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-Tonight on "America's
Dumbest Criminals", is it possible to do the right
thing by making a wrong turn?
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Is there something just
a little too life-like about this department
store mannequin?
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And could this be a sign of
trouble for a sneaky criminal? For the answers to these
and other cliffhangers,
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stay very still for
the next 30 minutes and feel superior to
America's Dumbest Criminals.
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[music playing] Now, welcome your
hosts, for ADC, Daniel Butler and Debbie Allen.
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[applause] -We are so glad
to have you along. We've got some incredible
stories to tell you.
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-We do. We do. And one of them
involves a suspect who poses as a mannequin
to avoid capture.
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Now that sounds
easy enough, right? -Well, we've invited little
Alex Gilreath from our studio
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audience to give us her best
impression of a mannequin. Come on up, Alex. Hi, sweetie.
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-Right there. All right. You can pretend
to be a mannequin? Are you ready? OK. Pose.
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Oh wait, I forgot to ask
you, how old are you? -Six. -Ah. Mannequins don't talk.
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-Aw, Daniel, you are
not playing fair. -And you can't--
you can't laugh, even when somebody gets right
up in your face and goes,
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illlll-- like that. -He's being mean, isn't he? -Yeah. I should have been a
police investigator.
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How fast I can make them
crack, huh, under pressure. -Oh yeah, just as long as all
the suspects are six years old.
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So friend, during Daniel's
mannequin shenanigans, I'm going to give
you an ADC t-shirt.
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Look at this. It's big enough for you and
your two brothers to fit in. [applause]
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-Yeah, it's a nice shirt. Watch your step. There you go. -Aw, she's a doll. -And for those of you at home,
we've got our first story.
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It's about a man who
learns that you only have one chance to make
a first impression.
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Here's Caught on Camera. [music playing] -Some time ago, I was on patrol. And we noticed a car that was
going north on our major road,
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and it only had one head light
and no tail lamps at all. So with put on our video
camera and turned around
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to make what was a
routine traffic stop. We asked him for his
driver's license. And this subject gave us
a name and date of birth.
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And from that, we've got
a driver's license number. We felt we probably
had the correct name.
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And so we released this subject
after writing him a citation. We later found out that
the ticket went to warrant.
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And a card was sent to the
name that he had given us. And it turned out to be
this guy's relatives.
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After identifying the
subject, a warrant was obtained for forgery
of a government document.
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After several months, the same
officer and myself driving again are on the same stretch
of road about the same time.
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And the same guy comes
by with the same car, with the same head light
and tail lights again.
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And he gets out and give us
the same fictitious name. And which completely
different results.
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-I thought you looked familiar. -You don't remember me, do you? Well, I sure remember you.
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Instead of being stopped
for just a traffic offense, this subject committed a felony
by signing a traffic ticket
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with the fictitious
name, which is forgery. [applause] -Our next story also involves a
man who has an identity crisis.
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-Well, actually,
he just loses it. Well, sort of. Fortunately for the good folks
of the police force in Tinton
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Falls, New York, they
were able to restore order and order the guy
behind the bars.
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-He leaves us with
Something To Remember Me By. [music playing] -Several years ago,
I went to a call
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about a residential burglary. And going inside, looking
for prints and evidence,
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found in the second drawer,
which was subsequently closed by the suspect, I found a
McDonald's name tag inside.
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So I questioned the homeowner. Didn't know anybody that
worked at McDonald's. So therefore, I put it aside.
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I collected it as evidence. And several days later, after
calling the fleet of McDonald's
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in my local area and nobody knew
about the first or last name of that name tag that I found.
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So probably about
three days later, one of my traffic officers
made a motor vehicle stop.
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The subject had
no license on him. Of course, he does a
license check by name. And the name was the same
name I had on the ID tag.
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So I went over there. And upon questioning
the person, he denied that he ever
worked at McDonald's
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or a fast food restaurant. -Actually, I'm between
jobs at the moment. -Consensual search.
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In his vehicle in the trunk
was his McDonald's uniform, minus his name tag. He didn't go to work
for a couple days,
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because he was on the run
doing these burglaries. He never realized that
his name tag was missing.
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So at that point, he was placed
under arrest, brought in. And because of that
piece of evidence,
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didn't serve us any more fries
for the rest of the week. He was fried. [laughter]
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-You know, I wonder if he shared
a cell with the Hamburglar. -Stop. You're making me hungry.
