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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 on america's dumbest criminals you'll see a fool and his jewels a crime
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that was not well done and three lightweights with a heavy load these are just a few of america's
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dumbest criminals [Music] hi and welcome to the show i'm daniel butler we all know that hollywood is famous for
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its portrayal of criminals as being cunning and powerful masterminds of crime fearless in the face of danger and
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the law their criminals are known for their uncanny knack of adaptability and their skill of last-second escapes
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well folks as they say this ain't hollywood this is the real world of america's dumbest criminals
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our first case was slightly open when it was closed from foster arnett in knoxville tennessee one of our patrol
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officers got a call of a burglary in progress when he arrived on the scene he did a
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cursory examination on the outside of the house and then he made entry into the house
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searched the entire house and when he got to the kitchen there was a door that led into the
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garage but it was locked from the garage side so the officer went outside walked
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around the front of the house and saw that there was about oh probably a foot gap between the bottom of the garage
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door and the top of the driveway and the officer got down on all fours with his flashlight and as he got down
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to look in the burglar was on the inside looking out they both both saw each other at the
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same time and it scared both of them so badly that the burglar stood up hit his head and it knocked him out and the
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officer was able to reach in and take him into custody the only thing he got away with was a
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lot on his noggin [Music] in boston it used to be against the law for nightclubs to have frog jumping
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contest but it was legal to have frog-like line dancing sergeant ernest burt of birmingham
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alabama was serving a warrant when he got a big surprise and so one day me and my couple of
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partners we went out to this location out in the eastern part of town and we got it knocked on the door
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hello how you doing hey how are you doing fine sir we need to know if a one grace reed is here we have a felony
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warrant for her arrest nor she does okay so when was the last time that you saw miss reed and i explained the laws that
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we have to come in and search for so by that time my partner was at the back we had a big rumble
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looked like something something the wall was falling so we thought it was going out the back door i'm a problem
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we found out he just female and fell out the ceiling almost broke her neck hit him sank anything about 280 some pound
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foot stuck up in the air and she looked at me and said who are you i said i'm the police who are you it
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wasn't funny but then it was you know hiding in the ceiling so i said what you doing up to the ceiling
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cleaning up that's okay then i told her who he was and explained to her she was on the
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arrest she was fine we're still checking the house [Music] adc quiz number 171
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how many inmates in the u.s were incarcerated per week in 1994. was it a 1602 b entirely too many or c
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1994. the correct answer is a 1602 which is entirely too many however by midweek at least 800 are digging
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their first escape tunnel this is actual surveillance cam footage of america's dumbest driver
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it's just another quiet night in an open all-night convenience store notice the
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car backing into the telephone pole in the parking lot keep your eye on him our female clerk decides to take a break and
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doesn't realize a kamikaze shopper is headed her way uh oh oh no he's got it in drive wait a
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minute no no no that's not a drive-through window no not yet gee do you think this guy was drinking
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let's see that one more time there's no drive-through window in this convenience store
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but there is now remember folks friends don't let friends drive through stores
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coming up see a dumb criminal who falls asleep on the job on america's dumbest
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criminals [Music] in our next story we find that the only thing that makes a dumb criminal
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dominant is having a dumb partner here's sleeping on the job one night we're working swing shift and we get a
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call to go out behind the bank there's a person laying behind a dumpster so we go out there thinking that it's
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probably somebody that's you know vagrant asleep or something this nature we pull up in the parking lot and we
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park the car so that the headlights are on the dumpster and we put spotlights on
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and everything and to our bewilderment this head pops up from behind the dumpster wearing a
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ski mask and looking at us and it's not winter time and so we get out of the car with our guns drawn
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tell them get their hands up you know if there was more than one back there and come out
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so we do a little bit of interrogation of the kid after giving the rights and everything and he eventually tells us
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that his friend and he had worked for a rental car agency and they knew that the rental car
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manager made the night drop every night at the back of this bank and they had been fired
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so they were going to get back at the maryland car manager and they were going to rob him
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well the one kid dropped the other one off behind the bank his biggest complaint his friend had was
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he'd been driving around waiting for the other kid to pull a robbery he was almost out of gas
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well a rental car manager came in made the night drop and left and meanwhile this kid's asleep and the
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kid didn't wake up till we pulled up on the police car and saw him so the trigger man fell asleep and the
