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NARRATOR: Tonight on "America's
Dumbest Criminals," if you want to make your mark
on the world, you
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better consider
the price of fame. See what develops when a proud
pot grower takes pictures of
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is bumper crop. And what do you do
when you don't want to go through the
expense of hiring
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a full time getaway driver? Stay right where you are
and watch the meter run up and time run out for
these and other crooks.
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Right here on "America's
Dumbest Criminals." [theme music] -Debbie, I've got a hunch.
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-No you don't. You're standing up straight. Nice and straight and tall. -Aw, no, not that kind of hunch.
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-Oh. -OK? No, although if I
did have a hunch, we'd probably see eye
to eye for a change.
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-Yeah, I'd like that. -It would have to be a
fairly sever hunch though. Like bent over half way.
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-Aye, what's your hunch? -No. Well, I'm not a
betting man but I'll wager that at some
point in your life
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you were voted like,
Ms. Personality, or Ms. Congeniality, or like
Little Miss Sparkplug.
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-You're sweet. OK. Actually, yes, at one point in
my life I was homecoming queen.
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-Woah. -But there were only like 15
in the whole graduating class, I swear. -And you were the only girl?
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-No. -No. -No. -Now, a little
later, we're going to meet a guy who
was definitely not
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voted most likely to succeed. But after his crime he could've
been voted most popular.
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-This is true because
he was being chased by police officers, a
helicopter, even canine teams.
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-Oh, half the town was
running after this guy. That's coming up later,
but right now we're
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going to meet the
guy who was extremely proud of his green thumb. -But there was a problem.
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It seems his crop of
choice was marijuana. Still, that didn't
keep him from taking
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pictures of his
prized possession. But it did lead to
his photo finish. Take a look.
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[theme music] NARRATOR: OK. What's wrong with this picture? Is it the thermometer
displaying a cool 53 degrees?
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Is it the groovy,
space age insulation? Or maybe it's this, a
nice, healthy pot plant,
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hermetically sealed in a
secret cultivation room. But maybe we need to look
beyond the photograph
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and turn our attention
to the photographer. Evidently, the
proud gardener, who took pictures of his
homegrown marijuana plants,
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had them developed
at a local drugstore. And the observant clerk who
developed the photographs
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turned them over to the Lodi,
California Police Department. What more could the police want?
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They had multiple pictures of
the evidence, a film deposit envelope with the man's name
and address, even the date
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that the photographs were taken. Oh, yeah. One more thing. The green thumbed wizard also
took a few photos of himself.
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In the mirror. On the same roll of film. Open up to me baby. Come on, work with me here.
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And smile because you're another
dumb criminal caught on camera. -Now we move, though, from
photography to painting.
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But this artist couldn't
contain himself to just canvas. Instead, he canvassed the entire
community, leaving his mark
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everywhere he went in
the form of graffiti. See what happens
when outsider art meets up with police science.
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[theme music] -We were having a series of
vandalisms throughout town. Tagger gangs were
going through town
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and putting all
of their monikers, and names, and spray
painting all over our town.
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-The taggers would
leave certain names. They would spell
their names backwards. And they would put little
fancy drawings and symbols up.
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This went on for a
couple months and we didn't have any clue who it was. -I contacted a principle of
one of the middle schools
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here in town. He had seen me and was
telling me that, hey, he had some tagging at his
school up on the roof.
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And one of his
teachers was saying, no, that can't be right. We don't have taggers in town.
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We don't have gang
problems in town here. But then he was looking
through the hallway
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and found an art poster
from an art student in the hallway that was
up for extra credit.
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And on that poster
was all the tagging that we had been seeing
all throughout town.
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Plus the kids name that did it. So I went and advised
Investigator Little of it,
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he was the one
charge of that case. -I go out and look at it. Sure enough, the same
art, it's the same thing
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we've seen around town
that was down the alleyways and on the back of buildings.
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And he went down and
picked up the poster and started matching
it to all the graffiti
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throughout our town. -He had several tag names,
at least 20 of them. And every one of them was
still on this art work.
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-And subsequently called
the kid in and his parents, and got the kid to confess.
