00:00:07
-Hi, I'm Daniel Butler. Welcome to another edition of
"America's Dumbest Criminals."
00:00:14
THEME SONG: Dumb, dumb, dumb. Dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb. NARRATOR: On this episode of
"America's Dumbest Criminals--"
00:00:45
-Whoa, whoa, whoa! What, what's going on here? NARRATOR: A confused crook
in "Courting Trouble."
00:00:49
A bungled burglary
in "Batter Up." A "Dumb'in in the Rough." -I got some more here.
00:00:56
You want to take a look? POLICE OFFICER 1: got
some more in there, huh? -Yeah! NARRATOR: The
"Restaurant Roof Clown."
00:01:04
All this and more on
"America's Dumbest Criminals." Here's your host, Daniel Butler.
00:01:13
-Hollywood is full of
people from all over who are waiting for their big break. The lights, the
camera, the action.
00:01:19
Something to write home about. Like this doped up dummy. Dear Mom and Dad, sorry
I haven't written lately,
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but I've been pretty
busy just hanging out and painting the town. It's really a very
colorful place.
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I've been frustrated recently
because I'm not climbing the ladder of success as
quickly as I had planned.
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But I try my best just to
vent and go to a special place and try to get a good
perspective on my life.
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Sometimes I get a
little carried away, but I have plenty of friends
who help keep me grounded.
00:01:53
Well, I'm gonna
go for a ride now. See you in court. Duh, Billy. P.S. my new cellmate is swell.
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He wants to be my best friend. Do you ever get that
run down feeling? Me too. Well, just imagine
what that would be like
00:02:13
after you committed a
dumb crime and tried to make an even dumber escape. Half a block away
from Philadelphia's
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federal courthouse, a man
robbed a Mellon Bank branch and ran into a structure where
hundreds of federal agents
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park every day. He was quickly
spotted and arrested within a matter of minutes. -Hands up.
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Drop the bag. Don't move. -Ha! He was charged with
bank robbery after being subdued by special
deputy marshals.
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Keeping it all in
the neighborhood, the robber was
brought before a judge in the very same
courthouse that afternoon.
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Convenient. Well, strap on your pith helmet
and call me Marlin Perkins. For a minute, we're
about to enter
00:02:55
the world of the wild kingdom. This is a segment
where a smart animal helped capture a dumb crook.
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Down in Rock Hill, South
Carolina, Deputy Jeffrey Cornwell and his partner
always seemed to be out of luck
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when they tried to
serve the arrest warrants on one
particular subject. -Police!
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[dog panting] -Ooh, who let the horse in here? -Huge dog! Hi! Hi, are you friendly?
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DANIEL BUTLER: Then the police
found a new best friend. The outlaw's dog led
them right to his master,
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who was hiding in the hills. -Is Daddy home? Where's Daddy? Is Daddy home? Hey, where's she going?
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POLICE OFFICER 2: Go find Daddy. POLICE OFFICER 3:
Where's she going? POLICE OFFICER 2: go find Daddy.
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POLICE OFFICER 3:
Lucy, is Daddy there? CRIMINAL: Go away, Lucy! Go away! POLICE OFFICER 2:
Johnson, you need
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to come out with your hands up. Let me see your hands. Step on out, step on out.
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Turn around. POLICE OFFICER 3: [inaudible] -Lucy, bad girl! Bad dog! POLICE OFFICER 3:
Oh, good girl, Lucy.
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Oh, good girl, Lucy. POLICE OFFICER 2:
Good girl, Lucy. -Man, don't yell at
your dog like that.
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-In this case, the bark was
definitely worse than the bite, as Rover rolled over
and fetched his master
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right to the big dog house. Sergeant Roy
Huntington of San Diego tells the story of a guy who
had his own interpretation
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of the law. SERGEANT ROY HUNTINGTON: I had a
guy stopped a couple years ago. And right away, he
put his hands up.
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He said, "Oh wait, man!" He said, "Uh, I heard that if
I, if I volunteer to give you
00:04:25
my dope, then you
can't arrest me." DANIEL BUTLER: The guy
quickly reached into his glove
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compartment and produced a
hefty supply of narcotics and handed it right
over to the officer.
