Well, none of. None of them would be worth. I read a study that most men do feel that way and they often favor the right testicle. And that's why you hear the phrase, I would give my left nut. Oh, okay, that's true. I just made that shit up. I like it though. I like it a lot. You say it with authority, people will believe it. Of course. Like anything, right? Yep. The perfect lunch combo. That first bite of your favorite sub followed by ice cold Pepsi. Add a couple of friends, and now that's next level. Suddenly the laughs get louder, the stories keep flowing and the food tastes better because Pepsi brings out more flavor, more fun, and more of the moment. Food deserves Pepsi. Grab a Pepsi. Zero sugar. Today this episode is brought to you by ChatGPT. Hey, it's Bill Simmons from the Bill Simmons podcast. Have you guys heard about ChatGPT work? It's the new way to use ChatGPT for bigger multi step projects and when you need more than just answers, give ChatGPT work access to your apps and files and it can create real work documents like spreadsheets, slides and structured reports. Get started@chatgpt.com by selecting work mode available on plus and Pro plans. You're in the shallow end with Schnebly and Toth. Jethro, My story involves one of those rare stories, and I think rare instances rather. And I think you and I have spoken in the past about different stories where somebody suffers either some sort of illness or an accident and they actually are on the brink. They technically die, but then they come back right from that. And in almost every case that I've ever heard of, and maybe it's because the way these, these stories are written, they always describe something that makes you think, boy, this person really did almost pass to the other side. Yu-Gi-Oh The near death experiences that have been studied going back to Elizabeth Kubler Ross are remarkably consistent. Yu-Gi-Oh well, this is about a. This actually took place in Auckland, New Zealand. This was just last month. This is an unnamed 54 year old woman and I wish we had her name because it's an amazing story. But I'm just going to call her parking lot woman because she was in. She was in a grocery store parking lot and she had a heart attack, cardiac arrest, and she collapsed and when paramedics got there, at first they thought, she's gone. She did not. She didn't even have a pulse. And they thought, okay, this, we're, we're here. Too late. She collapsed. It was actually called the New World Supermarket in New Zealand. Now here's what's interesting about this. She was revived by a passing stranger who must have had some sort of medical training. He was able to bring her back to life through chest compressions. Yu-Gi-Oh And what's interesting is after he did this, he just sort of disappeared, like disappeared back into the crowd. And it made me wonder, was this like an angel? Right, right. You know? Well, she fortunately is resuscitated by this stranger. The paramedics rush her by ambulance to North Shore Hospital for finally advanced life saving treatment. Now, like you just said, those who die and come back to life frequently return with these incredible tales of the what appears to be supernatural. Often sporting that distant, glassy eyed look, they explain how, as the story said, everything's just been put into perspective. And they dismiss ordinary problems like losing your car keys and things like that as meaningless. Because there's actually a guy that Nancy and I have gotten to know here in the canyon who listens to this, to this podcast, who had a medical procedure that changed his life. And he's, he counts his birthday and the anniversary of this heart surgery as he said. I got a second birthday. Oh my God, that's great. Amazing, great, great guy. Yu-Gi-Oh Well, as much as I would like to say, this woman came back with, you know, a life altering perspective on things that didn't happen. Jethro. She was greeted with a fine. On the other side, St. Peter was writing tickets. Whatever life altering new outlook the Auckland parking lot woman had gained upon her return to this life was immediately shattered when she discovered she'd been issued a parking violation while she was technically dead. What? Her vehicle, it appears, had exceeded its 90 minute time limit in this supermarket parking lot. So while she was being attended to by paramedics, traffic warden, as they call them in New Zealand, had left an $80 fine ticket under her windshield wiper. Now, her understandably outraged family wasted no time in contacting the traffic wardens company. This is a company in Auckland called Smart Compliance Management, which is an interesting name. And they explained over the phone these extraordinary circumstances of how this woman had technically died. She had no pulse. She had been brought back to life by a stranger. And then paramedics rushed her to the hospital for advanced life treatment. Well, in response, they received a characteristically bureaucratic reply. From the organization. They sent an email to the family that I will read you now verbatim. Quote, Smart Compliance Management has been contracted to provide fair and equal opportunity for parking at this car park. This is why a maximum stay limit applies. Customers are entitled to 90 minutes of parking. Your vehicle was parked for 341 minutes. Good Lord. Quote, it goes on. Having considered your appeal in detail, we have decided to uphold the breach notice as we believe that it was correctly issued in accordance with the terms and conditions advertised within the area concerned. Stupid Yu-Gi-Oh In what appeared to be a magnanimous gesture on their part, Smart Compliance Management did agree to reduce the penalty by $50. Isn't that big hearted? They add, due to the circumstances resulting in this breach notice, we are able to reduce this to only a $30 administration fee. So did they really read it or was this an Yu-Gi-Oh response? I don't know. And I bet they get so many of these, you know, hey, please could you cut me a break? Or hey, that wasn't my car, that they're just done with it and they issue these very, you know, unfeeling emails. Now the woman's father described the demand for payment as offensive, particularly given the family's long standing loyalty to the supermarket. Apparently, apparently they'd been shopping there for years. Despite the father's frustration though, his daughter just settled the fee to avoid further stress. Now this is cool. In a show of solidarity, the staff at the New World Supermarket heard about this story. They knew the woman who had suffered this heart attack and they collected $30among employees to give to the woman. You know, like, hey, look, we got it taken care of, don't worry about it. And the father acknowledged that as extremely generous. Now, following the public backlash regarding this incident, the parking company, Smart Compliance Management ended up issuing a full apology to the woman for failing to appropriately take her medical emergency into account. And the company pledged to update their training processes following this incident. So you know that once this hit social media and newspapers pick it up, that somebody high up at Smart Compliance Management realized, Yu-Gi-Oh this was probably a really boneheaded move. And this is PR we don't need, right? And that's why they say, so we're going to update our training processes following the incident so that in the future when other people are technically dead in a parking lot and their car exceeds the 90 minute limit by being parked in the same spot for 341 minutes, imagine that they will take that into account. I got this story from aol.com so word to the Wise for any of our listeners who do visit this shopping grocery store in Auckland. No, no more heart attacks. And make sure you're out of there before the 90 minute time limit comes up. Yu-Gi-Oh When companies do not look at each individual circumstance and they just issue these broad statements, it really creates some terrible public relations in many cases. I mean, okay, so they got 30 bucks out of it. Is. Is it worth it? Yu-Gi-Oh Yu-Gi-Oh It's just amazing to me. And, you know, and that's why you have people who specialize in crisis negotiations, you know, who. Yu-Gi-Oh Who consult with companies who are suffering an image issue by. By boneheaded decisions like that. I've got a friend back east, a guy named Jeff D. Domenico, who actually collects stories of the exact opposite. And he collects stories about companies that do the right thing. Do you remember that story? A few. I think it was a few years ago. The guitar guy? Not guitar guy. This was a woman. She had a thermos. And I can't remember if it was the thermos brand or what, but she had this thermos of coffee in her car and she goes inside someplace, the car catches fire. It was a junk. It was a piece of Beckett of bolts and the car completely burned. But the thermos was unscathed as testament to the way this thermos was made. And the company heard about their product surviving this fire and bought the woman a new car. Oh, Yu-Gi-Oh See, there you go. Stories like that where you think, okay, it's. It cost us 25, $30,000 to buy this woman a new car. But the publicity worldwide that they got was just worth more than any multimillion dollar ad campaign. Oh, Yu-Gi-Oh and they got it for, you know, 25, 30 grand, which is a steal when you're talking about global global marketing publicity. Yu-Gi-Oh Yu-Gi-Oh really smart. I love that. Me too. Shallow End podcast. You can email us at lifeguard shallowendpodcast.com we love hearing from you as always, and we look forward to hanging out with you every Wednesday, every week. And just if you would continue to make good choices because your life might depend on it. So concludes another episode of the Shallow End with Schnebly and Toph. We thank you for listening. Oh, be a dear. Would you please subscribe to this podcast, give these boys a five star rating and think of something nice to say, even if you have to make something up. And visit us online@shallow endpodcast.com okay, gotta go. This episode is brought to you by ChatGPT. Hey, it's Bill Simmons from the Bill Simmons Podcast. Have you guys heard about ChatGPT work? It's the new way to use ChatGPT for bigger multi step projects and when you need more than just answers. Give ChatGPT work access to your apps and files and it can create real work documents like spreadsheets, slides, and structured reports. Get started@chatgpt.com by selecting work mode available on plus and Pro plans. I'm not giving up. I am selling the building. Only Love the final season of FX is the Bear. The restaurant is flooded. Everything's either gonna be okay. Nope, Stop. Or not. We are outgunned and we are outmanned, but we have each other. FX's the Bear the Final Season all episodes now streaming on DIS.