00:00:07
DANIEL BUTLER: This
is an ADC Warning. The crimes you're
about to see are true. Only the names were changed
to protect the ignorant.
00:00:15
[music playing] Tonight, two criminals
who absolutely never met, surveillance camera footage
of a new dance step,
00:00:44
and a dramatic dumb
criminal drum roll. All this and more, tonight on
"America's Dumbest Criminals."
00:01:01
Welcome to "America's
Dumbest Criminals. I'm Daniel Butler. We believe that every criminal,
no matter how long his career,
00:01:08
will eventually
wake up one morning and find that he is the
dumbest guy he knows.
00:01:12
And then that night he'll
see himself on this show as we open another file on
"America's Dumbest Criminals."
00:01:21
Now, Anthony Underwood
of Birmingham has a mind numbing story
we call "Run and Hit."
00:01:26
UNDERWOOD: My partner and I
had stopped at an area Huddle House, and we
noticed a individual,
00:01:34
and he was accompanied
with a female. And it dawned on me that
this individual had presented
00:01:40
some fake ID to me on
a prior call, you know, at a domestic call we got. I walked up to him.
00:01:48
I asked him his name. He gave me some fake name. He presented some fake ID. -I will talk to my husband--
00:01:54
-Excuse me, ma'am. Can I see some ID please, sir? -Give him your wallet. So we had made
contact with dispatch
00:02:02
and we gave the birth name
that I knew him under, and the birthday. And she came back and said
that he was a wanted person,
00:02:08
you know, with the
County Sheriff. So, uh, his girlfriend
got excited. At that time she, uh,
recited his first name.
00:02:18
that I knew him under. So he took off running. -Who do you think is lying? -Hey Mike, wait!
00:02:24
UNDERWOOD: And he hurdled a
fence, and what he didn't know it was a hill going
downgrade from the fence
00:02:30
immediately as you
clear that fence. Well he did any
traction on the hill and he just slid into
the alley and continued
00:02:37
across the paved alley
into a neighboring house. We heard the thump, and he
was laying stretched out.
00:02:43
MAN: Smack. -Smacked right into the house. [music playing] DANIEL BUTLER: ADC
quiz number 927--
00:02:58
When Jesse James tried
to rob the First National Bank of Northfield, Minnesota,
the townsfolk stopped him.
00:03:03
How long did it take the
people to get their money back? Was it A, seven minutes, B,
two weeks, or C, 15 years?
00:03:14
The correct answer
is A, seven minutes, which is less time
than it took him to make the money disappear.
00:03:21
Next, Detective Anthony
Lewis recalls a drug dealer who was the dumbest
face in the crowd.
00:03:27
-We were working in the
city of Oakland Park assisting them in
a reverse sting, and we had just made an arrest.
00:03:34
There was about three
marked police cars there, and, uh, several
unmarked police cars.
00:03:41
And the guy walks up alongside
the police cars-- walks up to Mel, the police officer
that sells the rocks.
00:03:48
His, uh, sign that he
had just make a deal was to take off his hat. And I noticed Mel-- he
was looking right at me,
00:03:55
and he took off
his hat, which is the signal that he made a deal. DANIEL BUTLER: Now
if you're a drug
00:04:00
dealer what's wrong
with this picture? How many places can you
spot obvious signals
00:04:05
that you're in the presence
of many police officers? Um, there are several. -And I couldn't believe
that this guy is buying
00:04:15
a rock with all these
police officers. There must have been six or
seven police officers there
00:04:19
in uniform, along with the
officers in plain clothes, but they did have their
guns and badges on.
00:04:26
So I ran up behind the
guy, grabbed the guy, and the guy had actually bought
a rock with all the police
00:04:31
officers there in front him. [music playing] DANIEL BUTLER: Folks,
we've said it before
00:04:42
and we'll say it again. There are surveillance
cameras everywhere, like the floorboard of this
car, which was just waiting
00:04:49
for this guy to break
in and hotwire it. By the time he spots
the camera it's already caught him on tape.
00:04:55
Even though he shuts
it off, he gets out and get back in,
reactivation the camera.
00:05:00
Now what have we learned? When you break the law
you will get caught. You will feel really dumb.
00:05:08
James Claiborne of
Knoxville recalls the time he gazed into a
picture imperfect.
00:05:15
-I was on patrol in the
western end of the city, and I noticed a car that
had a-- a break light out.