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-He came out with some bindles
of uh, crystal methamphetamine. And I said, "Wow!
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That's really good of you. Well look, I have to
get your name and stuff. Do you mind?"
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He said, "Hey, no problem! Nope. Uh, cooperation is
my middle name." DANIEL BUTLER: The officer asked
the guy to step out of the car
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to answer just a
few more questions. SERGEANT ROY HUNTINGTON:
So I grabbed his hands
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and I put handcuffs on. He said, "Oh man!" He said, "What are you doing?" I said, "Well, I'm
arresting you for possession
00:04:56
of crystal methamphetamine." And he said, "Man, you
told me you wouldn't!" And I said, "Well, I kinda
lied to you, didn't I?"
00:05:02
And he said-- and
this was a great one. He said, "Aw man, you can't
even trust the cops anymore."
00:05:07
MEN: [laughing] -Sometimes burglars will go into
a store before the job to case the joint, get an idea of what
the layout of the place is,
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what they hope to steal. In this case, the
dumb criminal was good enough to put
his name on the items.
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Take a look. One day, the suspect came
in and admired some jewelry in this Las Vegas store and
put them away on layaway.
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A short while later, he
returned and when no one but the video
camera was looking,
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he stole the merchandise,
deciding that take away was better than layaway any day.
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Of course, the man's name and
address, plus the videotape, helped solve this
case in no time.
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As a reward, the criminal was
presented with some jewelry on loan from the
police department.
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Shiny new bracelets. -Go back to the couch
and assume the position. -You're gonna have a baby!
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-I, it's-- -Or your wife. -Not me, yeah. -That would make news. -Hi, I'm Daniel
Butler and this is
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the other white
meat, Beaumont Bacon. -Hey, hey, hey! -Blazing a crimson trail
across the dumb crime world,
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this gun toting goof made
a not so clean getaway after robbing a
convenience store.
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-No? -No. Moments prior to
committing his crime, he'd shot himself in the foot. -[laughs]
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-The police followed his bloody
trail right to his house. -He's just standing
there-- dance, dance!
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-Yeah! [laughs] -Pew, pew!
-To himself. He-- -To himself! -Yeah. -He had a shootout with himself.
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-Well, it was an easy target. -And then he robbed
the store after that? -After he shot
himself in the foot.
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We never said these
guys were smart. -Obviously. -Come on. -Well, like this girl.
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She was stopped for speeding and
it was a routine traffic stop. And this Lincolnshire,
Illinois officer really
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didn't look that closely
at her driver's license. However, he did
run a check on it
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and discovered that that
license was suspended. -Uh oh. -Now he approached the driver
who apologized and said
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that she had mistakenly
given the officer her friend's driver's license. -So this girl gives the
officer someone else's driver's
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license, but it's a
suspended license? -You are so quick. You are so quick.
-That's luck.
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-She was relieved
that she was not going to be arrested for driving
with a suspended license.
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However, she was given
a speeding ticket and was arrested for
obstructing a-- obstruc--
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how do you obstruct the police? -Well--
-You just block him! -You either get
caught in his throat
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or you're gonna stand
in front of him. --[laughs] We'll throw a little
maneuver on him and uh--
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-Yeah! -Unobstruct that police officer. -Yes, ma'am. -Her car was towed off to jail.
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And uh, she was off to
jail as well as her-- she was impounded. -They went together.
-They went together.
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-Good! -Car and woman together. Had she given the officer--
here's the thing-- if she'd
00:07:35
given the officer her driver's
license in the very first place, she probably would have
been sent on her merry way.
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-Yeah. Well, that's her first mistake. This Akron, Ohio
undercover detective was posing as a decoy
prostitute when she cooled--
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-[laughs] What? How do you decoy a pros--
it's like the duck? DANIEL BUTLER: Like a duck.
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Like a duck. She cooled more-- -I'm not real! -Than just the heels
of this curious John.
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A young man kept driving
around and would stop and just look at her when she walked
to the car and then take off.
