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Jonathan Cook, second from left, is accused of selling counterfeit Rolex watches.

Their bio on Jam Base chalks it up to a "magical combination of talent, perseverance and opportunity," but, whatever their secret, Forever the Sickest Kids has enjoyed a remarkably long run in the music business. The Dallas-based pop-punk band managed to land a major-label record deal months after its formation in 2006 and has since released a handful of decent-selling albums, made appearances on MTV and Conan O'Brien, and joined the Vans Warped Tour. Their new album is set to be released on June 25.

But surviving seven years in the music industry doesn't necessarily bring riches, and lead singer Jonathan Cook eventually turned to other means to help support himself. Specifically, he started selling counterfeit Rolex watches on Craigslist. He admitted as much in a statement released last month following his arrest by Dallas police for selling counterfeit goods.

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Q&A: Forever The Sickest Kids' Jonathan Cook Talks About Finally Having The Time To Make The Record His Band Wanted With Its Latest.

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It's 5:30 on a Wednesday morning, and you're broke. Maybe you're short on rent. Maybe you need some beer. Either way you need to get some cash. It's too early to rob a bank. They're all closed. So are jewelry stores. All-night convenience stores have too little cash at this time of day and too many cameras. So naturally you turn to the one place that can satisfy your twin desire for small amounts of cash and over-sugared, deep-fried pastry rings: the local doughnut shop.

It's a brilliant plan. Really, it is. But before you go declaring yourself as a criminal mastermind, it's worth keeping in mind some of the ways the plan can go horribly, humiliatingly wrong.

Take yesterday's attempted holdup of Golden Glazed Donuts on Garland Road just northeast of Peavy Road. According to Dallas police, a man in his late 20s, thin, white, and about 6-foot-2, walked up to the counter and ordered a pastry. The employee went to the back to warm it up -- police, unfortunately, don't specify whether this was a bear claw, kolache or something else -- then returned to take the customer's money. But the man didn't offer any cash, instead revealing a gun and demanding everything in the register.

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Steve Abraira

By most accounts, Steve Abraira did a decent job as Dallas' fire chief. He served for five years, was well-respected by the rank-and-file, and ran a department with no glaring issues. But somewhere along the line, he crossed City Manager Mary Suhm, who issued an ultimatum: resign or be fired.

Abraira chose the latter, though he didn't exactly go quietly. He fired a parting shot in the form of a letter to firefighters in which he blasted Suhm for crippling the fire department and compromising the safety of Dallas residents.

That screed gave a hint of what seems to have been Abraira's underlying problem: politics. Mike Buehler, president of the Dallas Firefighters Association at the time, told the Morning News at the time that Abraira was never comfortable working the system. "He was sometimes overwhelmed by the politics in a city the size of Dallas," Buehler said. "He had a very strict sense of chain of command and felt that the chain of command ran through the city manager. He never did take advantage of relationships with the council members, which ultimately would have been beneficial."

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On Monday, Irving police investigators were tipped off that a U-Haul truck containing a sizable batch of drugs was parked somewhere inside the city. They found the truck in front of a closed business on Irving Boulevard, so officers set up shop, hanging back and watching to see if someone would show up.

It wasn't long before a car drove up and dropped off a man, who climbed into the U-Haul and drove off. Police briefly tailed him before pulling the truck over for a traffic stop. They brought along the K-9 unit, which caught the unmistakable whiff of marijuana coming from the cargo compartment.

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Police don't make a habit of blasting out the names and faces of 17-year-old crime suspects, but the Irving Police Department made an exception for Travis Lekas. The Nimitz High School student was arrested Monday on charges that he drugged a fellow student and forced her into prostitution.

According to police documents, the scene went down like this: Lekas took a 15-year-old classmate to his Irving trailer on April 29 and plied her with booze, weed, and Xanax. He kept her high and confined to the the house for three days, inviting men to have sex with her in exchange for cash and drugs. He also allegedly tried to pimp out other girls from Nimitz, as well as Bowie Middle School.