00:05:22
I pulled it over on
the side of the road. I asked the
gentlemen-- well buddy, I said, do you have any ID?
00:05:28
And he said, uh, yes sir I do. And he handed me a, uh, college
identification card of a man
00:05:36
who was 15 years his junior. I looked at the photograph
and I said buddy, I said, this is not you.
00:05:44
-Sir, um, this is not your ID. -No no, that's me. -This as you? -Yes sir, that's me.
00:05:51
-Sir could you
tell me please how it is you got to be 15 years
older and six inches taller?
00:05:58
-Traffic accident. -And I told him-- I said it
must been a hell of a wreck. Later on we found out
he had stolen the car
00:06:04
and broken into a business
and was using the man's identification who, uh,
had had his car broken into
00:06:10
and his wallet stolen. -I got my chin in
the steering wheel, and that's where I stretch my
neck out because my legs was
00:06:16
pinned down, and
it cut me all up. DANIEL BUTLER: The
guy was either ready for "Ripley's Believe It Or
Not," or he was absurdly dumb.
00:06:26
Later tonight-- a dumb criminal
who almost breaks a law. DANIEL BUTLER: Next up, Officer
Darryl Price revisits us
00:06:40
with "Breaking, Breaking,
and Entering Halfway." DARRELL PRICE: And one night
on third shift an officer
00:06:45
had spotted a subject
breaking into a building, and it was a transmission
shop he was breaking in.
00:06:51
But the problem was
this guy was so drunk he couldn't get through the window. I mean he had already
busted the window out
00:06:57
and he kept rolling this
big barrel up to the window and he'd crawl up on to be able
to crawl through the window.
00:07:01
And the barrel would
fall and they'd both roll back down the hill. By the time he finally got
into the window about an hour
00:07:07
and a half had passed. It had gotten to the point where
we were just ready to arrest
00:07:12
him for being a drunk because
he was just wasting our time. Finally when e got about half
in and half out the window
00:07:18
we decided he had
committed enough of the act to go ahead and make the arrest. Well when we grabbed him
and started pulling him back
00:07:25
out the window one
of the officers realized that the door next
to the window was open.
00:07:29
He just opened it,
walked in, and pushed him back through the window. He had actually broken
into an exterior bathroom.
00:07:35
It was open all
night long, and there was no business that
he had broken into. We basically couldn't even
charge him with the breaking
00:07:43
and entering, just
the damage to property from breaking the window. [music playing]
00:07:54
DANIEL BUTLER: In Maine it used
to be against the law for a man to tickle a woman
with a feather duster,
00:07:58
but you could count their
vertebrae with your fingers and get a good chuckle. Has the man arrested in
our next story turned away
00:08:06
from a life of dimwittedness
or is he still a lightfoot? In Lawrence, Kansas, a man
robbed an all night market then
00:08:14
fled into the night. Police responded
quickly and soon picked up the felon's trail.
00:08:18
Twice the man was certain he
had lost the officer and twice they uncannily honed in on him.
00:08:23
-How do you guys
keep following me? -Years of police
training, of course. DANIEL BUTLER: The officers
show him the light.
00:08:29
-Your shoes light up, kid. DANIEL BUTLER: Red
lights, to be exact, on the heels of
this tennis shoes,
00:08:34
blinking on and off every
time his feet hit the ground. [music playing] DANIEL BUTLER: We take
you inside the courtroom
00:08:48
for Trial and Error. From actual courtroom
transcripts-- a grandmother who won't cover
for her grandson.
00:08:56
-Ms. Jones, would
you please recount the car wreck as
you remember it? -The police were
coming toward me.
00:09:04
They were chasing another car. I noticed that the
driver of the other car suddenly ducked his head down.
00:09:11
And then he couldn't
see, and he swerved, and he ran right into me. -All right, this
is when the police
00:09:19
took the car thief into custody? -Yes, but not before I
gave that no good grandson
00:09:28
of might a good
piece of my mind. DANIEL BUTLER: Later tonight-- a
dumb criminal who really cleans
00:09:37
house and does interior
decorating in jail now. All on "America's
Dumbest Criminals."
00:09:50
-Drug crimes are among
the most destructive, eating away at the social fabric
like so many glassy eyed moths.
00:09:56
It's comforting when
one of these low-lifes is exposed as
being dumb as dirt. DANIEL BUTLER: An
undercover officer
00:10:03
remembers a forgetful
dope dealer in "An Affair to Forget." -I was asked to work in
an undercover capacity
00:10:10
and buy $200 worth of
crack cocaine from a man that had been
arrested several times
00:10:16
and that I was
familiar with, and he should have known who I was. We met in a motel room.
