To the criminal in a pinch, almost anything can be used as a weapon. One such creative combatant pulled out all the stops during an altercation with her boyfriend. Desiree Eckna, 21, of Brighton Beach upped the ante in an argument when she hurled a can of hair mousse—which clocked her beau directly in the forehead. From there, she got even more creative, launching a pair of table lamps and various pieces of refuse before reverting to the classic hands-and-feet attack. Thankfully, police arrested the abusive partner before she could get her hands on any kitchen utensils.

Also, a teenage thief in BedStuy used similar ingenuity while attempting to steal a 55-year-old woman’s purse at a laundromat. Alfonso Williams, 19, initially tried to steal the lady’s purse the old-fashioned way—by administering a chokehold and snatching the bag. Failing to extricate it, he grabbed a nearby bottle of Clorox bleach and dumped in on the woman’s face. The cleaning agent momentarily blinded the victim, but unfortunately for Williams, it failed to erase his image from her mind. Soon after, she handily picked his mugshot out of a police photo array.