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-He went to court and he was
sentenced to go and paint over all the graffiti around
town, no matter if it's his
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or not. -When I talked to
the kid later, I told him they don't teach
drive by painting in art class.
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[applause] -The signing is artwork, huh? Well this next trio could've
used a few method acting
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classes before they attempted
this grab-and-go theft. As you'll note,
the store mannequin
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seems more natural
than these crooks. -See for yourself
what the store's surveillance camera saw.
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DEBBIE: Hmm, hmm hmm. Ho hum. We just dropped in
to steal-- I mean stroll through this nice store.
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Just for browsing. Not here to grab an armful
of expensive shirts and run. Nothing like that.
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Oops. Change of plans. Run, girl, run! Let's look again. These folks couldn't have
drawn security's attention
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any stronger if they had
brought along a marching band. Thanks to police who
moved almost as fast
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as our criminals, these shirt
nabbers were quickly collared. [laughter and applause]
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-Well our next melodrama
involves more than a kiss. It concerns what a kiss
can conceivably lead to.
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But this Romeo is modest. Very modest. Listen to how far
he goes to avoid making his intentions public.
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[theme music] -Graveyard shift, 4:00,
4:30 in the morning. We get an alarm call.
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Officers respond to the
alarm, start checking some doors, windows. We get some indications that
someone's possibly inside.
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A subject tries to leave
out the back doors. POLICE OFFICER:
Police, don't move!
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Get your hands up.
Get your hands up! Turn away from me. Put your hands on the wall.
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PATROLMAN AARON MULLINS:
We take him into custody and once he's in
handcuffs we start
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noticing that he's not
your typical criminal. He starts crying, we
didn't find any drugs
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or narcotics from
the pharmacy on him. And he begins to
cry uncontrollably. And we locate inside--
on his possession
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a check written out
to the pharmacy. So we start to question
him about this. So he tells us that he was going
to get married in two weeks
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time and just felt
that he was too shy to purchase condoms
over the counter. So his intentions were to
break into the pharmacy,
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take the condoms, but
leave a personal check. He may have been a
dumb criminal but he
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was at least trying
to practice safe sex. -OK, I don't know who
was more embarrassed,
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the cop who had to say
safe sex, or the guy who stole the condoms. Uh, Debbie, do you want
to comment on that story?
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-No, poor guy. I felt sorry for him. I think we'll just keep
moving along though, OK?
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And that's what the
driver in our next story wanted to do too. But he found it hard.
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Probably because he had
a police car riding right on his tail who seemed
to be suggesting
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that that was a bad idea. He and his buddies
share center stage in tonight's Blue Light Special.
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[theme music] DEBBIE: Three Tampa
Bay Area teenagers were on the run
in this stolen car
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after robbing a man at gunpoint. Their designated driver is
great with the gas pedal
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but not so hot with
the steering wheel. Maybe he doesn't have
his mind on the road
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because he's thinking about
the squadron of police cars riding his tail. When he fails to
outmaneuver them,
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he tries adding a
little camouflage. But the cops aren't fooled by
a tree going 60 miles an hour.
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Then he tried to lose
them in a cloud of smoke. But that's a no-go and
neither is the car.
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End of the line, boys. -Cha-ching. Now they seemed like
pretty nice kids who came up with a
pretty naughty idea.
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Racing on city streets. But when officers
came down on them with the letter of the law,
the whole truth came out.
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Turns out these teenagers
had gone postal. -A few years back I was working
graveyard shift on patrol.
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We had a report of
individuals or cars racing in the northeast
section of town. I go up there and
I stop one of two
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vehicles that go
screaming past me. Of course both
these cars are just loaded with college students.
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Spoke with the driver,
chewed him out, and got the name of
the other driver. The other driver
and his passengers
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had returned to a local dorm. Got a hold of that driver,
found the passengers, also, that were in his vehicle.
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Took all those individuals down
to the lobby and in the lobby I kind of chewed him out
for racing around town.
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I basically told him I was
going to cut him a break. And I was just turning to leave
when one of the passengers
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said, Officer Robinson, we're
really sorry for what we did. And what did you want us
to do about the mailboxes?
