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11.12.2012

chinese restaurant robbery thwarted by language barrier

You gotta love it. Some fools try to rob a Chinese restaurant. But the robbery is thwarted because the restaurant employees can't speak English, and failed to understand the robbers' demands: Police: Robbery Thwarted After Chinese Restaurant Workers Fail To Understand Demands.

Last week, three masked men bust into the New China restaurant in Orlando, pointing guns and demanding cash. Problem was, the workers reportedly only spoke Cantonese -- or at least pretended to -- and couldn't understand what the hell the robbers wanted:

The men demanded money of three employees, but the workers could not respond to the robbers' demands because they spoke only Cantonese, authorities said.

One robber put a gun to the head of one worker and forced him to the ground, deputies said.

In frustration, two of the robbers pounded on the cash register in a vain attempt to open it. At that point, the gun went off — accidentally, deputies think.

The robbers left empty-handed and jumped a retaining wall into Woodridge Apartments, where a police dog led investigators to a car.
All right, not only did these sucka thieves walk into the wrong monolingual restaurant -- though honestly, do you really think the workers had no idea what the masked dude pointing the gun was after? -- but these brainiacs couldn't open a friggin' cash register.

Next time, these robbers need to try Rosetta Stone. According to the Orlando Sentinel, police detained three men, but no arrests were made. Bummer. More here: No arrests in robbery at Chinese restaurant.