BEST-LAID PLANS

Two men ran out the door of a closed-for-the-night Houston Family Dollar store on Oct. 7 — empty-handed, after a failed theft attempt. According to the surveillance video, one man had removed items from a bottom shelf while the store was still open, and crawled behind the shelf space just before his partner came by and restocked the shelf (thus hiding his buddy). The partner then made a purchase and left. After the last employee had closed up around 11 p.m., the “hidden” (and extremely patient!) man crawled out, surely intending to let his partner in and start snatching things, but the “hidden” man was only able to take a few steps before a motion-detector sounded an alarm, and both men fled on foot (not even bothering to grab an item or two on the way out).