In a sweeping attempt to crack down on the rash of armed robberies in recent weeks, hundreds of police vans and buses swooped in Wednesday afternoon and rounded up 14,000 white males wearing hooded sweatshirts and sweatpants. 

“After interviews with the victims,” SPD spokesman Lt. Dan Starks said in a press conference, “we concluded that our suspect is a male, approximately 5’7” to 5’10”, and wearing a hooded sweatshirt. Victims have described the suspect as both black and white, so we believe that this guy has some sort of race-changing chameleon type capability, and that’s how he’s eluded us so far.

“In addition, victims have been accosted by anywhere from one to four gentlemen in these incidents, so we believe that he also has some kind of magical shape-shifting power, which enables him to multiply,” Starks continued. 

The victims all agreed on one thing, however: each time, the perp(s) was wearing a hooded sweatshirt. 

Law enforcement quickly sprung into action, spending much of Wednesday afternoon rounding up every hoodie-wearing male in sight. Hundreds were herded into staging areas, where they were asked cleverly-worded trap questions like, “Have you been robbing anybody lately?” 

Though all those detained answered “No,” the Syracuse police and DPS are not discouraged, according to Lt. Starks. 

“Typically we’re used to dealing with open container violations, noise violations, that kind of thing. But robberies…like, wow. This is like real cop stuff,” Starks said. 

“Have no fear, Syracuse,” he went on, “the Syracuse police department is on the case.

“Wow, that sounded real badass, didn’t it?”