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[music playing] [police radio chatter] [music playing] ANNOUNCER: Now, welcome your
hosts for "America's Dumbest
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Criminals," Daniel
Butler and Debbie Alan. -Thank you. Welcome once again to "America's
Dumbest Criminals," where
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we make the strangest things
appear before your very eyes. -But before we get
to our first story,
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the great Hou-Danny
has a trick to perform. Go ahead, Danny.
-Thank you very much.
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Normal cigarette. If you notice,
that's a cigarette. OK? All right. Place the cigarette
in my hand like this.
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You see the cigarette? See the cigarette Debbie?
-I see, I see. -There is a cigarette.
All right, watch the cigarette.
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Very closely. OK. OK. -I am not impressed. -Where's the cigarette? Look, a rat. And there it is.
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These people over here-- -And now for your
next trick, can you make yourself disappear?
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-Plbbbt. OK, no. Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey. I was going to s-- -Better than you worked
on that cigarette.
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-I was going to saw
you in half, but it looks like somebody
already beat me to it.
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-[laughing] Oh. Belittling me again. -No, no, no. I'm just noting the
obvious Debbie, come on.
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-Well, enough of
your hocus pocus. We're going to go on to our
first story, which finds
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a fellow whose sense of
judgment seems to have gone up into a puff of smoke, and
he's caught on camera.
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-I was contacted by the Mark
police department concerning a subject that they
were in the process
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of paying a mental
health warrant on. As we followed this
subject around, he pulled into a
local restaurant
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here that does serve alcohol. While at the restaurant, I began
sobriety tests, because it was
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obvious the subject
was on something. Uh, I asked him if there
was any pot in the car,
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and he said, sure, up there
above the right visor. As the officer began to
enter the inside of the car
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to look for the pot that
the guy told us was there, the guy told us, said,
well, I lied, at which time
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the other officer went and
looked in the right visor, and sure enough, there was pot.
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This time the
subject was arrested on the mental health warrant. We later obtained warrants
for possession of marijuana
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and felony warrants
for possession of a firearm on a
licensed premises. -You know, ever since people
have memorized those three
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little numbers, 9-1-1, thousands
of lives have been saved. -Unfortunately, people sometimes
misuse that emergency system
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for situations that really
aren't life or death. -Yeah. And in our next story,
a fellow on the run
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discovers it's really
the wrong number to call. Let's dial up
tonight's installment
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of something to remember me by. -We received a call one evening,
where somebody had called up
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on 911 because they
didn't put a-- want to put a quarter
in the pay phone. So when he called up, he
inquired whether he had
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any outstanding warrants on
him, and come to find out, he had two outstanding warrants.
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So we had the dispatcher
stay on the phone with him. We sent a patrol
unit over and-- which
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handcuffed and arrested him. He might have
saved $0.25, but it might have cost him 25
years, you never know.
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-You never know. DANIEL BUTLER: You never know. -The term is pawnbroker. But the three young
guys are the ones
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doing some breaking in
what you're about to see. -All right. Let's watch to see how
they bruise their egos
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and hock their reputations. -Uh, basically, there
was these three guys. They were riding
around in a car.
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It belonged to one of
the guys in the car, the actual-- the driver. And he had no
registration on the car.
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Had no tags on the car. The-- he goes up to his
friend's house, which was with them in the
car, takes the tags
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off his deceased father's
car, puts them on his car. And he didn't secure
them very tightly.
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And they were riding
around, drinking some beer, and they wanted
to do a break-in.
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The score was going
to be a pawn shop. They wanted to do a pawn shop. So they parked their car nearby.
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They walk over, they
go to the pawn shop. Check it out, make
sure everything's OK.
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Then they get in the car and
they go back to the pawn shop, drive across the grass,
and they ran the car
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into the side of the
building, knocking a hole where the door was. They knocked the doorway out,
and in the midst of the driving
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in the window, or driving in the
door, the tags in the vehicle falls off, lays on the ground,
they go in, load up with guns
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and-- and watches. Got back in their car, left
the scene before we arrived. The tag's still
laying on the ground,
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right by the door where
the break-in was at. Things were not really
doing well for them
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during this break-in. They broke down on the way
home and had to leave on foot. We ran the tag, got the
address, went over to the house
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and arrested the suspects. NARRATOR: In
Waterbury, Connecticut, it is illegal for a beautician
to hum, whistle or sing
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while working on a customer. -We hear a lot of dumb
excuses from talking to police officers all
over the United States.
