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[music playing] ANNOUNCER: Tonight on "America's
Dumbest Criminals," what do you say to a
gentleman caller who
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brings dynamite
instead of flowers? Why is this suspect conducting
his own strip search?
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We'll reveal all the details. And what are today's
drunk drivers doing to keep themselves
physically fit?
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Pull up a chair and take five. Make that 30, because
it's time again for "America's
Dumbest Criminals."
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[police radio chatter] [music playing] Now, welcome your hosts for ADC,
Daniel Butler and Debbie Alan.
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-Thank you, Debbie. Have you got a light? -Whoa, that's not what
I think it is, is it?
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-Fake dynamite, absolutely. No, I bought it at the fake
dynamite store at the mall.
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Those specialty stores are
getting so specialized now, aren't they? DEBBIE ALAN: All right.
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Where did you really get it? -No, well, actually it's
on loan from the Sheriff's
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department in
Bentonville, Arkansas. -And why would they
need fake dynamite? -Well, it's practice drills for
their fake bomb squad, I guess.
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Now, do you know, if
this was the real thing, it would be enough dynamite
to blow up a house?
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A big house. And you know, there's
almost enough dynamite here to reactivate
Jimmy Walker's career.
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Huh? Remember? Dy-no-mite! -I get it, but that was a dud. So, let's move along, OK?
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You think all sweet
little grandmas just knit and bake cookies? Well, think again.
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Prepare for the
myth to be shattered with this mind numbing
first person account.
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The grandmother who runs this
stand in North Bay Village, Florida, thought the
young man who approached
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her was looking for
vegetables, not trouble. But she quickly
learned otherwise. -And he had a baseball
bat in his hand.
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And I figured, well, he was
just playing baseball somewhere. So, he says, no, I
don't want strawberries,
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he said, I want your cash
register and the money, and I want the keys to that car.
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DEBBIE ALAN: But this
lady knew her produce. Realizing her gun
was out of reach,
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she grabbed the nearest
weapon available. A two foot zucchini. -I bent down and I
picked up a zucchini,
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and I hit him on the head. And he went down. DEBBIE ALAN: The man had
definitely met his match.
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-I went down like this, and
I picked up the zucchini, and I hit him over
the head like that.
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And that's when he went down. But of course I broke this
one, you know, when I hit him.
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DEBBIE ALAN: That's right. She pummeled him
with the business end of a two foot vegetable.
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High in vitamin C and potassium. You wouldn't think of
her hurting anybody, because she has such
a loving personality.
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-People are joking about it,
and I'm joking about it now, but it wasn't
funny then, really.
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DEBBIE ALAN: The man
fled, but the experience made grandma grateful and wiser. -This is the zucchini that I'm
going to keep as a souvenir.
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I think I'll wax it. You know, so that I can remember
that a zucchini does come in
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handy for something
if it happens. So ladies, carry a zucchini
with you. [laughing]
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DEBBIE ALAN: Kinda brings
a whole new meaning to the phrase "garden
glove" doesn't it?
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-You know the expression,
the buck stops here? Officers had every reason to
suspect that a buck had been
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stopped, based on the deer
remains found in a garbage bag. -And that's where
our story starts.
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But it takes some real
digging before law enforcement officers can bag their suspect.
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Oh, but they do, and that's what
makes it tonight's installment of something to remember me by.
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-One day last summer, I was
patrolling a stretch of river, and found an area
where somebody had
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dumped several bags of trash. Along with the trash,
there were several deer parts included, where somebody
had obviously butchered a deer.
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As I commonly do to try to
figure out who had dumped the trash, I dug
through the trash
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to try to find receipts and
names, or any type of evidence. While doing that, I
found three or four names
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that came from the same address,
which was just up the road. Another piece of evidence
that I located there
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was that all the trash
bags had City of Bryant written on them in
big orange letters.
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I went to the address up the
road, knocked on the door, and a person came to the door.
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And I explained to him that I
had found several trash bags that appear to belong to him
dumped down by the river.