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If there's one thing everyone in America can agree on this morning, it's that Kermit Gosnell is disgusting and belongs in an especially dank and fetid section of some sort of subterranean prison.

In a case that millions of talking heads have been shouting at you about from your TV, the Philadelphia doctor was convicted yesterday of first degree murder of three infants and involuntary manslaughter in the death of an adult patient.

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The man who knocked on David Goldman's door at 9:30 last night didn't look like trouble. He was fairly young, in his mid-20s, "dressed neat, clean-shaven and (with) a good haircut," the 76-year-old later told police, and he asked the price on the 1996 Mercedes for sale in the driveway. Two grand? The man said he had to go talk with his girlfriend, then he'd be back.

He was as good as his word, returning to Goldman's Mockingbird Lane home, a few blocks east of Abrams, a half hour later with a counteroffer. He didn't have $2,000, but he could get $400 from the ATM and trade in the 1998 Honda he was driving. Goldman agreed. He also agreed when the man came back with only $200 and offered a check to cover the rest. He invited the man and the friend he had brought with him into his house sign the paperwork.

And that's when police say an innocent car purchase turned into an armed robbery. The first man, the one who had knocked on his door, grabbed Goldman from behind and pushed him into the living room.

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It was a really nice day yesterday, wasn't it? Not too windy, not too hot, not too humid. Perfect Sunday weather, all the better to sit in the park, feel the fresh air, and, with any luck, not have some asshole come along and kick you in the face.

See also:
- Doggy-Door Gun Heist Ends in Federal Gun, Conspiracy Charges
- More bizarre crime stories in Dallas

A 21-year-old Dallas man managed to achieve two out of three yesterday. The man, who we'll call John -- because, according the police report, that's his first name -- was sitting on a bench near Casa Linda Park, a few miles east of White Rock Lake. It was around one in the afternoon. He was alone, smoking a cigarette, when a man he didn't know sprinted up to him.

"What's your name?" the man asked. "Where do you live? What are you doing at the park?"

John stood up. His questioner apparently didn't much care for that, because he promptly kicked him in the face.

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Note: May contain diapers.

Typically, Dallas saves its wilder side for the weekend. That's when, once the booze and drugs are flowing in earnest, the weird crimes tend to happen. But the weekend arrived early, with police reporting an armed diaper bag robbery, a Craigslist heist and a low-budget movie production scaring the bejesus out of people with a bunch of toy AK-47s. Among other things.

So here are the highlights from the Dallas police reports filed overnight:

4:35 p.m.: Moms carry all sorts of things in diaper bags. Bottles, toys, and kid's clothes, of course, but also jewelry, a cash-filled wallet, and other things of value. You never really know until you steal one at gunpoint and look inside.

The man who robbed a 35-year-old woman of her zebra-print tote yesterday afternoon at her Northeast Dallas apartment complex was probably disappointed to find the bag contained none of that, just a few diapers and a little bit of formula. He went to a lot of trouble, after all, sneaking up behind her, putting a gun first to her head, then to the stomach of one of her young children, and pushing her two other children to the ground.

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Image via KRGV.com

Bryce Reed

Updated below.

Original story, 10:05 a.m.: An EMT and incident commander with West Emergency Medical Services was arrested early this morning on charges of possessing a "destructive device," multiple media outlets are reporting.

Bryce Reed, 31, is in federal custody. There are two different interpretations of the arrest being presented: Fox 4 reports that he's been arrested "in connection to the investigation of the explosion in West, Texas, that killed 15 people." They say the source of that information is unnamed agents with the federal Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms bureau. But The Dallas Morning News reports that officials haven't yet said whether Reed's arrest was related to the explosion. Under state and federal law, a "destructive device" can mean almost anything: a grenade, a bomb, a missile, poison gas or certain types of firearms.

See also: As West, Texas Counts Its Dead, Some See a Chance to Make a Profit

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