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this is an adc warning the crimes you're about to see are true only the names
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were changed to protect the ignorant [Music] tonight on america's dumbest criminals
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you'll see the crook caught by the cop without a kickstand surveillance cam footage we call stuff yourself and a
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blackjack player who really takes a hit these are just a few of them america's
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dumbest criminals [Applause] welcome to america's dumbest criminals i'm daniel butler
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we're going to show you real crimes told by real cops true stories but with a
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twist see we've gone around the country from police station to police station asking
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the men and women of law enforcement to tell us about the crooks who didn't get
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away you're about to meet the elite of the criminally inept the sour cream of the crop as we open
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the files on america's dumbest criminals our first story comes to us from foster
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arnett about a painful robbery we call die back we had a situation probably about 10 years ago where
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a would-be robber went into a bank held up the bank at gunpoint and he went up to one teller and he said
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give me all the money but i don't want any dye packs so she gave him a bundle
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of money and he assumed he was home free because he said i don't want any dye
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packs a dye pack is a small explosive device filled with colored dye when it explodes
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everything in the area gets stained [Music] he was emitting all kinds of smoke and
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orange fumes were coming out of his his pants and he was taken into custody shortly thereafter
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kids do not try this at home especially south of the border [Music] and now actual security cam footage of
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the man we dubbed the electronic store idiot this guy was a pro he knew what he was
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there for and he went for them video camcorders he's got one he's got two
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he's got three he's got four hmm are there any camcorders over here no no wait there's some more over here oh
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and there's one left in the window there got it yes he got every camcorder in the
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store well except for one the one which was later used to convict him which he's
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staring at right now next up a cooperative crack smoker leads himself to a rest in a story we call
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pipe dream i was out with broward sheriff's office one time working a monthly operation we
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did called crackdown where we went out and did street level narcotics enforcement and we were up in pompano on
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a road up there it's real bad for drug sales one of our guys done an undercover
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drug buy so we were trying to locate the bad guy in this bar so when we all jumped out of the van we detained five
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or six people there and in the state of florida if you have a crack pipe or something like that that
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has a little bit of cocaine residue on it if it fuel tests positive you can be charged with possession of cocaine
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because of zero tolerance most of the people out there know that and uh so we had these guys detained and
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one of the deputies looked over at him said look we got a drug dog on the way if any of you guys have any crack pipes
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or anything like that you might want to get rid of them now just throw them on top of this building we got drugs
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slipping dogs on their way right now if any one of y'all carrying or holding any
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dope whatsoever you best to get rid of it now this guy reaches in his pocket pulls out a crack pipe
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of course he went to jail for possession of cocaine there was nothing you didn't know
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nothing at all [Music] abc quiz number 862. in alexandria virginia a robber pointed
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what appeared to be a nine-millimeter semi-automatic handgun at three well-dressed men and demanded their
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money were the men a too frightened to move b sympathetic to the criminal social
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plight or c off-duty federal agents who drew their guns and fired on the would-be assailant
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the correct answer was c they were off-duty federal agents this was not mullerian currently
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[Music] sergeant doug baldwin tells us about an interesting drunk driver we call the
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back seat driver one of the best excuses i've heard one hour concerning a traffic stop one of our
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officers was on patrol and observed this van weaving across the center line obviously this guy was either sick
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he was intoxicated so the officer pulled the van over uh the guy that was driving the van slid
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over in the other seat the passenger seat of the van and when the officer got up to the
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window he shined this light and says sir can i see your driver's license registration
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uh i i wasn't driving he was and this big teddy bear back there stuffed animal
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sitting on the back seat and the officer says get out of the dead and the guy get out of the van he's
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obviously dui and now actual surveillance cam footage of stocking stuffers stuffing themselves
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the shoplifter family is doing their christmas shopping on surveillance video fish line this would be great for uncle
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louie and let's see what about cousin bob hmm well he'd like some fish line too
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well and then there's sis i wonder what i should get cis for christmas how about
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fish line well and then there's there's mom too hey i know fish line well but now i
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gotta get six rods and reels down my pants coming up on america's dumbest criminals
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surveillance of a guy we call the duane with no brain [Music] [Applause] [Music]
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we're all familiar with the old adage people don't plan to fail they failed to
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plan we would guess that for a lot of our dumb criminals that old saying holds true but some of them do have a plan yet
