Delonce Ellsberry wasn’t expecting anyone to be home when he crawled through the window of a Union Square apartment building, intending to rob it. Really. Truly. So he was unprepared when he in fact came face-to-face with the apartment’s resident. Now here was a pickle: What to say to the person you were intending to rob when they are standing right in front of you? At first, Delonce tried going with a lie: He was simply a maintenance man, he said, who had gotten a bit turned around due to the building’s lack of a doorman? No. He realized, probably as soon as he said it, that this was absurd. Maintenance men don’t come in windows! Stupid! Stupid Delonce! He might have said to himself. There was a pause, then, we imagine, as the resident tried to figure out if he was going to be killed with one of his own frying pans, or something else horrible. But Delonce was not that kind of guy. He was a robber, not a person hurter, and a polite one at that. Sensing that things weren’t going to work out the way he’d intended, he suggested he take his leave. “Do you want me to go out through the window I came in or the door?” he asked. Impressed, perhaps, by his gentlemanly behavior, the resident showed him the door. Then he was arrested.
NYPD Daily Blotter [NYP]
