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tonight on america's dumbest criminals where does this inmate think he's going
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in such a hurry we don't think he's getting off on good behavior if you were dressed like this wouldn't
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you be inclined to be in a hurry and what do you need for a stakeout to catch sticky-fingered donut thieves
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there's a whole lot of laughs right under your nose as we track down america's dumbest criminals
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[Music] wow [Music] now welcome your hosts for abc daniel butler and debbie allen
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hi there daniel what are you doing out there to do go ahead no debbie i'm bringing
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joy to my public all right you look like a jellyfield man to me rusty yes you are
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nothing personal you understand why is it oh oh you're eating oh great don't
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get anything on your suit okay but why is it that you're always eating on this
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show well i have to keep my energy up debbie for me at my best for my fans and i can feel
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there's a whole lot of love in this room huh that could be or it might just be the
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sugar buzz i understand daniel's reason for bringing donuts a little bit later
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we have a story about a doughnut stakeout but now it's time for caught on camera
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if i can pull daniel away from his adoring public we'll introduce our first story daniel
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oh great what happened well i'm not quite sure debbie i think it was a backdrafter
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rusty do i need to get out the dust buster do i need to get my dust busters please
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would you all right while i'm vacuuming daniel i want you to take a look at an amazing
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story a nashville tv news crew was in a perfect position to observe an inmate releasing himself from a work detail the
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tape was rolling and it was caught on camera [Music] we were down there doing a story on some
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sort of mysterious sonic boom so they got a lot of phone calls to the 9-1-1 center so we go down to the 9-1-1 center
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well my buddy my cameraman al devine always rolling videotape we're walking out into the parking lot going to our
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car and suddenly i look up and i see this jail suit running across the field i go i'll roll on this guy he's already
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rolling he's on it just caught you know the last 10 or 11 seconds of it and we're going what was that about over at
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the 9-1-1 center so we can tell a cop who's right there going you better get
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right on this man you got an escapee and we helped catch him basically i said well what were you thinking he goes man
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it was just christmas time and i wanted to see grandma get home and and you know
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it was like andy williams episode or something so it was really kind of amazing [Applause]
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all right stop me if you've heard this one a guy goes into a bar and steals the
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tip jar wins in your pocket and and and what well what's the punchline oh it's right here and something to
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remember me by [Music] we were dispatched to a theft at a local restaurant we talked to the owner and he
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said somebody had stolen a tip jar off of his counter he said that a subject had come in
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ask for an application and that was his reason for being there while he was filling out the application
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the owner was walking around doing the work in the store and when he went in the back the guy grabbed the tip jar off
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the counter and ran out the front door we got there we looked at the application he was filling out
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it had the name of one of our local people that we always arrest for petty thefts and things like that
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so come to find out he put all his correct information on the application so we just went to his house picked him
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up got him in a photo id lined up owner picked him out right away and we arrested him saying now we got a
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new occupation he makes license plates you know if your heating and cooling system isn't working as well as it
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should try checking the filter and if that isn't the problem see if you've got a burglar caught in the duck
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hey it happens see for yourself we were working at night watch it was near the end of the watch and we got a
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call for burglars in the building at a store so we go over there and we have four cars on it two on the
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perimeter and two to go inside and search the building a short time later get a call on the radio that
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they have the situation secure so i walk on up there and i'm dumbfounded i look
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at everybody what is this and as it turns out it's this burglar who was hanging upside down encumbered on the
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air duct grating for six hours prior to our arrival he was so hung up in the ceiling there that we had to call
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the fire department to get the jaws of life and cut him out of there so we get him out and so he's telling us
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that uh he decided to climb up a tree which was about five feet away from the building and he's about twenty feet off
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the ground and he jumps onto the roof pulls the grate off to the air duct and his story is he
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heard some music and he was leaning in to listen to the music and he fell in he had no intention of committing a
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burglary when it was all said and done he had two other burglary charges pending and the state of missouri gave
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them a nice warm place to stay for five years [Applause] [Music] in carmel california women are not
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allowed to wear high heels while in the city limits does that mean that men are but if so that leads right to our next
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story a man in a dress is by nature a funny idea it works for milton berle flip wilson and mom's mabely but it's a
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real drag for a guy hoping to get off the hook with police here's another of
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america's dumbest excuses [Applause] i stopped a car in a local park and it was occupied by one person one
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guy and i thought it was suspicious he would kept leaning over to the front of the seat looked like he was putting
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something underneath the seat so i pulled up behind him got out started talking to him a little bit noticed
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right away that he was wearing a dress a pink flower dress drawstrings and had a slip-on underneath even