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inevitably somehow something gets lost between scheme and execution some small detail gets overlooked and the next
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thing you know they're on this show like this next guy let's meet the dwayne
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with no brain now if you were dumb enough to rob a convenience store as dwayne did you
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might drive a rental car as dwayne did and you'd probably wear a ski mask as
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dwayne did but you probably wouldn't wear your work uniform yes as dwayne did
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at the cedarwood apartments the police found dwayne with the ski mask the gun and the money he's definitely a
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candidate for the witness protection program [Music] in boston it used to be against the law
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for nightclubs to have frog jumping contest however frog like line dancing is allowed our next story comes to us
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from the city that never sleeps las vegas nevada it involves a dysfunctional family a car dealer a grandmother a card
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dealer kidnapping bank robbery and gambling it was back in about 1989 and they had a
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bank robbery down to henderson where two brothers and their 70 year old mother went into a car dealership and
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they took one of the test drives with the car dealer and they kidnapped him put him in
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the trunk then they went to one of the local banks there and robbed the bank well one of the citizens inside followed
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them and somehow they followed him to railroad pass was a casino in between boulder city and henderson
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and so they staked out around it to keep them inside and they staked out on the car so they called us i was in swat at
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the time and they wanted us to to make entry and you know take the people out so what we did is we went into the
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security office and we looked in the monitors and we could see where they were inside the casino from
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the description but they were talking to other people so we didn't know exactly
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who all was involved so we decided to dress up like cooks and dishwashers and put on the garb and hide
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our guns under trays and things like that go inside we went inside we found one of them
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sitting at a 21 table and he was getting dealt cards and as the dealer was dealing you know she had her head down
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dealing to him we decided to take him off right on the table as the dealer is dealing she just bypassed him for that
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time went on to the next deal and all these people that were playing 21 watched the whole time they never looked
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down at us taking this guy in custody they're more interested in their cards
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so as we're going through we find the other brother but we can't find mom
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so we looked around in quite a long time and she was apparently somewhere gambling so we just paged her and had
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her come to the cage so she came walking up the cage so we took her into custody
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so they all went to custody for uh for bank robbery ironically the number of years that the
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three of a kind will spend in prison is 21. and now actual surveillance cam footage
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we call the gangs all here one little two little three little four little dumb criminals five little six
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little well there were 15 dumb criminals in all who entered this department store
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at night it was well planned and well choreographed they went right for what they wanted to steal but watch what
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happens when the spotter car pulls up to say the police are on their way watch closely the dumb criminal cars crash
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into each other there's only one way for a cop to get the kickstand blues dennis larson
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explains what happens when a motorcycle cop loses his kickstand he can't stop
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but i was kind of in a dilemma at that point is that i had to get the bike to where i the shop because i couldn't get
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off of it there was no kickstand so i was headed for the barns to get the bike repaired
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to the government and the enduro dirt bike he's up in traffic and he's riding
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on the left and on the right of cars and he's speeding he's cutting everybody off
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and i can't tell anybody hey i can't stop him i don't have a kickstand to put
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down on this bike well his driving got so out of hand and everybody kept looking like why is this
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motor cop not doing anything well his driving got so out of hand that i figured i've got to do something so i
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eventually went got it behind him and pulled him over but once i got him stopped
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i was on the bike and i couldn't get off and he had no idea so i told him to get
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off his motorcycle and put the kickstand down there and and come back and i had him stand straddle the front wheel of my
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bike and grab a handle bar on each side i told him to stand there and i let go of the handlebars and go off and he was
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standing there holding the bike and i checked out on the radio told him i was going out on a traffic stop here and
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he's standing there holding i said where's your driver's license at he said
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it's in my wallet so i pulled his wallet out and i had him show me where it was
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at and pull and i got the registration from the bike out there i get my ticket book out and i write him a ticket and
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and then i said okay i set the ticket book down on the fairing of the bike and i said uh let me have the bike and i
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hold it and he takes the ticket book up and signs it and then we swapped again and i tear the ticket out and i stuffed
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it in his pocket and uh i told him thank you and and he kind of went back and got
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his bike but he had this real puzzled look and he comes back to me and i'm sitting on the bike now and he says
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why was i holding your bike up i said well i don't have a kickstand on this thing and it's like i couldn't get
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off it if you hadn't held the bike up you know and the guy turned around and
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he said if i hadn't wanted to stop what would you have done i said well i'd
