When I was young I once managed to use a decent firecracker to distract police. They were behind the wooden fence surrounding a construction site where we loved to poke around. We had to climb over that fence to escape. We could hear them talk, they decided that a few of them would stay there behind that fence in case we'd climb over it while a few others would drive to the entrance about 500 meters down the street and then run towards us. I happened to have a firecracker in my pocket so after waiting a minute or so, I lit it and threw it as far as I could down the road in the direction of the entrance. Peeked over the wooden fence and chuckled as I saw the cops run towards the spot where the firecracker exploded. At the same time we saw that the other group had entered the site and came running towards us, but our way was clear now to climb over the fence and run to our homes.
I wonder if anyone remembers the pc game Commandos which I was playing a lot back then. As far as I can remember you could throw grenades to distract silly nazis to walk into their base unseen, so that was probably how I got the idea.