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so i got a little little suspicious so after i got him out of the car i saw some empty beer cans in the car and
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placed him under a rest for the the open liquor in a park and i found 11 bags of
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rock cocaine underneath the front seat and from there i started to ask him about
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you know hey why are you wearing a dress he said that he was robbed and since he didn't have any money they
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made him put a dress on and so he just kept it on when i asked him why he didn't put his clothes back on which was
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sitting right on the front seat he said that his car overheated and he lived about a half a block away and he was
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just about to put the clothes on when i pulled up based on his dirty feet we thought he was out dancing in the park
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[Applause] if you are disturbed by senseless acts of violence against electronic equipment
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i suggest you turn away now but if you're one of those people who wish your uncle lou would get the camcorder out of
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your face at thanksgiving dinner you may take a certain devious pleasure in what
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you're about to see it's a blink of the eye blue light special [Music] if you think the food here is fast watch
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the speedy moves of these robbers this one's a little camera shy ouch ah but the videotape is even faster than
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they are recording unfavorable impressions of these guys before lights out just what the police officers order
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salad bar no crowbar unfortunately yes behind bars definitely because remember not only does the camera never lie it
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always has the last laugh when old yobes robbers really scoped out their targets they had blueprints they
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drew diagrams they carried stopwatches to practice their schemes well clearly the crook you're about to see put very
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little planning into his heist and it shows i normally work the day shift and early
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one morning i left the station a little bit late went down to the coffee shop to get
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myself a coffee because i was a little tired got my coffee all set to sit down to finish up paperwork from the night
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before and we had a bank alarm come in i started heading the area like every other cruiser normally does when we have
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a bank alarm and on the way to the bank we got a description of the vehicle as i'm driving down one of the streets i
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spot a car coming from that direction about the right amount of time it would take when you get there i look at him he
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looks at me i figure it's got to be him the way he looked at me i pulled him over
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he gave me an explanation that he just dropped his daughter off at school and he was headed home i detained him at the
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bank employees who said they saw this guy came up and they identified him as the
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guy who tried to rob the bank is that the guy that's the guy the kicker is the thing that makes these
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things so interesting is the fact that he entered the bank through the first set of doors
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looked at the tellers all lined up and ready to go for the morning step to the left put a mask over his head step back
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to the right and tried to go into the bank the problem is it was ten to nine bank doesn't open until nine o'clock
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he hauled on the doors until he broke him but by that time so much time had gone by the tellers had pushed the alarm
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he figured it out took his mask off and ran out the door he ran out to his car which was parked
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inside the bank right next to the window so all the tellers could see him get in
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his car and leave in the direction that i was actually coming from he apparently
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looked at the clock to the bank right next to this one and the clock was ten minutes fast
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so four times on this part [Music] and now with the news here's a guy who could add charm to any police lineup
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here's daniel with abc headlines [Applause] [Music] while paying for his meal at a barbecue
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restaurant in shreveport louisiana a man decided to place a to-go order for all the cash in the register the clerk did
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as instructed and the robber was out of the door faster than you could say hot sauce in fact he left so fast that he
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left his wallet containing among other items his prison id card now here's a thought that'll launch you
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towards the stratosphere of stupidity hey i'm drunk i think i'll go steal an
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airplane a california man took to the sky on a not so natural high barely missing a
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hospital before he surged through power lines and took a nosedive into the median of a freeway cheap thrills hardly
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the utility company billed him for one hundred and eighteen thousand dollars for damages
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plus he's being sued by the owner of the plane and a man injured by his kamikaze
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caper so much for the friendly skies almost clever drug smugglers thought they'd come up with a devious way to
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transport over six thousand pounds of marijuana into the us from mexico they rigged a propane tanker trunk with a
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secret compartment yet it was able to produce propane gas from all of its valves impressive yes but there was one
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unsightly little oversight they misspelled the name of the well-known gas company outside of the truck
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and that closes the files on adc headlines news rips from somewhere near the back of your local newspaper debbie
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[Music] you've seen the bumper sticker that reads hugs not drugs well here's the
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story of a mother who couldn't choose between the two so she offered her son
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both it's our special delivery the matter that we're presenting today is a
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case we call the family affair because it involves the arrest of both an 18 year old son and his mother the 18 year
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old defendant was in police custody for a theft charge and during processing he requested to make a phone call it's not
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uncommon that defendants will ask to call somebody before they're transported
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to the county jail in this instance we we certainly allowed him to call somebody and he called his mother we
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were happy about that because we had an arrest warrant for the mother as well mom arrives a short time later at the
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police department well she requests the opportunity to give her son a hug before he's