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getaway car ran out of gas and neither one of the dumb criminals ever saw their intended victim
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this was not a perfect crime it turns out they didn't pull a robbery they got caught and they both got
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convicted conspiracy to commit robbery in indiana once your breath leaves your body it is no longer your property here
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we see a state guard inspecting the impounded breath of 65 winos and now inside the courtroom for trial
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and error a very professional international drug cartel was busted by one little old lady
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who lived near their warehouse because of your phone call the police went to the warehouse
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and seized 22 tons of cocaine with a street value of more than six billion dollars
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the largest drug raid in u.s history what did the suspects do to give themselves away
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well i was trying to get some sleep and they wouldn't quit backing up what do you
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mean backing up they wouldn't quit backing up the the trucks and making that annoying beep beep beep sound
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that's why you made the call well who could sleep with all that noise all that
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backing up and beep beep beep in ohio it is against the law to tailgate however it's not against the
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law to leap from annetta nunn of birmingham alabama tells us about a case we called fooled you
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working burglary unit wearing plain clothes driving a plane car those criminals know their police
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cars this guy was right across the street from city hall getting ready to leave go
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on the case or whatever and i had walked through the door throwing my purse in the car and was about to get in and i
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heard somebody say hey they were standing right up on me he scared me throw some rings out of tennessee sure
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did take a look at these see some views huh yeah these are these here they're not 900.
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he opened this little ring case but if you look at it you know it's a little
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five dollar ring from the bargain store and they've changed the price tags on it
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he's got like 900 dollars on him i say you stole these out of tennessee yeah but don't let the man see you don't
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let the man see you i said okay and i held it up he said put it down put it down don't let the man see
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say okay so about this time he he leans forward and he sees the mobile radio and
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the floorboard on the car he says you're the police i say yeah yeah i'm an
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innocent man no i can't really just go inside and talk about it come on you ain't got nothing on me i don't know
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about that why don't you bring the jewelry back out let's just let's go get
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the jewelry back he said well i'm gonna go with he said cause i'm gonna show you
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just how big a fool you are there's nothing you can put me in jail for i said okay come on go with me so we're
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going across and i'm trying to think what can i charge this guy with this stuff is not real
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but when i get in is one of the older detectives inside he asked me say what do you have
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well it seems to me we have this ordinance that says you can't sell inside the business luke without a
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license so i'm sitting there writing up he said what are you doing i say you going to
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jail he said you can't put me in jail i say yes i can and say don't ever call me
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a fool i know a case we call the mystery of the flushameter this device is called a flushometer or
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flushometer you see this in most public restrooms but in new york city you can see them disappear over 150 flushometers
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were stolen in one month a flushometer retails for about 150 but only brings four dollars when sold for scrap
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one was even stolen from the mayor's restroom and city hall once again dumb crime flushes taxpayers money down the
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drain coming up a robbery that turns to rubble on america's dumbest remedy [Music]
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the next crime may make some men squeamish because it's painfully dumb we got a call uh early monday morning
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from one of the local businesses said that the suspicious circumstances we think we've been burglarized and the uh
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the burglar is still on the premises so the officers responded as an in-progress
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call got there with the guns drawn ready and he gets to inspect and then we find
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out what the story is is that this was early monday morning saturday night around 11 o'clock or so fella decided to
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break into the establishment going through the roof and he found a vent up there and he says
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hey i can take this thing off and crawl through their event and get inside nobody ever know
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so he proceeded to do so he took the top off got it open put his feet down through the vent first
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and started to ease himself down as he got so far in he lost his grip and slipped and when he did his arms went up
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over his head and he slid down the vent which was centered over a crossbeam [Laughter]
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and when he landed he straddled the wall with a foot going on each side of the wall
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he had been there rained on with his hands in this position when they cut him out they took him out
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on the way out it was very obvious that a certain part of his anatomy had swollen up to grapefruit size and being
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from florida we know our grapefruit here so obviously he had done some damage to
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himself took the fire department to get him down he had obviously served his sentence
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before we even got the call to come to the burglary [Music] [Applause] in columbia tennessee a man walked into
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a building and announced that this was a bank robbery the only problem was that this was no longer a bank
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fortunately the jail was still a jail [Music] and now actual footage of the case we
