00:00:06
DANIEL BUTLER (VOICEOVER):
This is an ADC Warning. The crimes you're
about to see are true.
00:00:10
Only the names were changed
to protect the ignorant. [sirens wailing, theme music]
00:00:37
Tonight on "America's
Dumbest Criminals," some pretty funky footwork,
a drive-by surprise,
00:00:44
and a mighty fall from grace. Welcome to "America's
Dumbest Criminals." I'm Daniel Butler.
00:01:04
In the interest of fairness,
besides dumb criminals, our show also
features brainless,
00:01:09
dense, dopey, and
dull criminals. And you're about
to meet them all. The elite of the
criminally inept
00:01:15
as we open the files on
America's dumbest criminals. Our first case comes
from Gordon Martines--
00:01:22
the mystery of the closed car. -About, I say,
February of 1981, it was my last day
in uniform patrol.
00:01:32
My partner and I were working
on the graveyard shift, and we were dispatched to
a silent burglar alarm.
00:01:40
We responded to the location,
and we positioned our patrol car just north of
the glass entrance
00:01:49
into the department store. We could see that the
glass was all broken out. We entered the store,
and we had noticed
00:01:59
that there was a
hole in the roof. The burglars had
pried open a vent. As we were searching around, we
saw a male re-enter the store.
00:02:13
I mean, he came into
the store, and he began loading up
with more items. He was just grabbing things
off the rack, off the display
00:02:23
counters. And he was going toward
the front door again. The one where all the
glass was broken out.
00:02:31
We apprehended him immediately. And we walked him outside. And we noticed that on
the hood of our patrol car
00:02:40
was an enormous
amount of merchandise from inside the store. We couldn't understand this.
00:02:49
There was a pile of
clothing and items that were taken from the
department store right
00:02:54
on the hood of our marked
black and white patrol car. Well, we surmised what happened.
00:03:02
These guys had a plan. Their plan was to break
in through the roof, which they did.
00:03:07
But then they had to break
out to get to their truck. DANIEL BUTLER
(VOICEOVER): Now, they
00:03:15
begin to loot like a
well-oiled machine. One piles the goods on the
hood, while the other stashes
00:03:21
the goods in the truck. But watch what happens
when the police show up. So much for his pal.
00:03:27
He's gone with the wind. And the police? They're going to park in
exactly the same spot.
00:03:36
Now, one white hood looks just
like the next one, doesn't it? So as the cops enter the store,
our accomplice runs right
00:03:49
behind him and he
doesn't miss a beat. Yep. He placed the evidence
to convict him
00:03:54
on the hood of a
marked police car. In Arizona, it used
to be against the law to drive your car in reverse.
00:04:09
Now it's against
the law to drive your car on top of other cars. Our next story comes from
police officer Perry Knowles
00:04:16
of the Pensacola
Police Department. When Perry heard gunshots
coming from inside a local bar,
00:04:21
he had to go in alone. In the back room
sat the bartender, still clutching the smoking gun.
00:04:26
There were bodies everywhere. -And I got a call of shots
fired at one of our little,
00:04:35
what we'd call, a
little beer joint over on the west side of town. So I get over there.
00:04:41
I am the first unit there,
and I can hear, pow, pow. But as I look through
the door and saw
00:04:47
the people were still
dancing, shooting pool, and standing around talking. So I ease on through the door
and I listen for another shot,
00:04:54
and I hear it. It's down this little corridor. So I ease up to the corridor and
I look down the corridor there.
00:05:01
These guys got a pistol out. Well, needless to say, I didn't
figure he was in his right mind
00:05:06
to be doing something like this. So when he broke the
cylinder open to reload, I went it and took him down.
00:05:12
And I asked him. I said, you know,
what are you doing? -Put it down! Put it down!
00:05:21
What are you doing? -I'm killing cockroaches, man. -He said, everything we've
tried in here won't do it,
00:05:28
so we have to shoot
it to get rid of it. -Gun control versus
pest control. The debate continues.
00:05:39
And now, for the
first time anywhere, actual surveillance cam
footage of a postal worker
00:05:44
becoming disgruntled. Postal workers suspected one
mailman of stealing the mail.