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followed you but i could have never gotten off the bike you know i was stuck on this thing because there was no
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kickstand and he walked off of this bewildered look on his face like you know if i'd just kept going i'd never
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gotten the ticket you know coming up on america's dumbest criminals see an undercover narcotics cop who has
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to get wily with his wire in a tight situation [Music] [Music] bank robbers are a breed of their own
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especially the dumb ones and we'll be bringing you a lot of dumb bank robbers
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as the season goes on but right now we found a bank robber in louisiana who wore what has to be
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america's dumbest disguise do not adjust your television set the man you're looking at is covering his
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head with whipped cream from a can as a disguise this was his first mistake now let's watch his second mistake
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there's a long line at the teller's window so he waits in it [Music] notice how inconspicuous he is
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by the time our human marshmallow sunday gets up to the window his mask has started to melt and ooze no one in the
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bank could keep a straight face the teller had long since pushed the silent alarm the police arrived and the man was
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arrested our creamy crook was taken to the cooler and received his just desserts in a
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court of law and now actual surveillance camera footage of a postal worker becoming
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disgruntled folks there are surveillance cameras everywhere even in the post office hmm look this
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one's for me it says i may already be a winner i'll just put in my windbreaker
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until the federal marshals come to take me away now into the courtroom for trial
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and error a bank robber was immediately recognized by the teller he robbed how did she
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recognize him mrs payne how can you say that my client is the man who robbed the bank
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you work at well he's banked there for most of his life and he didn't wear any kind of
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disguise well mrs payne isn't there the slightest chance that you can i could have
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mistaken someone from my client's familiar face i don't think so why is that
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because after he robbed the bank on friday he came back on monday and tried to make a deposit with the
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bills still in the wrappers in nebraska it used to be against the law to drive on a dark road without
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shooting fireworks the law was changed when one farmer got carried away late one night
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undercover narcotics work is unpredictably dangerous if you're not quick on your feet you could be dead on
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your feet i was working undercover narcotics and i had made a drug buy from a man in a restaurant he told me if i
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needed anything else to call his beeper number and he or one of his men would get back in touch with me and bring me
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what i needed so we were trying to accumulate as much evidence as possible on this suspect so
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we plan to make a second buy when you make these undercover narcotic buys the supervisors want you to wear
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lots of electronic equipment to document the evidence and to record the event so i was equipped with several wires if
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you will and went to make the second buy and i arrived at the restaurant and i saw who
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i thought was the man that was going to deliver the drugs to me and i was supposed to meet him inside the restroom
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so i went into the restroom and he came in behind me and i was kind of surprised
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that the restroom was a lot smaller than i thought it was going to be we were chest to chest there well when the man
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came in i looked at him and he stuck out his hands as if to shake my hand instead he began to frisk me and he
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pulled open my coat and began to feel around and hey man how you doing hey i'm dude what are you doing what the
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hell is this man this is a wire you're a cop no no uh you're a cop bang right there he found one of the
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devices that i was wearing and he began to scream and he went off and he said you're vice you're the man
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and i said no i have a medical problem and that's a pacemaker so he thought about that for a minute
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and he bought it no pacemaker pacemaker got problems and he continued to frisk me and he
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found yet another device and he said that's it you're a cop what's this
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no i have a medical problem that's that's an insulin pump that's an insulin
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pump man i got problems you got money yeah yeah i got the mostly the money you shouldn't be doing drugs man you're
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unhealthy he bought that too and continued to think about it and he did the deal and
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then we took him down he's i guess one of the dumbest criminals i've seen i'm glad he was
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[Music] welcome back to america's dumbest criminals you know speeders always have
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an excuse for why they're driving so fast and the cops have heard them all but let's listen now as las vegas
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detective gordon martinez tells us about a speeder he once stopped with an excuse
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that he'd never heard before or since and it was just at the crack of dawn and this guy was really cooking he was
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doing about 65 in a 35 zone again it was on jones as a matter of fact he got out
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and he says you're not going to believe this i'm a vampire and i need to hurry up and
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get back in my coffin before the sun comes out i said we'll write this really quick so
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you can get going see you later well that's our show for tonight we thank all of you for watching and as
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always our thanks to the men and women in police departments around the country for their help their humor and their
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generosity in making this show possible until next time break a leg but don't
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break the law i'm daniel butler god bless [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music]
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[Music] [Applause] you