00:10:25
We had already wired the
room, and the gentleman-- a little leery at first-- -No, I-- you don't know me.
00:10:33
-You look familiar. -If-- if you knew me
then I would know you. And if you, you know--
if you recognized me
00:10:38
I'd recognize you. -Yeah. -So you don't know me. I don't know you,
you don't know me.
00:10:42
-But I'm almost sure-- -You don't know me. I don't know you, right? If I knew you then
you'd know me.
00:10:48
Are you going to deal? Are you a guy who
is here to deal? Because I'm the only person
in this room to deal with.
00:10:53
-OK, OK, OK, Yes, OK. All right, all right. That's OK. -OK? -Yeah, you're sure. -I'm sure.
00:11:00
-OK, all right. Let's do this then. UNDERCOVER OFFICER:
So he accepted that. The deal was made.
00:11:05
As he exited the room he was
taken down by the officers. He just said I can't
believe you did that to me.
00:11:12
I said I can't believe
you didn't know me. [laughter] [music playing] DANIEL BUTLER: You
know, Hollywood
00:11:22
has portrayed drug dealers as
villains with cat-like grace and style-- a certain
savoir-faire, people
00:11:29
that move within
a certain rhythm. But this is actual surveillance
cam footage of a drug deal.
00:11:35
What how he moves when
the police bust in. All right now, let's
see that one more time,
00:11:41
because I think
there's a dance here. One, and two, I'm
gonna bust you. One, and two, I'm
going to bust you.
00:11:47
One, and two, and oh, please let
the officer lead at all times. How well do you really
know your neighbors?
00:11:54
Ray Briggs recalls
the boneheaded saga of "Home Swipe Home." RAY BRIGGS: We
were investigating
00:12:00
some burglaries
that had occurred. And they were kind
of odd burglaries in that they were
in a neighborhood
00:12:06
where normally there weren't
any burglaries-- complete sets of furniture, dishes,
refrigerators, things that you
00:12:14
don't have taken
during the normal, run of the mill,
everyday burglaries. You didn't lose just
your television.
00:12:19
You came home and found
your house completely empty. -Oh no! It's all gone! It's all gone.
00:12:32
-Then several months later
we had a occasion where a used furniture truck
pulled up to this house,
00:12:41
and some of the neighbors
noticed that the guy got into an argument
with these people
00:12:46
from the used furniture place. And we call the used
furniture dealer, and he says-- I don't
know what's wrong,
00:12:50
but this guy got mad at me. He must be greedy or something. He didn't like the
price I gave him
00:12:55
for the furniture he
was trying to sell me. He was trying to
sell me basically everything in the house.
00:13:02
So we, uh, got the
furniture dealer to agree to send an undercover
officer back out there with him
00:13:07
to look at the
furniture and stuff. Lo and behold, it was the
stuff that had been stolen out
00:13:11
of all the other houses
in the neighborhood. They had taken all--
basically had furnished
00:13:16
the entire house
with stolen property. -This stuff wouldn't
be stolen, would it?
00:13:20
-Stolen? Jim, where'd you get this guy? He's a real comic. Look at this TV. OFFICER: You're under arrest for
possession of stolen property.
00:13:26
-Oh, come on. RAY BRIGGS: What
got him caught was-- is that they didn't
like the price they were
00:13:30
getting for their
stolen merchandise. [music playing] DANIEL BUTLER: In
Kentucky it use
00:13:41
to be against the
law for reptiles to attend Sunday school, but
it was legal for chickens
00:13:45
to attend revivals. In Peoria, Illinois, police
responded to a house burglary to find that none of the
usual items had been stolen.
00:13:54
The TV, VCR, and
stereo system were all still in place-- sort of. The items had been slightly
moved so that the burglars
00:14:01
could swipe something
else-- the rug. Worried that
tracking a stolen rug would be difficult
if not impossible,
00:14:10
the officers left the
house with little hope. -Charlie, come here a minute. Take a look at this.
00:14:16
DANIEL BUTLER: Then they
noticed a trail, a furrow through the snow in the yard.
00:14:21
Following the suspicious
trail, the officers came to the front
door of the house
00:14:24
located directly
across the street. [knocking] -Good evening, sir. We need to ask you a question.