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call please hold the onions on that burglar the san antonio police and fire department answered an unusual silent
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alarm at a convenience store it seems they had a dumb criminal wedged in their kitchen vent
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with his sneakers on the grill the dumb criminal came down the chimney just like
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santa but our dummy was a little too wide to squeeze out oh i think that left sneakers about time
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he must have been a dumb criminal combo meal because he did come with fries and a toy
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the rescuers tried bringing him out the way he got in but finally they had to dismantle the exhaust hood to get the
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dumb criminal out he immediately sat on the warm grill just warming his buns for a crime that
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was not well done next dusty cutler shows us how patrolling the parking lot in a large
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shopping mall can be more bizarre than you think i was sitting in a parking lot at a
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local mall doing some paperwork just a regular report and when i heard some people yelling i
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looked to my left to see what it was and saw a woman running desperately through
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the parking lot she was a very tall woman dressed in a nice outfit a dress with high heels
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there was two men chasing her and they were yelling that she had robbed them she had robbed a store in one of our
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local malls and as she was running i went to call it in on the radio and said i was going to be chasing a female
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through the parking lot at the mall and noticed that she had hiked up her dress and she had on a huge pair of
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women's underwear that were stuffed full of clothing and as she ran her panties
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were falling off of her because of the weight of the clothing and i said uh headquarters i'm chasing a female and
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about that time her underwear had fallen to her knees and i saw she was really a
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man dressed as a woman i started laughing i couldn't radio it in because i was laughing so hard she
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fell to the ground her panties tripped her she pulled them off she had fallen and
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hurt herself her his self and his privates as he got up he kicked off his high heels and continued to run and i turned
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to try and cut him off and he actually hit the side of my car and went over the hood and i was able to get out and
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eventually handcuff him and then tell him what i had [Music] [Applause] so [Music]
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here's nashville tennessee police officer buddy tidwell to tell us about the thieves who decided to come back for
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more and that's when things got heavy many years ago in a rural area i was a
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rookie and there was an unfortunate man who was robbed he was robbed of his wallet and the contents
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these men at gunpoint had approached him and demanded his money and wallet and they took it but apparently they weren't
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happy with the amount of money they had gotten from the man they looked in his wallet and they found a number of
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receipts where the man had purchased a stereo and a tv and a vcr and they found a card inside his wallet
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that said in case of emergency notifying it had his wife's name his address and
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his phone number well the robbers called the man in his house and told him we didn't get enough
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money and we want you to take this tv and stereo and all this nice stuff you've bought we want you to set it
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outside your house in a box and we want it out there by nine o'clock p.m or we're coming over and we're gonna do you
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and your family in well naturally the man was terrified so he called us and we told him to sit
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tight and we sent a car right by to get the man and his family and take him to a
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place of safety my partner and i arrived there so we went into the man's garage and
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looked around we found a large cardboard box and uh there were some stones nearby large paving stones were
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nearby we took the stones and put them in the box and we took a roll of duct tape we had in
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the car and we taped it did then we set it out as the robbers had described and as we stepped back and
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looked we thought this would never work these guys won't be this dumb and about 15 minutes had elapsed it was
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about five minutes after nine we were ready to give it up and uh the bushes near the man's house started to rattle
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and all of a sudden three guys came out from behind the bushes and they grabbed this huge box full of rocks and
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we looked at each other and began to laugh but we as we approached them we yelled police and stopped and put the
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box down nothing new and they held onto the box for dear life and they continued to run
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with a 200 pound box and as they they went farther they got exhausted and they finally just
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collapsed with the box and when my partner and i got there we easily took him into custody and
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uh showed him what was inside the box he lied to him why would you just shoot him stupid
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i guess you could definitely say these guys were dumber than a box of rocks these three were definitely candidates
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for their witless protection program [Music] in kansas it used to be against the law
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to drive into the city without first walking ahead to warn people but then if you've ever seen the drivers in kansas
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you'd understand why you know we couldn't have done this show without the cooperation of the men and
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women of law enforcement across america we'd like to thank them for their time
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their dedication and for making our lives a lot safer and we learned that cops are just people too
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with one exception they're willing to lay down their lives for us [Music] [Applause]
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[Music] uh [Music] [Applause] do [Music] you