It was one of the Weekly's best-loved robberies: when an unidentified man with a bag on his head tried to rob a Wendy's drive-thru in Fullerton last Tuesday.

The man infamously pointed his gun at the employee and demanded money. Her reaction? She shut the window and walked away. At which point our beloved bad-ass had no choice but to peel out for the get-away, penniless and without so much as a consolation Coke.

Now, after a sloppy follow-up at a Laguna Beach Jack in the Box, police are charging 48-year-old homeless man David Brian Mattson with 12 attempted robberies and a single successful one. (Considering his tactics, we're most surprised by that last count.)

The arrest went like this:

A police sergeant was waiting outside a gas station on the way out of Laguna Beach, hoping to catch sight of the suspect's 2006 Chevy Malibu after a another attempted plastic-bag robbery was reported at a Jack in the Box on South Coast Highway.

That's when the suspect made his grand-finale doofus move. With the police car in the parking lot, he walked into the Village Mart Gas Station at 120 South Coast Highway (bag over head, business as usual), pulled out what turned out to be a harmless toy handgun and demanded money from the attendant.

Laguna Beach police lieutenant Jason Kravetz told City News Service that upon spotting the police car outside, Mattson walked out of the gas station empty-handed, trying to play it cool like he wasn't just pointing a gun at a gas-station attendant while wearing a plastic bag on his head. (No, we're never going to get over the plastic bag thing.)

“The clerk ran out after him saying, 'He's got a gun,' and that's when he was arrested,'' Kravetz said.

He sure was a prolific feller:

Five of those counts were for incidents Wednesday, a robbery last Monday, two attempted stickups last Monday, and five attempted holdups on Dec. 7, according to court records.

Mattson is now being held on $50,000 bail, which — considering his criminal track record and the fact that he lives in his car — we're guessing he can't post. He's also pleading “not guilty.” Best of luck to him, though, for real: Dude got us through some long cold days at the office.

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