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Now occasionally, we hear
one that just goes stranger with each word from
the suspect's mouth.
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And such is the case with this
story from Gilbert, Arizona. Here's another one
for the record books
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of America's dumbest excuses. -When you're working the night
shift, a lot of the times
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you're looking
for drunk drivers. And on-- on this
particular night, that's what I was in fact doing.
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And I observed the car
that was driving along and began to drift towards
the right side of the road.
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And I saw that there was a
car parked on the right side of the road, and this vehicle
almost struck the parked car,
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swerved just before
she got to it. I caught up and closed in
on the car, and thought,
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well maybe she just
had a-- a lapse. And well, I'd just
follow and see. About a block down
the road, there
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was another parked vehicle,
and just before she got to it, she almost struck it.
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I stopped the car, walked up
and asked for the driver's license, insurance,
and registration.
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As the woman looked
for the paperwork, I asked her-- I advised her
that I had stopped her because I
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thought maybe she
was intoxicated. I asked her what was wrong. And she said, well,
I'm legally blind.
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I said, OK. How is it that you can drive? She said, well normally I
drive during the daytime
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when I can get right on
the back of another car, and just-- because I
can see things up close,
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I'll stay on the
back of another car until I get where I'm going. I said, well, I understand.
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Um, I'm still going to need
to see your driver's license. She said, no, I can't
get a driver's license.
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I'm legally blind. -Now, although we look on
the lighter side of things on "America's
Dumbest Criminals,"
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there's no question that police
work is serious business. Things could have gone very
wrong in this next story.
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But fortunately, the good guys
definitely win in the end. A story of a suspect with
questionable judgment
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makes tonight's
blue light special. NARRATOR: It all begins
with a familiar question.
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And over the course of
the next 25 minutes, there will be many
more questions. Like, why were you doing 78
when the speed limit is 65?
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Why don't you know the
person who owns this car? Who played Uncle Charlie
in "My Three Sons"?
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There are questions
like, why does my drug dog go nuts when I
approach your car?
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Is there anything you'd
like to tell me about? What was the capital of
the Byzantine Empire?
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And, why is the right
side of your car sagging? Why do they call
your friend Tiny?
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What restaurant has the
best all you can eat buffet? And who can forget these gems.
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Do you realize I
haven't said you can go? Do you see this
pistol in my hand? How far do you
think you're going
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to get if I blow out your tires? And here's one for
the math lovers. If a suspect leaves a scene,
traveling at 30 miles an hour,
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and 15 seconds later a patrolman
comes after him travelling at 70 miles an hour,
how long will it take
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the officer to
overtake the suspect? [buzzer sound] Time's up. Questions are
getting less amusing.
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Haven't I seen you
somewhere before? Do you enjoy trying my patience? Did you know it's
safer to lie down
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in the emergency lane
than the freeway? And now these final questions,
have you met my associates?
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Do you mind if
they handcuff you? -OK. No more questions. Here's the magical story
we hinted about earlier.
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We find an officer with
something up his sleeve, and a suspect primed with
pure grain gullibility.
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Presto change-o, we're off
to Glenn County, Georgia. -When I was a deputy in
New York State years ago,
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I had a fellow I had to book on
DWI, Driving While Intoxicated. And he was adamant
that he wasn't drunk.
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Stated it, even though with
slurred speech, everything else he had. He just said, he wasn't drunk.
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And there was nothing that I
could say would convince him. Well I took him down
to the booking room.
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And this guy was beginning
to become obnoxious. So I told him, I said, I'll
tell you what I'm going to do.
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I'm going to give you
a field sobriety test. If you pass it, you
get turned loose.
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But if you fail
it, you get booked. Deal? He said, yeah, I'll be fine. So I took my little handkerchief
out, like this, and I said, OK.
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I want to watch. What color is the handkerchief? He said black. I said, all right.
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Watch. What color is the handkerchief? Watch. He said, black. And I said this two
or three more times,
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as I tucked it into
my hand like this. And finally, I said, OK. Now for the test.
