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this is an adc warning the crimes you're about to see are true only the names were changed to protect
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the ignorant [Music] tonight you'll see a dumb criminal who thinks he's lucky
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actual footage of a sting you won't believe and a rat who gets caught in his
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own trap all this and more on america's dumbest criminals [Music] welcome to america's dumbest criminals
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i'm daniel butler you know as well as i do that crime of any sort is just plain
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stupid but some criminals stand out from the crowd in the depth and profundity of
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their idiocy join us now in shaking the rotten fruit from the tree of life as we open the
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files on america's dumbest criminals first up a man with soap in his ears comes clean and junior takes a bubble
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bath initially we got a call a 9-1-1 call from a woman who had been out running errands and so forth and came home and
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found that her front door had been locked from the inside so it was her belief logically that someone was inside
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her home our officers responded and managed to get through the back door at which time
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they found evidence to suggest that the back door had been forced open and upon entering the house found several
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articles of value vcrs that kind of thing in the living room set up in such a way that would suggest someone was
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preparing to take him out of the house in the course of the investigation we found out that what had happened he had
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come in the first time and taken a pretty good cash of property from the victim's home and then returned for more
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and for whatever reason was motivated to take a bath a bubble bath and became so comfortable and tranquil that
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he fell asleep sir sir wake up sir debbie time's over we'll take mr ducky with you
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if you got to transport a prisoner from the fair oaks area to the downtown jail oftentimes their personal
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hygiene can be of a major concern especially for two officers in a very close quarter patrol car
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[Music] abc quiz number 32 a house burglar in florida was captured when the homeowner found the burglar
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still in his home what was the burglar doing was he a making one last trip inside b struggling with a large tv set
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or c playing video games the correct answer is c yes he was about to make his high score
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in street fighting now an honest but weird criminal confesses in admit it we had a disturbance call and i pulled
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up to this i think of some kind of business or something and a guy comes don't play dumb with me let's just get
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going okay yeah talk to me and uh he wasn't the one that they'd called about he had
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gotten an argument with his girlfriend somewhere down the street and she had fled and called the police
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i know it i did it and now it's time to go would you like to have the seat in
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the car that that was just that's not really unusual just a little odd [Music]
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and now a story we call thinking and driving this is what happens when dumb criminals
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think and drive six dumb criminals stole a car sped away from the scene and into
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this house the suspect stumbled from the car fell over the debris scattered around by the wreck and were apprehended
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by the police the officers then showed this car to the dumb criminals as an example of how to
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correctly park in the garage ironically this was the second time in four months that this house had been hit by a car
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one dumb criminal said in his defense hey if you don't like my driving then stay off the
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lawn next darrell price tells the semi-naked truth in debriefing back when i was in robbery robbery
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investigator we had a bank robbery at a bank up off south boulevard when we arrived we got there we talking
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to the people and then we got a call from the bowling alley about a tenth of a mile away or so
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that there was a strange person in the bowling alley so i rode down to the bowling alley and in the laundry room of
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the bowling alley there was a guy sitting there with nothing but a pair of briefs on
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some tennis shoes and he was just sweaty what are you doing down here yeah i was out
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jogging and thought i'd come in here to cool off stand up sir i didn't want to look at his briefs but
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he had a huge bulge right in the front of his briefs sure put your arms inside [Music]
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what's that it's me i'm a lucky guy huh so i walked up to him and kind of pulled
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it out and it was just stuffed with money and all the bank robbery money so i mean i knew he was the bank robber and
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you know eventually we got him downtown and he confessed to the bank robbery but
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you know the only way we could get our money back was you know after we debriefed him basically
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[Music] later on tonight's show see our first hidden cam dumb criminal recruitment
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video [Music] next up a weisenheimer with no clue gets identified several times and so we meet
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again kirk williams of the randall county sheriff's department in canyon texas tells of a man who walked in a
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store one morning and paid for his purchases with the check the clerk took the required information
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from the man's driver's license and put the check in the register an hour later the check casher was back
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this time with a knife he made no attempt to alter his appearance and the clerk had no trouble remembering him the
