Local police departments provided the following reports. In all incidents where an arrest occurred, a charge is merely an accusation and not evidence of guilt.

Pinchers pinched

A Northbrook grocery store reported that someone stole $304.73 worth of crab legs. 

They made him an odor he couldn't refuse

A Skokie man found a dead skunk in a plastic bag hanging on a plant holder next to his home’s entrance. At first, he thought nothing of it and called animal control. Later that day, the man found another dead skunk in a plastic bag hanging in the same location. The man, baffled by the incident, told police he doesn’t know who would do this to him.

Good deed prevented from going unpunished

Northbrook police said a man honked at a vehicle that had stopped to let a bike pass, then stepped out of his car and punched the window of the stopped vehicle.

Sometimes the urge for a Coke overrides all other senses, including common

Niles police responded to a call about two men tampering with a soda machine at a gas station across the street from the police station parking lot. While there, a witness walked across the street, identified himself as an off-duty Chicago police officer and said he had stepped outside a bar to have a cigarette and saw the men taking turns using a pry bar to open the cash slot on the machine, police said.

Niles police said they found several burglary tools, including a pry bar, tire iron, several screw drivers, pry rod, channel locks, and two barbecue forks, inside the men's vehicle.

In vandal's defense, the sign did not say please

Someone used black spray paint to write graffiti on a white sign in Skokie. The sign read “Keep Illinois Clean.”