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I'm sure he did. You've heard the phrase,
any port in a storm. Well, when police came
storming up behind a suspect,
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he definitely shouldn't have
dropped anchor where he did. -Ho, boy. Yeah, you can say that.
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A surveillance camera shows
that he picked a hideout that's known for harboring criminals.
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See what we mean. -There's a running joke in
the department about the guy that actually ran right to us.
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I was working third shift. I noticed three
vehicles which were southbound through the town.
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The middle vehicle tail
lights were completely out. It didn't have any tail
lights or any brake lights.
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The closer I got to the vehicle,
there was a Pontiac Grand Am white in color that
was in the rear.
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He continued to try to block it. At this point, I knew there was
something wrong with the Jeep.
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They didn't want me
to get near the Jeep. So I backed off. I activated my overhead lights.
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The Pontiac did exactly
what I thought it would do. He pulled over to allow
the other ones to continue.
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As soon as I got
him pulled over, i whipped around him and
then went after the Jeep.
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As soon as the Jeep realized
that I was coming after him, he began to run. The car was stolen,
or they'd been
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out burglarizing something. There was something
in that car that they didn't want me to get.
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They went through that
stop sign back here, and then they went in through
the Water Department here.
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He went through
the car wash, and I knew that there was
only two ways out there.
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And as hard as he
was going, he went right through one of the stalls. He realized he didn't
have anywhere to go
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and he hit that partition. I came in shortly after he
hit that and tried to get them
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on tape as they were
bailing out of the car. As he bailed and ran
across the street,
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Sergeant Conlan got behind him. And he got a little worried,
didn't know where he was at
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and just wanted to
dive into some doors. And come around the
corner, and then went right into our lobby
of the Police Department.
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The officer inside said he ran
in, started to say something, looked to his right.
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And at that time, we had all
of our photos on the wall. And then he just kind of dropped
slumped down to his knees.
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And we were pretty shocked
when dispatch came over and let us know that he had run
through our double doors
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and right under
the Police light. While we were taking
the guys to jail, the two were in the back ,
the passenger was back there,
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telling him he couldn't believe
he'd ran through the front doors of the Police Department,
that big red and white sign
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that said Police
right over top of his head when he went through. And they were laughing.
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It was pretty funny. [laughter] -In Utah, you can
marry your cousin after you reach the age of 50.
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-Our next story is about
members of a family. It's about alleged
dismemberment. And it's about a guy
who can't remember
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to keep his story straight. Guaranteed to be
more goofy than gory, it's a member of the
elite set of fabrications
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we call America's
Dumbest Excuses. [music playing] -Being a burglary
detective, I investigate
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different burglaries. I had a residential
burglary to a lady's house, where I had some
prints of the suspect.
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I asked the suspect to
come down, and he did. And the first question I asked
him, would you lie to me?
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He said, no man, I never lie. I said, well, tell me something. Did you break into
a lady's house?
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No. I said, well, how would
your prints be in her house? Well, by somebody must
have used my hand.
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I asked him, have
your fingers ever been disattached from your hand? He said, no.
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I says, have your hand ever
been disattached from your body? He said, no. Well, so your fingers and
your hand and your arm
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are all attached to your body. And in 30 years, they've
never been disattached. No.
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Well, how do you explain
your prints being there? And he said, my cousin just
used my prints just last week.
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-A coat hanger is
a modern miracle. I mean, you can use one to
unlock a car door or hook
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something just
beyond your reach. You can even use one
to hang your coat. But we've never seen anything
like the precision bumbling
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exhibited by this reject from
the Mission Impossible forces. He's earned a starring role in
tonight's Blue Light Special.
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[music playing] -About a year ago or so, I
received a call of a theft that had occurred at a
local gas station.
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The store owner was
kind of upset, he said, but he had everything
on surveillance tape.
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So he popped in the tape. And immediately,
I knew who it was. -At the very beginning, he was
kind of casing the place out.
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He had already had his coat
hanger sitting by the window. So you can see him reaching
down to pick it up,
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when the coast was clear. The only way he could get
into it was through the slot
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at the base of the window,
where the money's exchanged when people come
in to buy gasoline.
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And then he started
going fishing, try and reach in
and grab cigarettes, lottery tickets,
things like that.