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clerk also had no problem remembering the robber's name and address since he
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had written them on the dumb criminals check in the register excuse me man is yes it is this is the man that was
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in yes this just in here about two hours ago waving a great big old knife i've never been in
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this place in my life yes you were you're it wasn't two hours ago wait one minute just wait wait a minute
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what in this shoe this is you get this clown out of here this is his chest this is the food
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i hope you rot in jail just checking pretty down [Music] in louisiana it used to be against the
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law to stand in a crowd and scream snake however it was also against the law to tie tiny vipers into nuts
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next up perry knowles reports on a case called taxing driver well it just so happened i was working
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narcotics back in the mid 70s and myself and a fellow officer were working partners we were looking for an
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area up in a housing project to try to find someone to buy some dope for us out of there so we could get some search
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warrants together well we contacted this one individual and back then the buy money you used to
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buy drugs is what you had in your pocket there was no such thing as a fund for it
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so we had about 15 16 between the two of us and this one individual said he could buy
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out of a particular apartment so we give him the dollars and now be sure remember we don't front the money
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so get the dope and come back and we're gonna watch you all away so don't give
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him the money till you get the drugs okay that's cool and if you come back without the drugs
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you better come back for the money it's no problem i mean man i'm with you
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i'm with you so he goes over spends a little time in the apartment and comes
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back he says they want twenty dollars i said no and i'm going to give them 20 15
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is our limit i said well better still let's just call it off because we don't have any more
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money to invest in it i said let me have the fifteen dollars back he said well they're holding the fifty dollars
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he didn't know what he uh i know what you said no i told you we don't front money
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so i told him i said listen i'm gonna give you about an hour you better have
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our fifteen dollars back or we're gonna put you in jail that's cool i'll talk to man one hour
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i'll talk to me and while we were busy doing other things an armed robbery of
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an individual or cab driver goes out over the radio so while we're up there in the area
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patrolling around trying to find a suspect for the robbery dispatch advises us you have a party
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trying to contact you at another location just a couple of blocks away so we immediately proceed over there and
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there's our informant dressed in the same clothes put out by the description
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of the robbery he's sweating profusely he says i got your money you ain't going to put me in
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jail now are you no no man i just uh i just want you we could have given you a right and the
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same denomination of money that he gave us back to 15 that's all he took off the
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cab driver what's up man yeah it's all here yeah it's all here that's exactly what he was handing us
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back i think we're gonna have to take you downtown how are you thinking what you want me to do
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he was charged with that robbery now we take you inside the courtroom for trial and error
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from actual courtroom transcripts a bank teller gives a detailed description of a
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getaway car she didn't see mrs gray you did not see the bank robber after he left the building is that right
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no i didn't and you did not see whether he fled on foot or by automobile that's right
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so how could you possibly have given an accurate description of the vehicle my client was driving
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the thief took my car i guess i know what my own car looks like [Music] later a small-minded big-time dumb
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criminal is just blowing smoke on america's dumbest criminals [Music] for as long as there have been laws
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there have been criminals and for as long as there have been criminals there have been chowder heads simps and
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goobers j.r johnson remembers the day he met a dumb criminal in of mice and men we went to serve a warrant on this man
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and we went up and i went up and knocked on the door my partner was in the car and i went up and knocked on the door
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and uh the man came to the door you missed a schumann yeah but you know i got a warrant for your rest you didn't
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told him that we had a warrant he said i'm not going and i said no you're going
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and he said well it's gonna take more than you and i said well wait a minute
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let me get my partner out here with me go get your damn pot i'll kick his butt
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too yeah and so i went back to the car and i told my partner that i needed to come up
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there and he was a he was a large man he was about 6'5 and 240 and he walked up and knocked on the door
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and man opened the door you're going downtown and the man passed out it's your arrest you pick him up
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[Music] now actual police footage you won't believe it's called we're gonna get you
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we came up with this little sting operation we called wggy uh what we did was we wrote typed up