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I turned back, I
looked at him, I said, I was just getting that. You know that guy was pretty
dumb, because if he hadn't said
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something I would
have never known they had been out
blowing up mailboxes. [applause]
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-Here's Daniel with
a ADC headlines. -The typical bank robber
takes only a few minutes
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to pull a job. But this Baltimore man was
no typical bank robber. He took the time to
count his loot on site,
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giving police officers plenty
of time to arrive on the scene. They took the unarmed
man into custody.
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And undoubtedly the
shock of their arrival made him lose count. You know, 860, 880, daggone,
now I've got to start all over.
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Just how large was
the shop lifter caught by store security? Well, she was balancing a $695
color TV between her knees.
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Which a clerk just happened
to spot under her dress when she bent over
to pick something up.
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Ooo, talk about your
horizontal hold. I'm pretty sure she'd been
using thigh master, you know?
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The police might
not have noticed the man and his girlfriend who
came in to bail out a friend,
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but they spent too
much time admiring a wanted poster on
the bulletin board. Yes indeed, the
fellow was looking
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at a picture of himself. Yeah, you know they thought
he'd got his bad side. The lighting was no good.
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But that little bit
of self adulation resulted in his processing. And that closes the
file on ADC headlines,
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news ripped from
somewhere near the back of your local newspaper. Debbie? [applause]
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-These days we hear a
lot about road rage. Drivers who were so
angry that they do really
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dumb things when they're
behind the wheel. Well this is nothing like that. In fact, aside from the
fact that this guy is trying
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to get away from police,
he's a model citizen. Here's the story from
Sweetwater, Texas.
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-This happened on a late
December evening right at about quitting time. And we had a call of
a reckless driver.
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Another officer
showed up and was going to take me to the house. And I said, well, I'll
just drive myself home
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and you can have
the car from there. And about the time,
we see the guy matching the description
of the reckless driver.
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He had a tail light out. PATROLMAN SAM CUNNINGHAM:
In pursuit, highway 70, northbound, excess
of 80 miles an hour.
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Close to 90. Matched the
description perfectly. He didn't want to stop for us. So we chased him completely
out the north side of town.
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And went probably 20
to 30 miles with him. Signaling every time he
would go around a car.
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And finally the
pursuit ended when another Sheriff's department
shot his motor out.
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And after it was over with,
and I went to transport him to jail, the Van Halen
song, "Where Have All
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the Good Times Gone?"
starting playing. PATROLMAN SAM CUNNINGHAM:
You have a driver's license?
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One in custody. How much have you
had to drink, man? SUSPECT: Oh, I haven't had any.
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-Apparently his good times left
him pretty quick that night. So that pretty much sums it up.
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[applause] -Real quick. You know, you'd be hard pressed
to find a better example
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of being in the wrong place at
the wrong time than the fellow we're about to meet.
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If every crime was
solved this easily, we'd need a lot fewer police
officers on the street.
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Meet the crooks who've come
down with a stunning case of I'm Where? You're Who!?!
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[theme music] -My name's Sergeant Neal Shea. I'm with the Annapolis
Police Department.
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And you're here on Taylor
Avenue in Annapolis, Maryland. And what happened was a
little while ago we get
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a call for a robbery
of a Luskin's. That's about a half
a mile from here. [car revving]
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-As we're coming out of the
back of the station, we look up and we hear this car come
screeching into the back lot.
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[tires screeching] -Let me see your hands. Your hands.
Let me see them! SUSPECT: What's
going on, officer?
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-Get out of the car, passenger.
Driver, let me see your hands. -And we look over and it's
like, hey that's the car.
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And we're looking at each
other like, we can't believe that anybody would
be that stupid.
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SARGEANT NEAL SHEA: Come on out.
SUSPECT: Come on. We didn't do anything!
SARGEANT NEAL SHEA: Come on out.
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SARGEANT NEAL SHEA: Come on out.
SUSPECT: What's going on? SARGEANT NEAL SHEA: You pulled
behind the police station.
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Come on out here. -And of course
everybody's sitting over here at the
lot in the back.
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And they're looking
at us like, oh, those two have lost their minds. They're going to lose
their job over this.