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-Suddenly, he
realized that there was a camera about six
inches in front of his face.
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He was unsuccessful in getting
the items he was after. But on the first attempt, he
was able to take the coat hanger
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and yank the camera down. -But it was too late. We had already
caught him on film.
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-Everyone watched it, and they
found it hilarious immediately. So later that day, we looked,
naturally, for Donnie,
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because he's usually
not that hard to find. However, we didn't find him. Later on that evening, after
getting home from work,
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there was some noise
going on outside. So as I got up to
check, to my surprise, there's the guy who was on
the tape, totally unplanned.
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It's not like he
was hanging out. He just happened to walk by. I ran. I grabbed my gear,
grabbed my handcuffs.
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And I went out, went
outside and then I arrested him at that point. The expression on his face was
sort of like, oh [expletive].
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That's pretty much it. [applause] -Oh, my I think is what he said. OK, here's the mannequin
story we alluded to earlier.
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It involves a suspect
desperate to elude police by posing as a
department store dummy.
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But this crook is a
living, breathing example of why it's not wise
to run from the law.
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-The break-in is at a boutique. This store is located
on Queen Street. And when they walk in,
there's the mannequins
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with their wigs and all that on. The officers
searched the building and don't find anybody.
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And the officers inside
find the extreme urge to use the restroom. So they proceed to
use the restroom.
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When the store owner gets
there, the owner comes in, they start showing him around.
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And the owner looks
over in the corner. He says, well, who is that? And one of our officers says,
well, that's a mannequin.
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And they pull their guns,
and the arrest the guy for breaking and entering. He's a cross dresser.
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He was dressed in his wig. He looks purty when
he's dressed up. They bring him to the station.
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He's interviewed by one
of our investigators. And he tells our
investigator, he says,
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I'm saw them using the bathroom. I just didn't want
to disturb them. [applause] -And now, for the guy
who scrapes up the crumbs
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from the CNN banquet table. Here's Danny, with
the ADC headlines. [applause] -Thank you, I think.
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A man wanted to ride shot
gun with the Akron Police. But his plans went awry. He requested permission to
participate in the Department's
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ride along program, but was
unaware of the mandatory policy of conducting background checks.
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Oops. The man was not, shall we say,
on good terms with the law, due to previous problems.
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So instead of riding
in the front seat, officers requested
he ride in the back. And wear handcuffs.
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Go figure. A man charged with
drug possession told a judge that he had
been illegally searched.
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The officer countered that there
was a bulge in the defendant's jacket that could have
been a gun, which gave him
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the right to check the garment. Indignant, the defendant
handed it over to his honor
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for inspection. You guessed it, the judge
found a packet of cocaine in the pocket.
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He was found guilty of
stupidity in the first degree. Most people don't
suffer consequences
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for calling a wrong number. But most people aren't this
nurse in Massachusetts. He mistakenly paged
an undercover state
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trooper, who returned the call. The nurse then asked
the officer if he would like to buy more morphine.
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OK, the quick thinking
trooper set up a buy and Mr. Morphine discovered
that stealing and selling drugs
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can become a real pain. And that closes the
file on ADC headlines, news ripped from
somewhere near the back
00:14:12
of your local newspaper. Debbie? [applause] -Ralph Waldo Emerson said
that if a man makes a better
00:14:18
mousetrap that the world
would beat a path to his door. Well, our next story involves
some of those elements.
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There's a door that leads
to a art who gets trapped. It's tonight's Special Delivery.
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[music playing] -Last October, I was
just getting finished talking with some silent witness
people in reference to a tip.
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I left their business,
pulled up to a stop light, look over to the
side and see this guy
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sitting on the
traffic control box. I was wondering
what he was up to. He jumps off this
traffic control box,
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runs over to my car and grabs
the back handle to my car. I think, this isn't too good.
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I thought he was
going to try and car jack me and steal my car. Just about that time, I
opened the front door,
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as his hand's coming around
to the front door of my car. And I meet him with
my service weapon.
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What are you doing to my car? -What, I'm not doing anything. -You're trying to
get into my car.
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You were just trying
to get into my car. -I'm not doing anything. -Go ahead and turn around.
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At that point, took
him into custody. I'll give you a ride in the car. Come on. And found some methamphetamine
and some drug paraphernalia.
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Nobody touches my car. [applause] -OK. Because of the delicate subject
matter of the next story,
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I'll use game show
titles to describe what you're about to see. There's a guy who's looking
for a love connection.