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some letters uh claiming to be a sports cable company that was coming to the birmingham area here and that we was
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having a party at the civic center and these few select people were given an invitation to come to this party
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and wggy stands for we're going to get you so that was our acronym for wggy and we
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like i said we typed this letter to all these people and we we instructed them to bring this letter with them and this
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letter had a confirmation number on it well that was their actual warrant number and also in there
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we stated about the trip to new orleans that we were giving away and that it was
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being provided by we're going to take you away travel agency we were also giving away everybody who
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came to this function was given two tickets to the alabama auburn game and then the president of our company he
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and he signed a letter signed the letter j l bird if you say that real fast and what's up actually the jailbird
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so we sent these letters out we we we got into the files of uh you know the old we had old ones we had new orange we
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had a line out the door that went halfway around the block people waiting to get in
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they're ready now here we go look at the camera all right so ggg wise got wggy has got me did they got you well
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then we had a little tags with hello i'm so-and-so and we put hello i'm john doe
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and my confirmation number is this and we stamped it on them all right y'all
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[Applause] and he has a little podium he was standing in front of him saying well
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he's glad everybody's here uh before we give away the trip to new orleans we got
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one more surprise to you and when he said that that was the cue for the swat team guys to come in and they came in
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and we had them surrounded to avoid any any unnecessary incidents we all we had a
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bunch of people with guns but only three of them were loaded we ended up i think like say my captain
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said he was going to be happy with 50 arrests we ended up with about anywhere 250 to 300 arrests wggy has me
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do they have you [Music] in new york it used to be against the law to travel by tricycle unless you
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wear hells angels forming the dna golden helix [Music] now some gangster wannabes get deflated
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in a self-inflicted drive-by in oklahoma a car load of gang members out for trouble cruise the streets in
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search of their rivals suddenly they spotted their prey just as the shooter raised the gun the car hit a
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pothole the ride bounced the gun fired and the front tire blew they found the stranded gang members
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fighting amongst themselves over the flat tire [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music]
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next up brad burris recalls the man who redefined dumb and getting burned what was supposed to happen was him and
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his landlord he lived in a little shotgun house a little wooden frame house and uh what was supposed to happen she
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she was throwing him out she was evicting him and what he was wanting to do he went and got him a ten thousand
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dollar renters insurance policy he uh was going to tell all his neighbors that he's going out of town
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for a couple of days and the house is going to burn down he's going to come back collect his insurance and
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be done with it well what happened was uh he's over here and i'm on this
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corner over here trying to serve a warrant his house he parks his car on the street walks across the lot with a
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two five gallon cans of gasoline and in the back window it's up above his head luckily for him it was above his
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head so he pours the gas in there and uh i don't know if you know about gas frames when they sit there for a while
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they spread out well he was going to just throw the match up there it's going to catch on
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fire real easy and he's going to walk back to his car and leave well it blew
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the back of the house off i'm sitting over there at the front porch and i hear this boom
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i look over and the house is just totally involved in flames i got an explosion of 2213 grantland avenue and
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so he's got everybody's attention now i'm gonna need a fire truck and i'm
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gonna need an ambulance i get over there and uh i'm talking to him and he smells
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like a pine tree he's just real strong pine odor short guy a big guy i think i was terrorists
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we uh that we learned harris hatch and uh and uh i looked in his car and there's a can of pine air freshener
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sitting there so the longer i talk to him the more the pine tree smell wears off and the gas smell starts coming out
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it's right here everything i've got in that cabinet's gone i'm just glad i've got inside
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you'll have to excuse me uh sir we're not through yet uh sir on the way to the jail he asked
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me because uh do you think my insurance is still gonna cover my house [Music] in california it used to be against the
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law to leave a boat on a flooded street hey hey no parking there no parking keep
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moving come on come on and with that we come to the end of another show our continued thanks to
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police officers across the nation for their stories i'm daniel butler saying
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don't be dumb don't break the law [Music] [Music] hmm [Music] [Applause]
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[Music] [Music] you