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transported to the local prison so we certainly allowed and they had they embraced for a short time
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the embrace was in such a manner that they were trying to uh conceal their bodies away from the officers who were
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also present and it just looked unusual to the officers and they knew something was up the problem is mom is slipping
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him some narcotics during the hug during the embrace well of course there is a constable
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present there are police officers present they view this transaction not only is mother arrested for the
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outstanding warrant but also of delivery of a controlled substance that being the
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narcotics to her son who was in police custody at the time of course the police officers would never stand in the way of
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a mother's love for her son especially a son who she wouldn't see for a while
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because it was being incarcerated so we were more than happy to allow them to embrace
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[Applause] colors twists old-fashioned bear claws honey buns cream filled chocolate
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covered or rolled in sprinkles i practically glaze over just thinking about them and to think that anyone
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would pull a doughnut heist is downright repugnant they should be dunked in oil kind of like doughnuts
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for the story we go to delray beach florida we were out checking out a local grocery
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store because they were having some burglaries that took took place they were losing some bakery goods
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so we decided to put one of our offices under cover i was sort of put in charge of taking
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care of it so they stuck me in an undercover vehicle unmarked and i sat and watched and
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i happened to see one of the cleaning crew members who cleaned the parking lot throughout the night
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grabbing the donuts and sort of stashed in the bushes for a later time to snack on and i happened to
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catch him in the act he wasn't too happy with that he said i can't believe i'm going to jail over a
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box of donuts i said well stealing stealing whether it's a box of donuts or a car the evidence never got
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emptied nobody takes my donuts despite the media and public's opinion all the donuts recovered and returned to
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the store we did not eat them [Music] [Applause] now let's look back at one of abc's
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greatest hits on christmas morning in chevy chase maryland a couple called the police to
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report a burglar in their home who was downstairs attempting to stuff their presents into his pants and sneak out
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police quietly entered the house and arrested the little elf who must have been looking for a pair of suspenders
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that he obviously misplaced before leaving the north pole he was last seen decking the halls at the local chain
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[Applause] in georgia you have the right to commit simple battery if provoked by fighting
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words a lady had called the police department reporting that she had called her stolen
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cell phone number hello you have my phone and it was answered by a guy named skip this is
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skip who they just stated he had just paid 50 for the cell phone and he wanted 50
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dollars to basically break even on it they decided to meet up at the local burger king
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where i was able to be with the victim inside her vehicle laying down on the floor of the sport
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utility vehicle he circles our vehicle and stops i tell the driver to have the suspect get out of his
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vehicle at that point as they're talking i'd get out of our vehicle and approach him and place him under
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arrest for trafficking's on property and i searched his vehicle incident to arrest where i found
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some methamphetamine and some marijuana this guy should have quit while he was ahead
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[Music] when you need to settle an argument and judge judy is busy who are you gonna
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call if your answer is ghostbusters you need to get out more often okay that movie's 20 years old okay a less exotic
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though more timely response would be to call the police which is just what happens in this story here's we're not
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making this up [Music] i got a call to go to a family dispute and i walk up and there's this old lady
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on the front porch i said man what's wrong and she said there's this old boy over
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here he keeps coming out here staring at me who is it that old boy that lives over there they call it biscuit i
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knocked on the door and biscuit comes to the door and i said are you biscuit she he said
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yeah biscuit i want you to quit looking at her okay you heard the man tell that crazy fat quit looking at me and i said
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okay man will you quit looking at him you quit going paw come on okay sir quit going paw to her
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i said okay so i get about maybe two blocks away and as and i hear on the radio officer may go back there
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at it again and when i get back biscuit's mama's there and she has her hands underneath her
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arms going walking in a circle and biscuit was on the front porch all right i'm going y'all are acting
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like children i'm gonna have to treat you like children go to your room and they all turn around and whip it
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into their rooms i said don't come out until y'all can play nicely and i didn't get another call for the
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rest of the night [Music] well daniel's donut box is empty so it's time to go yeah i hope next week we have
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a story about a steak and lobster steak out you work up your appetite well our staff works up new stories an ice cream
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store wouldn't be bad either you know rocky road huh i feel like i traveled that every week with you oh yeah
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and we'll travel it again next week won't we yes we will but before we leave
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we'd like to thank the officers who helped us with this show and say hats off to all who serve in law enforcement
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we appreciate the good folks who protect us from the bad guys if you'd like to
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drop us a line visit our website www.dumbcrimes.com as always we hope that we've all learned
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from others mistakes but if you haven't we just might see you next week on america's dumbest criminals
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wow [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] you