00:14:40
-Yeah? OFFICER: Where did
you get the rug? MAN: Uh, oh that-- that rug? -Yes sir, that rug.
00:14:47
-Um, Christmas gift. -Really? Well we got a Christmas
gift for you too. Come along.
00:14:52
-Come on, no really. My aunt Lerlene-- she's loaded. [music playing] -An armed robber
steals more than money.
00:15:10
He takes a bit of his
victim's dignity with him. It's only right,
then, that we now
00:15:14
remove what's left of the
dumb criminal's dignity. DANIEL BUTLER: Next, an
undercover officer socks it
00:15:20
to the bad guy in
"You Shoes You Lose." UNDERCOVER OFFICER: And we go
riding round-- a buddy of mine
00:15:25
and I-- looking for prostitutes. And we were in the western
section of town one night,
00:15:30
and a guy flags us down. -What are you look for? A little, uh, you
know-- a little weed?
00:15:35
What do you need? -Yeah, that's what I need. -Well, I can help you out. Just give me $20, and
I'll go around the corner,
00:15:41
and I'll be right back. I got some really
good weed for you. -That's it? $20? -I don't have it on me now.
00:15:46
I just need to go
around the corner. I'll be right back. [inaudible]. Just give me $20, and
I'll be right back.
00:15:51
You'll be very happy
with it, I promise you. It's just in it's good stuff. What's the problem?
00:15:54
Come on, now. Don't mess around with me. -You need the leave the shoes. -Leave the shoes?
00:16:00
-You need to leave the shoes. -My shoes? -Those. -You want my shoe--
oh, oh collateral.
00:16:05
Look man, I'm an honest
guy, but I tell you what. I tell you-- it's sort of cold
out here, but I tell you what.
00:16:09
I'll leave the shoes. UNDERCOVER OFFICER: He
says it's cold out her. I said I know you'll be back.
00:16:13
So, uh, he takes off
his tennis shoes. So, uh, I give him the
$20 bill, off he goes.
00:16:20
And I guess about 10 minutes
later here he comes back, and he's got the cope. And, uh, he says, uh--
00:16:26
-Pretty good deal for
$20, now where's my shoes? -They're in the back seat. -Back seat?
00:16:33
What do you mean it's
in the back seat? They're all the way
over there, man. Let me get my damn
shoes out of here.
00:16:39
UNDERCOVER OFFICER: And he
leans in, and just as he gets leaned in my buddy jumps
in the driver's side.
00:16:43
We drove off with him. We took him to the city
jail, processed him, and he was arrested
for distribution
00:16:50
of a controlled substance. DANIEL BUTLER: And then
he got his shoes back. No brains, cold
feet, but nice hat.
00:16:58
In Pennsylvania, it used to be
against the law for a housewife to hide dirt under a rug.
00:17:03
It was also illegal
for a housewife to slurp spaghetti loudly. Now, a scuttle-headed
bank robber
00:17:10
becomes overdrawn in
"Enough is Enough." When Janice Patterson left
the bank and got into her car,
00:17:18
she didn't suspect that she had
an appointment with stupidity. -Give me the money.
Give me the money.
00:17:26
Hurry up, give me the money. -All I have is $10. That's all I have. -Come on, you got more money.
00:17:31
-No, I just moved here. I'm in between-- -Hey lady shut up, this is
a robbery, not a commentary.
00:17:35
You got any credit cards? -I-- they're all at--
I don't have a thing. They're in my husband's name.
00:17:40
You wouldn't-- -Everybody got
credit cards, lady! -I call her the dragon. -Come here, write me a check.
00:17:45
Write me a check. -I'm out of checks. I-- I'm totally out of checks. I'm trying to find
a place to live.
00:17:52
You know any nice neighborhoods
I should look for or look at? -I don't anything
about no neighborhood?
00:17:55
What do I look like,
huh? [inaudible]? Hey guess what? Guess what? Guess what? DANIEL BUTLER: Janice
didn't bother to tell him
00:18:02
her account balance
was less than $100. That check would bounce
if anyone cashed it,
00:18:07
but no one would since
she hadn't signed it. -Bring some money
for me, all right?
00:18:11
You got to help a brother out. [music playing] -And with that we come to
the end of another show.
00:18:22
Our continued thanks
to police officers across the nation
for their stories. I'm Daniel Butler
saying don't be dumb.
00:18:28
Don't break the law. [music playing] [music playing]