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BEAUMONT BACON: She
looked familiar, I guess. -I guess. On his third trip
around the block
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though, the detective
looked inside the car and lo and behold, he
had his pants down
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and was airing out
the dirty laundry. BEAUMONT BACON: Woo! -And the family jewels.
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She was ready for him though. The next time he came around,
when she approached the car,
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she threw a large armful
of snow on his lap. -Brrr! DANIEL BUTLER: Yeah, frosty!
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-My, there's a
professional snow job! DANIEL BUTLER:
[laughs] Yeah, it was. -Well Daniel, on
that frosty note,
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it's time for our
Vidiot of the Week. From all the stories
we received this week--
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-A cornucopia of crime. -We had many. This is our favorite. This dimwit decided to wait
until the sun went down
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before he tried to rob a
Minnesota convenience store. -That's a good idea. Makes sense.
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-It is a good idea. Well, it would
have been actually, if he had waited until
the store was closed.
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And he was grabbing
things off shelves and he noticed that other
customers were watching
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him do-- wouldn't you think that
would be a weird thing if you go, hey, I'm robbing a place
that's supposed to be closed,
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but there's people here?
DANIEL BUTLER: Yeah, shopping. BEAUMONT BACON: Something's
wrong with this.
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Shopping! They have money. And he was obviously
caught a few minutes later. -Yeah.
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Fortunately for him,
the jail is always open. -It is! Just like a good
all night eatery.
00:09:09
-Says right there
under the sign. Jail, we never close. Our next story is
about a dumb criminal
00:09:16
who used his hands, his
feet, but not his head. A detective from
Lenoir, North Carolina
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was interrogating a suspect
about a string of burglaries that had occurred in the area.
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The man admitted to breaking
into three of the houses he was being questioned
about, but not
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to a business in
the downtown area. -We got fingerprints
on all locations. -[laughs]
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-Your fingerprints are these! Anybody else got
these hands but you? Your [inaudible] for them,
with your fingerprints!
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--[laughs] You don't
have my fingerprints! You don't have them! -What makes you think we
don't have your fingerprints?
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-I'll tell you why you
don't have my fingerprints. 'Cause when I did that job,
I had socks on my hands!
00:10:00
-He should have put
one in his mouth. Sleeping on the job is
not a crime in most cases.
00:10:09
However, this dumb criminal
was doing anything but sleeping on the job in
Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania.
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Officer Merle Favinger was
on patrol in an unmarked car one afternoon when he
noticed a rookie repairman
00:10:21
making an unscheduled
service call on a car in a
nearby parking lot. He just happened to know the guy
who owned this particular car
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and didn't recognize
this tuned out master. -Hey, come on out of there. DANIEL BUTLER: He
approached the car
00:10:33
and told the guy to come on out. But all he heard was
obviously fake snoring. When the deviated
deviant did come out,
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he said that he
didn't have any tools but had suddenly
felt tired and just decided to take a
nap under the car.
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-I was sleeping. POLICE OFFICER 4:
Get out from there. Any weapons on you? -No. -Needless to say, the
officer uncovered the tools
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and took the car napper
in for a little rest. Behind bars. For five years. -You have the right
to remain seated.
00:11:09
-How do you catch a
really dumb criminal if all you have is a name
and a vague description?
00:11:14
This officer let
us in on a trick she used on more
than one occasion. She caught the first suspect
in a felony assault case
00:11:20
and was close to
nabbing the second. She had a description
and a name, Joe Soap.
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Patrolling the streets
near the crime, she spotted a man in the
group who fit the profile.
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But was he Joe Soap? Only one way to find out. POLICE OFFICER 5: Are
you Charlie Brown?
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-No, I'm not Charlie Brown! My name is Joe Soap. POLICE OFFICER 5: All right. Hey, come here.
00:11:37
Go ahead and put your
hands on top of your head. -Out of the mouths of fools. The amazing thing
is that it was not
00:11:42
the first time this
trick had worked. Nor will it be the last. Thanks to the confused
criminal mind.
00:11:51
Some scientists theorize
that alcohol abuse causes irreversible nerve
cell degeneration.
