I was listening to a tv news report that just proved that the writers sometimes don't think. The story was that thieves had broken into a bank through a skylight, and the report came from the police. The writer wasn't thinking, and the punctuation may have been missing. I'm sure it should have been this:
"Thieves, {pause} said police, {pause} had broken into the building through a skylight".How it sounded, however, was like this:
"Thieves said police had broken into the building through a skylight".I heard it and was wondering why the thieves told them that the police had broken into the building!