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What color was my handkerchief? He said, black. I said, nope, didn't have one. He said, on no, don't
book me, I'm drunk.
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-And now for a man who
boldly goes where no self respecting newsman
would ever go.
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Here's Daniel with
ADC headlines. -Two women broke into a home in
Harkers Island, North Carolina,
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and stole a cat from its owners. The cat nappers then
called its owners and demanded they cough
up $18,000 in ransom.
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It just wasn't a $20,000 cat. But the owners
got their backs up when they recognized the
voice of the callers.
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It's Tammy, honey. And soon, police officers
had the feline felons in their claws.
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Go figure. Officers in Richmond
were tracking a deadbeat dad, when
they approached a home.
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The lady who answered
the door said that she knew nothing
about the man. But when police
talked to a neighbor,
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they quickly realized that
the woman had plenty to hide, including the fact that
she was, in fact, the man
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they were seeking, and
routinely dressed up in order to avoid paying $40,000
in child support.
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It might have been wise
to ditch the disguise before he landed in jail. Know what I mean?
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Perhaps you've heard
the expression, dumber than a door knob. Well, it turns out that you
couldn't find a more fitting
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description for a New York thief
who pilfered antique doorknobs and door plates and door
knockers from more than 100
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homes, which he then
sold for drug money. But police got a handle
on his modus operandi,
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and put his favorite target
area under surveillance. They closed both the case and
the cell door right behind him.
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And that closes the
file on ADC headlines. News ripped from
somewhere near the back
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of your local newspaper. Debbie? -All across the nation,
thousands of people participate in neighborhood
watch programs.
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It's a friendly way to make
things safer for everybody. Except when one man
noticed some funny business
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going on next door. Now, he had no idea that
reporting the trouble would really hit home.
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Here's our special delivery. -I received a call. A man reported that his
neighbor was throwing
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a bunch of stuff over
the fence into his yard. -Was it a lot of stuff
or just a little stuff?
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-There was a lot of stuff. There was clothes, and a phone,
and a briefcase, so this man
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and I are in the back yard,
looking at the stuff, when out of the back door of the
neighbor's house walks a woman.
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-And she's related to who? -She's apparently related to
the person I'm speaking with.
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-So-- so this is
his wife, right? -Yeah. He whispers to me that he hasn't
seen her in about four hours,
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and he had no idea
where she was. -And he's got to be
thrilled at this point. -He's a little embarrassed.
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So I asked her,
you know, why she was in the neighbor's house. And she said, they
were on vacation,
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and she was supposed
to go in and clean. -And of course she wasn't
intoxicated, or medicated,
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and very intelligent. -Well, she had taken a few
too many Xanax, I believe. Maybe-- maybe a
little too much vodka.
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But uh, she said that Rosa,
who was the woman next door, had given her a list
of things to do.
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I asked her for the
list, and uh, she said-- -And let me guess. It was thrown out and
it was in Spanish.
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--[chuckling] Boy,
you're pretty smart. Yeah, she said that
it was in Spanish, and that she had thrown it out.
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What I told her to do
is lock up the house, get out of the
house, and go home. And if I receive a
call from the neighbors
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later on in the day telling
me that their house was broken into, I'm going to come
back and lock her up.
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Less than two hours
later, I got a call. The neighbors called
and said their house
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had been broken into. They're missing
clothing and jewelry-- -And a briefcase and a phone.
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- --and a briefcase and a phone. And I went next door
and locked up the woman. -Who had not left
the house, right?
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She's still there waiting. -She was still there
waiting for me. -I just hope that my future wife
doesn't do anything like that.
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-Well, I guess the life
you save could be your own. But nothing could save a
dope from sealing his fate.
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It was his destiny,
as well as density. He had every opportunity
to avoid getting caught,
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but plowed ahead
like the Titanic encountering that iceberg. All right. Watch with me and see if you
don't get a sinking feeling.
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-Three gentleman came
into the courthouse. As they approached my
desk at the front scanner,
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I took them one at a
time, and they lined up. The first young man, I asked
him to empty his pockets,
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walk through metal detector. He came through fine. The second young man I advised
to him, empty out your pockets.