00:05:50
So they planted Christmas
cash in his deliveries, and sure enough, he did deliver.
00:05:56
He kept the cash and
stashed it in his drink cup. The inspectors were immediately
on hand to arrest him,
00:06:03
and he was booked for stealing
grandma's Christmas money. Sure, the federal
pin sounds bad.
00:06:08
But wait till grandma
gets a hold of him. He'll wish he was in the
Witness Protection Program.
00:06:14
Coming up, a dumb criminal
who's playing with pain, on "America's
Dumbest Criminals."
00:06:27
on "America's
Dumbest Criminals." And now, ADC technical advisor
and 20-year veteran officer
00:06:38
Pete Peterson pulls
a man over who soon suffers an identity crisis. We call this one "Big
Brother Is Watching."
00:06:46
-I was working patrol
in a fairly large city. And we had had a burglary. And we knew that
we'd caught a burger,
00:07:00
and we knew that there was
a pickup car in the area. So we're kind of
looking, and this one car
00:07:04
kept traveling around
and traveling around, and he was suspicious. And I stopped him,
and he got out.
00:07:12
I ask him for his driver's
license, of course. -Here you go. -What are you doing
in this neighborhood?
00:07:19
-Cruising around. -Just driving around? -Yes, sir. -I see you're not from here. -No.
00:07:25
I'm from a little town
about 50 miles from here. -I said, well, tell
me the information
00:07:30
on there, if you will. So he gave me the name. And I said, OK, and he
gave me the address.
00:07:35
And he had memorized
it pretty good. I said, well, tell me
about the neighborhood.
00:07:40
He said, well, it's an average
around-the-mill neighborhood, you know? And I said, well, you know,
I've got some relatives who
00:07:46
live down there, and I know some
of those Petersons down there. And I said, you might
know some of them too.
00:07:54
He said, well, there's a whole
bunch of them down there. He said, you know, I don't know
whether I'd know any of them
00:07:58
or not. -In fact, we might be related. -You and me? -Yes, sir? -I don't-- I doubt that.
00:08:06
-You don't think so? -No, sir. I need to go. -I don't think you need to go. -And finally, I
said, son, that's
00:08:12
not your driver's license. He said, it is. I said, no, I don't think so. I said, that's my
brother's driver's license.
00:08:21
He said, I need to go back
in my car, and I need to go. You've wasted enough of my time.
00:08:25
I said, look, I think you need
to look at my name on my badge and take a look at the name
on the driver's license.
00:08:32
Then you'll know that I'm
telling you the truth. My folks live with that address.
00:08:36
And he said, oh crap. He said, this has been
one terrible day for me. And things went downhill
from there for him.
00:08:48
DANIEL BUTLER (VOICEOVER): Now,
actual surveillance cam footage we call "Sleeping at the Till."
00:08:53
Business was slow,
so bartender decided to take a nap in her own bar,
while our one stray customer
00:08:59
decides to help himself
to the money in the till. He's checking out the
sleeping bartender,
00:09:04
but what he doesn't realize is
that surveillance cameras never sleep. ADC quid number 728.
00:09:12
Suppose that you
have just escaped from an American prison. You swim across
the Rio Grande when
00:09:18
you realize your
pickup man isn't there. Do you-- A, find a
place to hide and wait
00:09:25
for him, B, have a
taco and a cerveza, or, C, swim back across
the Rio Grande into the US
00:09:33
to find a phone? Remember, you're
a dumb criminal. Of course, the answer is
C. Three guys actually
00:09:41
did this, swam back to
the US, were spotted by the highway patrol
and re-arrested.
00:09:46
Sometimes the police
run into characters that aren't necessarily
dumb criminals,
00:09:51
but they are just
criminally dumb. -About a block behind
the police station is a condominium, about
an 11-story condo.
00:10:00
We get a call there
one night that somebody up on the top floor
heard somebody out in the hallway moaning
like they were hurt
00:10:08
or maybe faintly
drying for help. So we go up, and we meet
with the complainant who was calling in.
00:10:15
We go up there.
We look around. We can find anybody. We're walking the hall, and
we're looking in the stairwell,
00:10:19
and we don't hear anything. We can't find anybody. We figure it's all
right, so we clear.