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They're pulling people out at
gunpoint behind the station. Because It's marked
no trespassing.
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And that was it. Everybody came in and
they couldn't believe it. And what had happened is the
cars responding at-- the marked
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cars-- responding
out to the call, he sees them turn
onto Taylor Avenue where the police station is.
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He goes to turn around and flips
on his emergency equipment. He goes to turn around
and they see him.
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And they duck into
the first lot which happens to be the
police station. They ride all the way past
to the no trespassing,
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police personnel sign. Whip in here to the back
lot, take a parking space and decide to duck down.
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Oh well. [applause] -Oh well. Crooks are just like you
and me in one respect. We're all looking for ways to
stretch our dollars, right?
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I'm sure that's what this robber
in Ocala, Florida had in mind when he made the
bold decision to hire
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a taxi for his getaway car. After all, cab fare has to
be cheaper than divvying up
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your loot with a partner, right? Watch as this crook
discovers what happens when you cut corners.
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-I was working the day shift
on this particular day. We happened to have a
robbery at the Publix story
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out on east State Road 40. The culprit uh-- the
gentleman had robbed the store and then called a taxi
for his getaway vehicle.
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-He just said that he
wanted to go to the bank and I informed him that
the bank was closed.
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And he just said
that he wanted to go get a check cashed somewhere. I suggested Publix, and
that's where he had me taken.
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After he supposedly
cashed his check my dispatcher kept
asking me where I was. -Fled towards Ormond Beach
is where he wanted to go.
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So we ended up in a chase,
went towards Ormond Beach, ended up catching the vehicle,
getting the taxi cab to stop,
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had a foot pursuit
and we caught him. -I asked the guy if he
was wanted for something.
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And he said, well, I
may have ate a couple burritos without
paying for them. And I told him that
they don't usually
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have a manhunt for a
man eating burritos. [applause] [theme music] -Well, they say
employees aren't as
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responsible as they used to be. But we beg to differ. -Yeah, we found a
clerk in Sandy, Utah
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who was an absolute stickler
for following company policy. Even with a robbery in progress.
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-As you'll see, she was
far better at her job than this stickup
artist was at his.
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-Oh, yeah. Here's this shining example
of, We're Not Making This Up! -The first time I
investigated a case
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where the robber leaves with
less than he came in with. [clumsy music playing] -A guy enters the
store, puts a loaf
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of bread down on the counter. He says, this is a
robbery and shows the girl-- the cashier a gun.
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She's looking around and he
tells her, don't look around, just-- this is a robbery
give me all the money.
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And she says, I can't, I just
scanned this loaf of bread and I can't open my drawer
now unless I have something
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to-- you know, you
need to pay for it. ROBBER: Come, let's go. -So he hands her a dollar
and reaches into his pocket
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and hands her four
more quarters. ROBBER: There. -Another employee
started to come
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over so I guess he was afraid. He ran out the door leaving
the bread and the $2.
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The first case I
ever investigated where a robber paid
to rob a store. [laughter and applause]
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-[inaudible]. Oh, come on. I'm sorry, sir, but it's going
to cost you $2 to rob me.
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You know. But that young woman went on to
become a government employee, I believe.
Didn't she?
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-Or maybe a toll booth operator. -She could. She could. This evening has sure
taken its toll on me.
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-Aww. -I think it's time
to call it a night. But I'll be all rested ready
when we return next week
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with a whole mob of new
dumb criminal stories. -If you've got a
lead on a story,
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or you just can't wait till next
week for more state of the art stupidity, visit our website
at www.dumbcrimes.com.
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-But just in case you've
missed the point of our stories tonight, let me say it clearly.
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Every crime is a dumb crime. -But as long as people
persistent in breaking the law,
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we'll need to have excellent
people in law enforcement like the officers
you met tonight.
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-We thank them and
others like them who work hard to bring a little
order into this crazy world.
00:19:15
And we thank you for
joining us tonight. -As always, we
hope that we've all learned from others mistakes.
00:19:20
-But if you haven't we just
might see you next week on "America's
Dumbest Criminals."
00:19:25
-Goodbye. [applause] [theme music]