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He was playing a
dating game of sorts, but when he said,
let's make a deal and agreed the price is right,
he found himself in jeopardy.
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Whether he's hormonally
driven or just showed no concentration, you'll have
to agree that the joker's wild.
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Let's see what
lovely parting gifts we have for our next contestant. -Working in a
prostitution sting,
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I was a prostitute and
looking for johns, basically, on the street corner. And there's a gentleman
drive by in a white car.
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And he'd driven by
me several times and came around the block. And we can't ask
them what they want.
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They have to tell us what they
want, what kind of services they want me to render to him.
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So he proceeded to
tell me what he wanted. And I said, meet
me down the corner. Go around the corner right over
there and I'm be right there.
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I'll be there in a second. And that's where our
other undercover people take him down.
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-Hey, baby, after
all this is over, you still want to
go out for a drink? -Keep moving.
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-Oh, no, I mean a real date. -Even after her was
arrest for prostitution, he still was trying
to hit on me,
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at least for a date afterward. [applause] -In Richmond, Virginia,
it's illegal to flip a coin
00:16:44
in a restaurant to determine
who pays for a coffee. -I was working security in
one of our district courts.
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Part of the procedures for
everyone entering in a court is all their belongings
have to be searched
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and have to pass through
a metal detector. A female came into
the court and was asked to empty all of the
belonging in her purse.
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We started taking out
all of her belongings, she produced two
bags of marijuana.
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When it was called
to her attention, she was placed under
arrest, she had claimed
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that she had found the
items in the parking lot of the convenience store
and didn't know what they were,
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and decided to pick them up
and put them in her purse. Upon further searching
her, we found two more bags
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of marijuana, some illegal
prescription medicine, and two burnt
marijuana cigarettes.
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She was then
arrested and brought to the station for
booking procedures. It just goes to show you
what drugs will do to you.
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This is your brain. [applause] -Trying to fit a square peg
into a round hole is a bad plan.
00:17:42
But we learned of a high caliber
plan with a huge potential to backfire. -Now again, here's the
story of a rocket scientist
00:17:48
who will definitely not win
a Nobel Prize for physics. Everybody better duck,
we're loaded and locked
00:17:55
for this week's report of
We're Not Making This Up. [music playing] -I was working in
an area that's part
00:18:04
Washoe County and part Reno. And I get flagged
down by this guy. And he looked kind
of like a transient.
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His hand is wrapped
up in a towel. He's obviously bleeding. So I stop, and he
doesn't speak English.
00:18:19
So I ask him what happened. And takes the towel off and
his hand's really mangled up.
00:18:24
And he takes his fingers
and does like this. And I asked him if
he had been shot.
00:18:31
And he kind of shook
his head that he had. Later on, I find out through an
interpreter he had burglarized
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some homes and had taken this
pistol and a handful of ammo. And he went back to his
little transient camp
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and he had nine millimeter
bullets and a 38 pistol. So he decided to
put them in anyway.
00:18:49
And he put them
in and then began hammering them, holding
the gun in his hand, was hammering the two
bullets in with his knife.
00:18:57
And they went off and
shot himself in the hand. [bang!] And he was pretty messed up.
00:19:03
He'd just been living up
there and burglarizing houses. He told them that he was
going to take this pistol
00:19:08
and start doing
some robberies so he could make some real money. But instead, he
just got to go home.
00:19:13
[applause] -Looks like we'd better
take this opportunity to go out with a bang. -But never fear,
we haven't run out
00:19:19
of strange stories of
the morally challenged. So we'll be back next week. -In the meantime, you can always
visit our website for more
00:19:25
state-of-the-art stupidity,
at www.dumbcrimes.com. -And if you've got a
story to pass along,
00:19:33
you can send us an email
through the website. Or write us at this address,
America's Dumbest Criminals,
00:19:38
3201 Dickerson Pike,
Nashville, Tennessee 37207. -And thanks to the wonderful
officers who helped us tonight.
00:19:45
They're representative of
the kind of good people who keep us safe
from the bad guys.
00:19:50
-And thanks to you
for joining us. -As always, we
hope that we've all learned from others' mistakes.
00:19:54
-But if you haven't, we just
might see you next week, on "America's
Dumbest Criminals".
00:19:59
-Good-bye.