00:10:22
Call was unfounded. Couple hours later, we
get a call back again, this time maybe from
the eighth floor.
00:10:28
Somebody who used to
be out in the hallway. Sounds like they're hurt. Sounds like maybe
they're crying for help.
00:10:32
So we go up and walk around the
hallway, can't find anybody. We look out in the stairway, the
stairwell, can't find anybody.
00:10:38
We're clear. Probably around 4
o'clock in the morning, we get a call from somebody
around the third floor.
00:10:44
They're hearing the same thing. And we can't find nothing. We're walking all
over the hallways.
00:10:48
We're going up and
down the fire exits, elevators, can't find a thing. DANIEL BUTLER (VOICEOVER): The
next day, Sergeant Bigelsen
00:10:53
received a report of
an injured man found in the dumpster of
the 11-story condo.
00:10:58
This could be his big
break in the mystery by interviewing the victim
and the dumb criminal.
00:11:03
They were the same guy. -We contacted the hospital. And I believe they
kept him overnight,
00:11:09
and he was released,
and went to see him. And he had two broken legs,
two broken arms, broken ribs.
00:11:14
He was all-- arms
cast and all taped up along with broken legs. -Oh, well. Heh. I guess I had too much
to drink, you know?
00:11:23
-So up on the roof, he had
a skylight with a ridge around it. Well, this guy was up on
the roof, a little bit
00:11:27
too much to drink, and he
was playing a high wire act, walking around the
rim of the skylight.
00:11:32
He loses his balance
and he falls. Well, he can't fall
off onto the roof. He falls right
through the skylight
00:11:39
and down the incinerator shaft. This is an 11-story building. Up the incinerator shaft,
they had steel bars
00:11:46
coming out,
alternating like this. Every floor, they had
two sets of these. So he fell to about the
first couple of floors,
00:11:53
just hopping from
one to the other. He got hung up
laying over the bars. And he was too drunk and
hurt to kind of climb out,
00:12:00
so he just kept on flip-flopping
from floor to floor to floor to floor
through 11 stories.
00:12:06
[dinging, man groaning] All night long from bar to bar
down the incinerator shift,
00:12:15
and it dropped into a Dixie
dumpster at the end of it. -Now, it's already
taken this guy
00:12:23
eight hours to fall 11 stories. Would could be worse than that? When we come back,
we'll tell you.
00:12:30
You won't believe it. Welcome back to "America's
Dumbest Criminals." Officer Bigelsen just
told us of an unlucky man
00:12:54
who went bar hopping and ended
up in the never-ending stories, literally. Now he's about to become
an uneasy [inaudible]
00:13:02
in the continuing
case, which we now call "The Motorcycle Mummy." -Approximately, three
weeks into his healing,
00:13:12
he's still walking around
with casts on and all. And he starts feeling
a little bit better,
00:13:15
and he wants to start
getting out and catching up with his personal
life and taking
00:13:18
care whatever his business is. However, his only means of
transportation is a motorcycle.
00:13:25
-[groaning in agony] [groans again] PETE BIGELSEN
(VOICEOVER): This guy has casts on his
arms and his legs.
00:13:41
And his manages to
get on the motorcycle, and he takes off to start
running his errands.
00:13:45
-[groaning and grunting] He ends up on this main road I
was telling you about before,
00:13:57
Park Boulevard. He's going down the
road, and somehow, I think because of
his cast, he's not
00:14:03
able to function on a motorcycle
like you normally would. He loses control
of the motorcycle,
00:14:07
and he can't reduce the speed. And the motorcycle is
just climbing in speed. He hits a bump.
00:14:13
It throws him off. And as he gets thrown
off the motorcycle, his leg is hung
onto it and can't
00:14:18
get free of the motorcycle. And the motorcycle starts
bouncing on its feet and standing up and going down
the road and dragging him.
00:14:25
And as it's dragging him,
he's in a median lane, and he keeps getting slapped
against little concrete curb
00:14:30
median on the road. And he goes for about
maybe 2 and 1/5, maybe 3 blocks
before the motorcycle
00:14:36
falls down and
stays down and dies. We get called to the accident. This is probably, 1:00,
2 o'clock in afternoon.