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He explained to me that he
did not ever litter or dump his trash anywhere it
wasn't supposed to be,
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and it was impossible
that it was his trash. I continued my
investigation, told him
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that I had discovered
pieces of mail and receipts that had his name on it, and
I believed it was his trash.
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And I'd also found
deer parts, which would turn into another case,
and make it more illegal.
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He kept on pleading his
case and explained to me that it was impossible that it
was his trash, because he kept
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all of his trash back
up behind his house. We walked around the
side of his house,
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and stacked up 10 or
12 feet along the back this house were several trash
bags that had City of Bryant
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written on the bags,
exactly like the ones down by the river. -Did you ever think about this?
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If it weren't for
some real goofballs, people of average
intelligence would be a little less
average, you know?
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-We found a guy who
must anchor the bottom, at least when he's
been drinking. -Well, here's another
round of surveillance video
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you just won't believe. -Some time ago, I
was following a guy that I had suspected
of being intoxicated.
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I noticed that he's pulled
in a convenience store and raised his hood to
go inside the store,
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like he's working on his car. And after he came back out,
I started my sobriety test.
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He was not
cooperating very much. In trying to get him to do the
sobriety test-- one of them
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is walking an imaginary line. This guy jumped up
on the curb, and run along the edge of the curb.
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Then he came back, climbed up
on the top of the station wagon, which had the hood
open, and jumped
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from the top of
the station wagon to the open hood of the car. He says, have you ever seen
a drunk do that before?
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And I said no, never have. ANNOUNCER: In
Florida, men may not be seen publicly in any
kind of strapless gown.
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--[chuckling] Now
I know why RuPaul doesn't vacation in Miami. Adlai Stevenson said, a lie is
an abomination unto the Lord,
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and a very present help
in time of trouble. But that assumes that
person is a good liar.
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This guy wasn't, which
qualifies his story for America's dumbest excuses. -Well, from time to time,
we'll stop people, they uh,
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they give us a false name. You know, they try to give
us a false name, anyway. -I stopped this guy
just the other night,
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as a matter of fact, and
for a traffic offense, and pull up to him,
and ask for his ID.
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He doesn't have it. So I said, what's your name? He says, Ju-- Ju--
Ju-- Ju-- Fred.
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And I started
laughing right away. You know, I know this
guy's lying to me. -How do you spell that?
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-How do you spell that? -[laughing] -First, he was
naked as a Jay bird. And then, in good time, he
was clothed as a jail bird.
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It's all in its
unencumbered glory, right here on our
blue light special. -A number of years back, we
had a sting operation going.
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One thing we did
was bought a brand new Lincoln
Continental for $3,000. The fellow didn't know that
we were indeed the police.
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What he also didn't
realize, he had encountered one of
our officers before. The officer had
arrested him about three
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months before on drug charges. But he comes to the motel
to talk about the car deal.
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He says, you might
be the police. So the officer said, well
you might be the police.
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To prove that he
was not the police, he took his clothes off to show
that he wasn't waring a wire.
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And indeed, for him,
unfortunately, it was all on camera. And he lifted up his
clothes, took them off,
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and showed that he didn't
have a wire on him. When we quit laughing,
we arrested him.
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-The officer's nickname was
Tiny, which, as you'll see, is quite the opposite
of what he really was.
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It's like our nickname
for Daniel here. Einstein. Let's see the big doings in
Kingston, North Carolina.
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Prepare to feel small. -There was a certain
officer that had a training officer, who was
a very huge man.
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And one night, they arrested
this man that was intoxicated. And the guy had a lot of mouth,
the one that they arrested.
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And he kept saying, well, if
you weren't a police officer, I'd kick your tail. He kept running his mouth.
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So the huge training
officer, he says, well I'll tell you what, he
takes off all of his-- he takes
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his badge off, takes his gun
belt off, then he lays it down. He says, well
let's step outside.
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He takes the handcuffs
off, they step outside, and all of a sudden,
you hear, wham!
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Wham! Wham! And he walks back inside, puts
his gun belt on, puts his badge back on, and they walk
right outside to, you know,
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check on the guy. He's sitting there, he's
trickling a little bit, and he says, whatever
you do, don't
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let that man ever
come near me again. They said, why? Because he must have been
the Jolly Green Giant.
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Why is he the Jolly Green Giant? He goes, every time he hit
me, he went, ho, ho, ho.
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-Now here's your tour guide
through the cavernous wasteland of journalism. Here's Daniel,
with ADC headlines.
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-A Tennessee inmate serving two
and a half years for bank fraud thought he deserved
a little leniency.
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And since no one seemed
to agree with him, he took up his own cause and
wrote an obviously bogus letter
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to a federal judge, posing as
the warden of another facility. Now, instead of getting his
sentence shortened by six
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months, the four
new charges pending could earn him up to
10 additional years. OK.
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A duo of hold-up artists
exhibited poor judgment as they patiently waited
outside a convenience store
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to steal a vehicle. They were apparently oblivious
to the four marked patrol cars
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that were directly
across the street. When the bad guys
made their move, the officers were on the case,
even before a call to 911
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could be placed. Now, that's service, huh? You've heard that
criminals always return to the
scene of the crime?
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Well, it was true for
an ex-con in Kansas. Although it did take her a
while to make her come back.
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That's because she'd
been incarcerated for robbing the same
bank six years before.
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A teller recognized her and
tripped the silent alarm. From that point, eh, it was
just like old times again.
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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? -This teenager wasn't going
to stand idly by and watch
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his friend steal
from his father, so he picked up the
phone called 911. Well, it's a call
that dear old dad
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wishes his loyal
son had never made. See why in tonight's
special delivery. -Well, we had a 15-year-old
kid the one time,
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and he called the 911. And the dispatcher called us and
said that he was on the phone,
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and his big complaint
was that his friends were breaking into
his dad's room. I don't think he was really
upset about that happening,
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but his friends were
stealing his dad's marijuana. -Can you imagine
someone calling 911
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to tell the police
that someone's stealing their marijuana? -They're taking my
dad's marijuana.
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-He got about halfway
through his sentence, and realized what he was saying. He hung up the phone,
but by then, of course,
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it was too late. Went out and talked to
him for a little bit. And he admitted what he did.
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-We found more
marijuana in the house while we were looking
around for their stuff,
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and all's he could worry
about was his dad getting mad at him for the
marijuana being gone.
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-The dad, he denied that
all the marijuana was his, and he tried to, of course,
blame it on the son.
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-He tried to tell us it
was his dad's marijuana. -But it was in his dad's room,
so we took all his marijuana,
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and all his paraphernalia,
and took it in with us. -It's strange. It's like father, like son.
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-Neither one of them
are real bright. -You know the warning printed
on your rear view mirror?
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Objects are closer
than they appear. Well, we've got the story of a
man who was wanted by police,
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but appeared closer than
he ever should have. Take it away in Elgin, Illinois. -We have a rider
observer program.
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A rider observer
is an individual who will come into the
station, fill out a form,
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and they'll be assigned
to ride with a police officer for about four hours. Normally we have
college students
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from the local colleges
that'll come out who are testing to
be police officers. One day, I was assigned an
individual for ride along.
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I-- I met him outside
at the front desk. Really not the
normal rider we get. Usually it's a clean
cut college kid.
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This individual kind of
stood out a little bit to me. As myself and the rider
went out to my car,
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we passed Officer Bianci. And he approached me, and he
had said that that individual
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looked familiar, that he had
probably arrested him before. With that, Officer Bianci
and I went inside the station
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and ran a warrant check on him. Sure enough, he did
have a warrant for him. We decided that-- to
go outside to the car
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to actually arrest him. And as we approached the car, I
asked him if he could step out.
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He did, and I explained to him
that we were going to begin the ride along program with
the-- the showing him how we
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arrest and book
and process people. I asked him to step out
of the car, and he did.
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And asked him to place
his hands behind his back, and handcuffed him,
and explained to him
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he had a warrant. And he asked what for, and
I explained what it was. And he began swearing,
more or less.
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He wasn't too happy with us. We said, this was an easy one. It doesn't come any easier
than this, when they walk
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into the station and
make it this easy for us. ANNOUNCER: Now let's look back
at one of ADC's greatest hits.