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Walk through the metal detector. He did so and was fine. The third young man stood there
and waited patiently in line.
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And when it was
his turn, I noticed that he had on a fanny pack. So I advised him, sir, put your
fanny pack on the desk for me.
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Make sure all your
pockets are empty, and walk through
the metal detector. And I began to search
the fanny pack.
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And in the middle
compartment, I saw stack of bills standing on end. And my fingers touched plastic.
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When I started to
pull the plastic up, out came a Ziploc
sandwich bag that was half full of marijuana,
and half a bag of cocaine,
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and 21 $20 bills. And I looked up at
him, and I said, is this what I think it is?
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And he said, yes Ma'am. Front scanner to CH-1. I need you and two
male deputies to assist
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at the front scanner asap. I said, the very fact that
you stood there in line and waited your turn with
all this junk on you,
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when you could have
walked right out the door, you were not under arrest,
but because you had,
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by your own admission,
did a line before you came into the courthouse, it
didn't even occur to you.
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I said, this is the
most graphic example I can think of of how it
burns your brain cells up.
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-We had a burglar
who was working the upper class neighborhoods. He was looking for Hummels
and antiques and collectibles
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and so forth. We couldn't figure
out at first how he was doing the burglaries. Finally it dawned on us that he
was following the society page.
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He would look for
obituaries, he would look for clubs installing
officers, and so forth.
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The next death we had in the
city of a prominent individual, we asked the family if we
could sit in the house,
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and they agreed. The second night we were
there we heard a noise. We kept hearing a pry on
the-- first on the window
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and then on the door. As the subject came
into the house, my partner and I didn't
know where to go.
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It was a very, very small
house, and my partner's 6' 5", and weighs about--
over 300 pounds.
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-John sat in the
chair, and I stood behind him, behind
this curio cabinet. The one guy was looking at us,
and he couldn't see real well
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in the dark, and he came
almost face to face with us. -He got closer and
closer to me until he
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was oh, about this close. I turned on the flash light,
he screams, turns, runs. -One guy fell to the floor,
and the other gentleman
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ran right across his
back and made it outside. -My partner and I managed to
scramble over and grab the one
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on the floor as the responding
units, who had the perimeter secured, grab up this guy
who runs out the door.
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-We went to court. I was on the stand. He had fired his attorneys
and was representing himself.
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-He's questioning my partner,
and he asked him, officer, you were in the house the
night I broke in, correct?
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And my partner said, yes. And then his next question is,
well, what did I look like?
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And my partner says-- -Same thing you do now. The same heighth, the same
weight, the whole bit.
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-OK. There's an old line
that goes, what good does it do for dogs
to chase a car?
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I mean, what would they do
with it if they catch it? Well, we have the criminal
equivalent of that thinking.
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-It involves a thief
who found an item completely irresistible. And the officer who found
him totally arrestable.
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[chuckles] Honest folks,
we're not making this up. -We were out patrolling,
and I had one of my guys
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over here assisting
with the crowd, the local club just
let out, and it was a large crowd in the street.
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And I was driving
by, and what happened is I saw a subject
on the front side. So I went up on the side
to see what he was doing,
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and it appears he was
breaking into our police unit. When I pulled over, he saw me,
and he jumped out of the car,
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and he more or less
just looked at me, put his hands up and played
like he was arrested.
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And at that point, I just
waited to pull the wires from underneath his
shirt, and it appeared
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that he stole our radar
unit out of our car. At that point, I said, you silly
goose, you're under arrest.
00:19:27
and that's all we
have time for for now. But if you've got
a lead on a story, or you just can't wait until
next week for more state
00:19:34
of the art stupidity, visit our
website at www.dumbcrimes.com. -You putting magic
tricks on there too?
00:19:40
As we've seen
tonight, the people who work in law enforcement have
a tough and sometimes dangerous
00:19:45
job. We want to extend our
gratitude to the officers who made tonight's
show possible.
00:19:49
-And express our appreciation
for the work they and their coworkers
do every day.
00:19:53
It's an important
job, and they don't often get the
credit they deserve. -As always, we
hope that we've all
00:19:58
learned from others' mistakes. -But if you haven't, we
just might see you next week
00:20:02
on "America's
Dumbest Criminals." -Good night. [music playing] [music playing]