00:14:43
Traffic all over the
place, and here he is tied to that
motorcycle with the cast.
00:14:47
And he's laying
in the road where he lost sight of the
median in his motorcycle.
00:14:51
He was unconscious. We call the ambulance, and we
ship him off to the hospital. -Well, I was drinking again.
00:14:56
PETE BIGELSEN (VOICEOVER):
We contact him. It was about two,
three days that he was released from the hospital.
00:15:00
And he was treated by the
same doctor who'd treated him about a month prior, going
down the incinerator shaft.
00:15:05
-They won't let me up
on the roof anymore. -The doctor said, it wasn't
for the casts that were on him,
00:15:11
he says that median curb just
would have beat him to death. And the casts saved his
life or prevented him
00:15:15
from getting any further injury. He had no further injury. Everything was
done with the cast.
00:15:21
Same individual. DANIEL BUTLER (VOICEOVER):
In Montana, it used to be against the law
to doodle window shades.
00:15:34
It was also against the law
to toss toddlers named Tina. And now, actual
surveillance cam footage
00:15:42
of an officer who has
this cover blown but still manages to do the deal. The first thing this dealer
says to our undercover officer
00:15:49
is that he saw him at
the police station. But he continues to do the deal. This guy knows he's a cop,
but he still does the deal.
00:16:12
-Can I see it? Can I look at it? -Yeah, look at it
in the morning. -Well, let me tell if it
has a [inaudible] first.
00:16:26
DANIEL BUTLER (VOICEOVER):
He believed right, and he got busted. Now, here's officer
Marsha Underwood
00:16:32
to give us the poop on a
disturbance call she answered one day. -And we got a disturbance call.
00:16:38
And when we got there,
I had a trainee with me, and there was another
officer with a trainee.
00:16:42
So as we're going up toward
the front of the house, this guy comes running
out and he's got a gun.
00:16:47
We got that guy, took care
of him, went upstairs, and there were three
more still fighting.
00:16:52
So we got one out,
put him on the ground, and I put my foot on his
shoulder, right at his neck.
00:16:57
And I'm holding him. Two other officers
are in there trying to separate the other two.
00:17:02
Well, as they were pulling on
him, this lady-- this guy's down here going,
lady, lady, please.
00:17:07
I said, shut up, man. Lady, lady, please. Aw, come on, lady, please. I'm saying, shut up, shut up.
00:17:13
You know, it's a
pretty stressful thing with everybody fighting. And then he said, oh,
lady, lady, please, please.
00:17:18
And I said, what, man? What? And he said, you got
dog poop on your shoe. And I did have.
00:17:33
DANIEL BUTLER
(VOICEOVER): Now, inside the courtroom for
trial and error. It's dumb to sell drugs.
00:17:38
It's really dumb to
sell drugs to cops. But what this guy
did is even dumber. -Can you recognize the man
you claim sold you the drugs?
00:17:47
-Well, now, he's had a haircut,
shaved, cleaned himself up. Somehow I can't
honestly say that I do.
00:17:53
-So if you can't
recognize him, then how can you say that this is the
man who sold you the drugs?
00:17:58
-Because when I gave him the
money to go buy the drugs, I asked him to leave his
driver's license so I'd know
00:18:02
he's come back, and I kept it. [theme music] DANIEL BUTLER
(VOICEOVER): Now a story
00:18:36
from James Claiborne we
call "Rops and Cobbers." JAMES CLAIBORNE (VOICEOVER):
Brought a suspect in.
00:18:41
He was suspected of
stealing a pocketbook from a lady, a
strong-arm robbery. Same day, I begin the
interrogating and talk to him
00:18:51
about the robbery
and he-- he spoke up and he said, look here, mister. I've not done no
arm-strong robbery.
00:19:01
And I'll blow in
a polygram anytime you want me to to prove it. -We don't make these stories
up, because, of course,
00:19:10
truth is dumber than fiction. Well, that's all the time
we have for the show. We'd like to thank the men
and women of law enforcement
00:19:17
throughout the country. I'm Daniel Butler saying, don't
be dumb, don't break the law,
00:19:22
or we'll catch you. Next time on "America's
Dumbest Criminals." [theme music] [theme music]