00:11:57
We'll go one step further. We say drunks have
suds for brains. And here's the proof.
00:12:03
Arrested for brawling
in the neighborhood bar, this Drim, Utah, boozer
was quickly cuffed and put
00:12:07
in the back of a squad
car while officers ran off to pursue his
drinking companion.
00:12:12
However, our backseat bozo
decided to attempt a getaway by throwing himself
over the seat
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and into the front
of the cruiser. Unfortunately, his head
hit the gear shift, knocking the car into
drive and sending it
00:12:22
into a grove of bushes
a few feet away. The loser sobered up
a few hours later. Just in time to plead guilty
to 15 charges, including auto
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theft, reckless driving, DUI,
and stealing police property. Hey, there's a new
in hot spot where
00:12:40
all the dumb criminals
are having happy hour. The local jail! And just their luck,
justice is being
00:12:46
served on ice around the clock. When corrections officers
told a man that he would not
00:12:51
be able to start serving a
previously scheduled 48 hour jail sentence because his
paperwork hadn't arrived,
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the man became upset. -Are you sure it's today that
you're supposed to come in? -Of course!
00:13:01
Y'all, y'all been
hounding me to come in. I'm here-- -Have you been drinking? -'Course!
00:13:06
You think I'm gonna come
to this place sober? -Uh, hold on for one second. Hold on.
00:13:09
-Come on, let's get moving. -Hold on. Relax, all right. Hold on. -Right, right, right.
00:13:14
Come on. DANIEL BUTLER: So it turned
out that the jail was able to find room for
the man that night.
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Just for a different offense. -You ready to do your time, huh? -Yeah. -OK, let's make sure you
don't have any weapons on you.
00:13:25
Put your hands back here.
-Huh? What?
-Put your hands back here. -I'm here, I'm here.
00:13:28
-Spread your feet for me. -Problem is that
uh, you're not gonna be here for your 48 hours.
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You're gonna be here
for something else. -What? -Well, you're drunk. -And thus ended the case
of the heavy drinking,
00:13:38
light thinking prisoner. Cheers. Down the hatch. What's one of the dumbest things
a person can do while working?
00:13:50
Well, this brainless
burglar breaks into a store, looks around for a minute,
then grabs a magazine
00:13:54
and sits down to read it. Then he promptly falls asleep. Fortunately, the
silent alarm sent
00:14:00
a wake up call to the
police department. Now this ding-a-ling
has plenty of time
00:14:05
to catch up on 40 winks
while doing five to 10 years. You remember the tale
of Hansel and Gretel?
00:14:14
They left a trail of
breadcrumbs so they could find their way back home. Well, an officer tells us a
similar tale, with a twist.
00:14:21
-And all of a sudden, we
see this woman coming out and she looked very heavyset.
00:14:26
And she was going
towards the exit. And as she was going, almost
every step she you took,
00:14:30
there was something falling
out under her skirt. And it was shoplifting. And uh, what happened was,
the bag that she was putting
00:14:38
everything in under her
skirt had a big rip in it. So she's making this trail
going out of the place.
00:14:46
And here's a clerk
coming along pointing to her so the security
man would know. So it was going out just
about as fast as it went in.
00:14:52
And then there was
another clerk coming along picking up
everything that's dropping.
00:14:56
-The woman will
have plenty of time to think about what went wrong. A resident of an
apartment complex
00:15:04
called to report a
car theft in progress. Since the caller lived in the
complex next to the garage,
00:15:10
she was able to give
a good description of the suspect and his location. Upon arrival, the cops
found that the theft
00:15:16
was still in progress. The soused suspect was obviously
frustrated in his attempts
00:15:21
to open the driver's side door. But he did have on a nice cap. The cops were able to
apprehend the drunken man
00:15:27
and take him down
to the station. -How you doing, sir? DANIEL BUTLER: He claimed that
he was doing nothing wrong
00:15:31
and that the car he was trying
to get into was his own. It wasn't. -Drop your keys for me.
00:15:36
-Hey! -Just let's set your
keys down right there. -After contacting
the guy's wife,
00:15:40
the officers found
out that the man did live in the same complex. Only his car was
three garages away.
