Even in Ann Arbor, not everyone has air-conditioning–a truth apparently lost on some young local hoodlums. On a hot night in early August, a couple living on Ann Arbor’s south side were cooling off in their darkened living room when they heard boisterous voices and the rattle of a chain on the sidewalk just outside their open windows.

Creeping to a window, the couple saw five young men in T-shirts and basketball sneakers crowded beneath the streetlight, laughing and swearing. As one teen rifled through several apparently stolen purses, the couple heard another boast: “That Ann Arbor Observer’s gonna be reporting about a crime spree in this neighborhood!”

A well-timed bellow from the homeowner sent the ne’er-do-wells scurrying away. Police arrived minutes later, pincering in from either side of the neighborhood, but the boys vanished, fleeing on foot toward County Farm Park.

They abandoned the purses as they ran, and the police determined they had indeed been stolen. The teenage thieves had evidently been walking for a while in search of their moment of fame: according to the officers, the ID in one purse came from an address on the Old West Side, three miles away.