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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, hermetically
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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?
00:15:29
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.
00:15:50
And smile, because you're
another dumb criminal, caught on camera. In Columbus, Illinois,
it's illegal to sell
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cornflakes on Sunday. -We were having a real busy
shift, and we got a call. -It was an alert
tone which tells us
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that it's a serious
crime in progress. -The woman was watching a man
as he threw a parking sign
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through the front window of a
Budget Electronics business. She watched the man take
a computer from the store
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after he smashed the window. -And that gentleman then did
go over to his vehicle, which
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was parked on the
side of the building, and then he was
proceeding to load up his car as she
was calling in.
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-We were coming as
fast as we could. -We were all quite a ways away. -By the time we got there,
he'd already left the store,
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and we went around
looking for him. Well, when he saw
us drive past, he thought this was his perfect
opportunity to come back.
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-Officer Griffin advised
that the person had come back to the business and was
trying to take more goods.
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-Fortunately, he
waited too long, and I was already at the store,
beginning my investigation.
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He looked at me,
I looked at him, and he decided he was going
to make a big break for it.
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Took off, running stop signs
and stop lights, at one point, we were driving 80 miles an hour
through a 25 mile an hour zone.
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-And he did rip out his oil
pan shortly into the chase. -When all this was done,
seven and a half miles
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of chasing, 19 stop signs and
stop lights, 80 miles an hour, he apparently didn't
want to get a ticket
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for failing to use
his turn signal. So he used his turn signal
on every single turn.
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He had about $100 worth
of stuff in his trunk. This wasn't his first burglary,
and don't know that it will be
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his last, but hopefully he
keeps using that turn signal. -[laughing] -[laughing]
00:17:43
-We close tonight
with a strange saga of a man who went in
search of companionship
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while carrying a
handful of dynamite. -Well it wasn't me. But join us as we see what
happens when you go looking
00:17:55
for more bang for
your buck in tonight's sordid edition of we're
not making this up.
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-We got a call, subject
wanting to trade dynamite-- -Dynamite-- -For sex and/or drugs.
00:18:09
-Wanna have some sex
for this dynamite? -Hell no! -That was rather
unbelievable to all of us.
00:18:14
RICHARD CARMEAN:
He'd been knocking on several doors in one
of the neighborhoods.
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-We see a lot of
unusual things, but this seemed to be really unusual. -Hey, you got any drugs?
00:18:24
-Of course not. -You don't have no drugs? -I don't have any
drugs, no drugs at all.
00:18:27
-Do you want to have some
dynamite for some sex? -No. Heavens, no. -Well, why not?
00:18:31
-At least not today. Not today. -Well why not? RICHARD CARMEAN: I responded
to the call, got out there
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and I met the subject
trying to leave. I turned my emergency lights on. -Fleeing off into the woods.
00:18:44
RICHARD CARMEAN: He
couldn't be located. I called for a K-9 unit, and
after a short period of time,
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found the subject about
30 foot up in a tree. -Come on down. -No. -Come on. -No, I ain't coming down.
00:18:55
-We'll get a dog. -I don't care. -He never had any detectors
on his-- on his outfit.
00:19:00
-[laughing] -Dynamite. The explosive new fragrance
from Calvin Klein. -Try it if your obsession
is to meet eternity.
00:19:11
-Guaranteed. Hey, I got dynamite. Want to go out? Huh? That's a line I never
tried in high school.
00:19:17
-I'm happy to hear that. -You know, I-- but
I bet you won't be happy to hear
that it's time to go.
00:19:21
-Aw, sad but true. But we'll be back next week. Between now and then, visit our
website at www.dumbcrimes.com.
00:19:29
-We want to thank
you for joining us, and extend our gratitude
to the law enforcement
00:19:32
officers who make
this show possible. Every day they lay
their lives on the line
00:19:36
to keep us safe
from the stupidity of would-be criminals. -As always, we
hope that we've all
00:19:41
learned from others' mistakes. -But if you haven't,
we just might see you. Next week, on "America's
Dumbest Criminals."
00:19:47
-See you next week. [music playing] [music playing] [music playing]