00:15:48
Same color, different model. He was charged with
public intoxication and grounded for one
night at the local jail
00:15:54
so he could sit and think
about what he had done. Going to court for your
own preliminary hearing
00:16:00
would certainly not be a
joy ride for most people. But one Virginia Beach car
thief was the jaw dropping
00:16:05
exception to that
particular role. Finished with court for
the day, the suspect tried to slip behind the
wheel of a shiny new car.
00:16:14
Unfortunately for the cocky car
thief, an officer on the scene had run the man's plates and
discovered that he had driven
00:16:19
a stolen car to his preliminary
hearing for car theft. -What are you doing
riding in a stolen car?
00:16:26
-What'd you want me to do? Take a bus to court? DANIEL BUTLER: So justice wasn't
taken for a joyride after all.
00:16:32
And the dumb criminal
went from behind the wheel to behind the bars in no time. Boy, dumb criminals
are a greedy bunch.
00:16:43
However, as you'll see on
this surveillance tape, this money grubber
was lucky to get away
00:16:47
with his empty
head in one piece. As you can see,
the frantic freak has gotten behind the counter
at this convenience store
00:16:54
and decides instead of
just taking the money, he'll take the whole cash
register home with him.
00:16:59
Unfortunately for
him, the machine was securely
fastened to the floor and wasn't going anywhere.
00:17:05
As the crook attempts to swing
the register over the counter, the cooperative clerk decides
to do some swinging of his own,
00:17:11
and grabs a baseball bat
from under the counter. [laughs] And quickly chases the
surprised suspect from the door
00:17:19
and to his waiting car. Although the police never
recommend that an employee take
00:17:24
action, this brave
slugger hit a home run and was able to send the
register wrestler to the county
00:17:30
dugout for the
rest of the season. He was later traded to a state
prison for two counterfeiters.
00:17:40
Thanks for watching. Join us next week as we continue
to highlight the lawfully challenged losers here on
"America's Dumbest Criminals."
00:17:48
NARRATOR: On the next episode of
"America's Dumbest Criminals--" -Put your hands up on
the top of your head!
00:17:53
NARRATOR: A girl and
her bottled up robber. A freaky fumigation burglar. A stoned stooge in
"Rocky Mountain High."
00:18:04
-Sir, have you been
drinking or smoking pot? --[coughs] There might
be some pot in the car.
00:18:09
NARRATOR: All this and
more on the next episode of "America's
Dumbest Criminals."
00:18:14
-Can we do another one?
MAN: Oh yes. Please. -All right. This is pretty routine and I
don't know what it is about it.
00:18:19
Uh, being out here,
especially at night time, there's something about
naked water skiing.
00:18:24
I don't know what it is. MAN: [laughs] -But people have to do it. And uh-- MAN: Is it against the law?
00:18:31
-Well, technically no. Uh, maybe public nudity,
but who really cares? But what they're
doing is that they're
00:18:35
skiing at night time,
which is illegal. Uh, and the speed limit
and some other things.
00:18:40
And it's just unsafe. But like we were saying earlier,
we only catch the stupid ones.
00:18:44
And a couple years ago
after the 4th of July, it was pretty quiet
out in Fiesta Bay
00:18:48
and I could very clearly
hear some yowling off in the distance. And, and we looked
over, we could just
00:18:54
see the wake of a
boat in the darkness. And they were coming our way. So we just kinda waited for
them to come to you, which
00:18:59
is the best kind,
kind of ticket. You don't have to
go chase them down. And so we see a boat go by
with a naked woman at the helm.
00:19:06
Small speed goat, boat. And she's howling and
laughing and she waves to us. And then we see
the water ski rope
00:19:12
and behind her is
a naked guy howling and screaming and laughing. And so I don't-- what do you do?
00:19:18
You know? I, it, it never ceases to amaze
me, even after almost 20 years. So we stopped them and they
of course, were both drunk
00:19:24
and they didn't know they
were doing anything wrong. But we informed
them that they were.
00:19:28
So [laughs] THEME SONG: Dumb, dumb, dumb. Dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb.