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NARRATOR (VOICEOVER): Tonight,
on America's dumbest criminals, watch as a convenience
store counter
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spontaneously becomes
a fireworks stand. Discover what true pride
of ownership means as you
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meet a crackpot
with a crack pipe. And what in blazes
are these guys doing what they're doing
where they're doing it?
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Witness the wit less as we
extinguish the myth that crime is glamorous on America's
Dumbest Criminals.
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[police radio chatter] [theme music] to Now, welcome
your hosts from ABC, Daniel Butler and Debbie Alan.
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[applause] -Debbie, Debbie, Debbie,
everywhere where I go, people ask me the same question.
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-Is it, don't you have some
place that you need to be? -No.
No. That's the second question.
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No. The first one is, where do
you get these crazy stories? -Or, are these stories for real?
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I get that one a lot. -Yeah, well the answer to the
first question is everywhere.
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We get our stories from
newspapers, from the internet, from letters and
email, but mostly,
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from talking to police officers
all across the country. If you've got a story
you want to pass along,
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grab a pen and paper. We'll give you our address
at the end of the show. -And the answer to the
second question is yes.
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All our stories are for real. -Yeah, we thought you might
like to go behind the scenes
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of America's dumbest
criminals, and after the tour, we'd like to invite
you to stop by our gift
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shop for souvenir
t-shirts and post cards. [music playing] -Whenever possible, we
use actual video footage
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like what you're about to see. -We take you to Ocala,
Florida to find a dimwit who,
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with the flip of
the switch, goes from a shadowy anonymous burglar
to an easy to identify suspect,
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thanks to his indispensable
help, he was caught on camera. -Well, we had a
local high school
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that was reporting that it had
a bunch of thefts occurring. So what he school
resource officer did
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was ask us if we would
put a surveillance camera into the school. So we put it in there,
the only problem
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is we kind of figured out
that most of the thefts were going on after hours. One night, the thief breaks
into the school-- breaks
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into the office, and we
see this silhouette come in on the uh surveillance
film, and we weren't
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able to tell who it was until
the thief turned on the light and revealed himself to us.
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[laughter] -When Al Gore single-handedly
created the internet-- -Lauren, I'm also fond of
his other great inventions
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like penicillin, a better
mousetrap, and sliced bread. -He inadvertently
created new ways
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for people to get into trouble. We've come across a
story about a high school student who went from--
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-You've Got Mail-- -To-- -You've got jail. -I wonder if Alan visioned
that his creation would provide
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a story for something
to remember me by. Take a look. [music] -I was referred a case
about a juvenile who
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had harassed a teacher
via the internet. Juvenile went into
the school's internet,
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and, uh, pulled up a
picture of this teacher, and cut his face
out of that picture.
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He attached this to a
picture that he had gotten of a pornographic website, and
he re-emailed the picture back
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to the teacher and
10 other teachers and he was traced back to him
through his email address.
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It was attached to the picture
he sent to the teachers. Little did he know that
email has your own email
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address attached
to it, and that's basically how he was caught. He was since
completed his terms.
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He's actually a
pretty decent kid. [applause] -I don't know what this
world is coming to.
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Once upon a time, criminals
took pride in their work. They dressed well. They had nice haircuts.
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They wanted to leave the scene
without a trace, you know? -These days, they leave a lot
more behind than fingerprints.
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If you need proof, we've got
plenty of evidence left behind by crooks who were
much better at stealing
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cars than covering their tracks. See for yourself. -Officers were called
to a car accident.
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A car hit a tree. When they got there,
no one was around. They did find out the
car was stolen though,
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and inside the car
was a video camera. The proud thieves had
videotaped themselves.
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-Real, real,
stories of gangster. Alright. We're back. Now what car do we pick? The club.
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You can't jack a
car with a club. -Breaking into cars. -This is a jacked ride. If you can't tell, or
key is a screwdriver.
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Where's they key at? -Is that you? -We're rolling-- we're
rolling like gangster.
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Yeah. You know it. And if we get caught, Ronnie,
you're eating the tape. -Stealing the car
that they were in.
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-That is a car that
we're gonna jack. -Get away. -Getting another one. -What's up?
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What's up? Look, I'm driving the Jeep! Look at that. -We're pretty bored
right now, so we're
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just looking for
somewhere to go. -The last thing that
was on the videotape was -[bleep]
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-In police work, we
always try and get the community involved in
apprehending criminals.
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Usually, it's the
innocent citizens that we try to get involved,
but hey, if the bad guys want
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to help us out too,
we're more than happy to get their assistance. [applause] NARRATOR (VOICEOVER): In
Newport, Rhode Island,
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it's illegal to smoke
a pipe after sunset. -If the druggie you're about to
meet had lived in Rhode Island,
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he had've been in trouble
on a nightly basis. You see, when officers
cracked down on crack users
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in Alliance, Ohio,
they thought they had a hard evidence
against one suspect. But he proved them wrong and
right in a single action.
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It'll all make
sense as you watch America's dumbest excuses. [music playing] -One evening, uh,
we're responding
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to a report of a
suspicious person outside a, uh, residential area. By the time we get there, we
realize, uh, this is a, uh,
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veteran of, uh,
several break-ins, and he's a crack addict, which
a lot of our burglars are.
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We know him. He knows us. As soon as he sees me, I hear
something, a little ting.
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I see he dropped a crack pipe. And it's laying on the ground. It's right at his feet.
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-No, I didn't drop anything. -I heard it hit the ground. I saw it come out of your hand.
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-I didn't drop anything. DETECTIVE SCOTT (VOICEOVER):
What's that right there? Come on.
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Level with me. You know, I saw you drop it. I heard it hit the ground. It's right at your feet.
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That's not your crack pipe. No, no, that's
not my crack pipe. Look. -You're under arrest
for possession
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of drug paraphernalia. Two counts. [applause] -Have you ever heard
anyone say, there
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must be a logical explanation. Well that's what
they want to believe. They want you to believe
that nine out of 10 doctors
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recommend things. That Dick Clark could
look that youthful by just exercising
and eating right.
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Hah. And that the Spice Girls could
really sell that many records. Come on get real.
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So go ahead, and look for
your logical explanation in our blue light
special tonight,
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dedicated to Oliver Stone. And remember, the
truth is out there. [music playing]
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NARRATOR (VOICEOVER):
It occurred in an ordinary convenience
store characterized
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by a worker there as, WORKER (VOICEOVER):
Nice and calm. NARRATOR (VOICEOVER):
They always
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are before Armageddon ensues. As revealed by the three
surveillance cameras-- -I was going to get
a pop, and then I
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came up there and
just saw it on fire. NARRATOR (VOICEOVER):
A careless flick. A pyro getting his jollies.
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Maybe sparks from the red hot
smoked sausage or hot dogs. -And then it was on fire.
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It just started
catching on fire. NARRATOR (VOICEOVER):
And I'm sure there's no significance to that.
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-I was kind of shocked to see
how high the flames were going and just the-- the--
the way they exploded,
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and the flames shot out. NARRATOR (VOICEOVER):
Like a fireball from an alien thrust rocket?
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WORKER (VOICEOVER):
A lot of people believe somebody had been
messing with then because it
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was too freaky of a thing
to just start by itself. NARRATOR (VOICEOVER):
Like maybe,
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time travelers or the FBI. WORKER (VOICEOVER: I
think they probably sat on the counter
in sun too long,
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and the window might have
acted like a magnifying glass. NARRATOR (VOICEOVER):
Sure, sure.
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That makes perfect sense. If you discount the markings
left on the counter, a perfect map to the lost city
of Atlantis-- at any rate,
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a man from a
neighboring business quickly extinguished
the flames, and aside from some singed fuzzy dice
and some lotto cards that now
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read otto, order
has been restored. So we'll never really
know what happened unless they try to
make contact again.
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We can only hope. [applause] -How do you keep a
crook from getting away? Well a couple of police
officers in Daytona Beach,
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Florida know the
answer is found where the rubber meets the road. Let's see what they mean.
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-We're on patrol
one night, and, um, we hear another
officer gets involved in a car chase for a stolen car.
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We move into the area,
and eventually, we end up being lead
car in the chase. The guy driving a stolen
car bails out of the car.
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He stops the car. He jumps out. He runs back towards
the police car. And he's gonna run on us.
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-So, right away, we
recognize this guy. He's a notorious car
thief in the area, and, uh, this guy
runs like a gazelle.
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Well he runs back towards
the police car which is still driving forwards, he
hits the front half
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passenger side of the vehicle. Next thing we know,
we're getting this deer in the headlight
look staring at us
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right through the windshield.
-He just stops. Right there as the
police car stops.
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He stops. -So I undo my belt, bail
out, and tackle this guy. Well I only weight
about a buck 50,
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maybe a buck 70
with the belt on. So when I hit somebody
and try and take em down,
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it usually takes
more than one time. This kid went right down. No problem. Which was a surprise to me.
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He comes around the
car, grabs hold of him. -I came out and I jumped on
him, and I'm holding him down.
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-And I went after the
number two guy in the car. -Exactly, and I'm trying
to roll this guy over.
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And I'm thinking, jeez,
this guy's not rolling over. I looked down and I
was like, god, jeez,
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and by time Lance is
walking back over to us, and I looked up I said, Lance
I said, back the car up.
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Back the car up.
Just back the car up! -I'm arguing why do you
want me to back the car up.
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-Just back the car up. So I go around, I look. I'll back the car up. So I put in reverse and
backed it up a few feet.
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We found out why. -Yeah, it turns out that the
reason he stopped running when the police car stopped rolling
is because it's up to his toes
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were caught underneath
the front tire. -We load him up in back
to the car and then--
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-We can't contain
ourselves anymore. -No, we're laughing
so hard, and now, tears were coming
out of my eyes.
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Eventually, this kid
starts laughing with us. There's the three of us. Two cops and a suspect
in the back of the car,
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just dying laughing over this. And he said, oh yeah,
you guys got me. It was great.
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-It was. [applause] -And now the news that
sits like an oily film on the surface of humanity.
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Here's Daniel with
ABC headlines. [applause] -It's hard to know who
to trust these days.
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When a woman realized that she
had been conned into driving the getaway car for her
friend's bank heist.
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She pulled over and told little
Ma Barker to hit the road. Now desperate for
another ride, the robber
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began waving at drivers, her
hands filled with wads of cash. Yeah, yeah, a not
so good Samaritan
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stopped, and tried to
wrestle the recently acquired loot from her. Finally, both the bank robber
and the bank robber's robber
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were arrested. Say that 10 times. To show the perils
of drunk driving, a radio disc jockey
in Seattle attempted
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to drive at varying
levels of intoxication on an obstacle course
set up by police
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officers and a remote location. Just as the seriously sauced
DJ was about to conduct one
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final test run, a car zoomed
down to the course, passed a stop sign, knocked traffic
cones in all directions,
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and drove on. When overtaken by an
officer a few blocks away, tests indicated the
driver was far drunker
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than the DJ conducting the test. Thanks for that living,
breathing object lesson.
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Okay. A teenage girl in LA didn't
think she needed a disguise to keep from being identified
while robbing banks.
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Why? Because she wore a see
through blouse with no bra. Believing that it would distract
attention from her face.
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Ha. But, she was wrong. And she was flat busted. [laughter] -And, that closes the
file on ABC Headlines.
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News ripped from
somewhere near the back of your local newspaper. Debbie? [applause]
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-Here's a story of a modern
day Cheech and Chong, who were convinced they were
tripping out when they headed
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to the woods to
fire up and thought that they were being fired upon. Its all rolled up in
tonight's special delivery.
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[music playing] -We have a police firing range. It has a dirt road
that runs up town.
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It's well marked,
police firing range. One day, we were running
firing range practice.
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Well these two guys
drive up there in a car. Park on the street. And sit down and start
smoking a couple joints.
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One of our officers--
she has to leave the firing range
in a real hurry. She goes driving down
the firing range road,
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and here are these two guys,
parked doing their drugs, smoking their dope. The officer gets out,
walks up to the car.
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And it's all history from there. [laughter] -For you to fully appreciate the
situation you're about to see,
00:15:13
a little background
information would be helpful. In years gone by, officers refer
to the legal paperwork related
00:15:19
to automobile
ownership and operation collectively as
licenses, plural. That may sound like needless
exposition, but trust me,
00:15:29
you'll thank me as we
take a little drive to Chickasaw, Alabama. -We had a Sergeant who
retired several years ago.
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And he was getting on in age,
and had a nice pot bully, and he was real slow talking.
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And he never got in a hurry. He was always slow talking. He pulled over a person-- a
woman for traffic violations
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and he said, ma'am,
show em to me. And she lifted up her shirt
and showed them to him.
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He wanted her driver's license. [applause] NARRATOR (VOICEOVER):
Now, let's look back
00:16:13
at one of ABC's greatest hits. Let's see if we can
understand the logic of this next blister brain.
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You're driving
along in your van. The cop pulls up behind you,
signaling you to pull over.
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Having a guilty conscience
for one reason or another, you immediately feel
the need to flee.
00:16:32
Already, we see a
flaw in this plan. So here, we have the scene
from the dash mounted
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camera of the pursuing officer. Our logicless loser is heading
up the road with all haste.
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But wait, here
comes the brainwave, why don't I just turn
left here and drive into my ex-girlfriend's place.
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Literally. What was he thinking? Fortunately, no one was injured. And the good thing
about public detention
00:16:56
is, you get lots of time to
ponder life's little twists and turns, and,
head on collisions.
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[applause] NARRATOR (VOICEOVER): In
Virginia, spitting on a seagull is not tolerated.
00:17:11
-I was on routine patrol,
just driving on the road. There was a truck parked
beside the roadway.
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I was on the passenger
side, there's guy underneath it working on it. So I pull up behind him and
walked up beside the truck,
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and I notice he's
making lots of motions from under the
truck on the side. What the guy had
done, he was hauling
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a load of dope, marijuana. He had it inside of a gas tank. Well, he had put gas
in the wrong tank.
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He had dual tanks. And by mistake, he had put
the gas in the gas tank that his marijuana was in.
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And he just pulled over
by the side of the road and was trying to save his load.
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And he was taking kilos
out of the gas tank and setting it up
on the floorboard.
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And as he pulled out to set one
up on top of the floor board, I just took it from him
and said, thank you.
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That was 140 pounds
of marijuana. [applause] -If you've ever had reason
to visit an emergency room,
00:17:58
you know that they practically
bury with paperwork before they scope
out your problem.
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-Yeah, I've always wondered how
your mother's maiden name could be responsible for appendicitis.
00:18:08
-Our last story
tonight shows what happens when a guy
on the lam takes full disclosure too
far for his own good.
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-If you don't
believe us, just ask the Deputy First
Class, Gwen Jones. She'll tell you we're
not making this up.
00:18:21
[music playing] -This gentleman escaped
from the jail and got away. Within a few hours of that,
he showed up at the hospital,
00:18:37
and they asked him to
fill out the paperwork necessary before treatment. And there is a slot
on the paperwork that
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asks how did you
sustain this injury. And he wrote in, I hurt my
foot while escaping from jail.
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Needless to say, that was the
end of his flight of freedom. That was pretty dull.
00:19:02
-Well, that's all the
time we have for tonight. But, we'll be back next week. If you've got a lead on a story
you'd like is to investigate,
00:19:08
visit our website at
www.dumbcrimes.com. -Or, if you're more of
the old fashioned type,
00:19:15
write us at this address,
America's Dumbest Criminals, 3201 Dickerson Pike,
Nashville, Tennessee, 37207.
00:19:23
-Who knows, we just might send
our motley crew to your town. -No, no, no, you shouldn't
threaten people like that.
00:19:28
Don't do that. -Before we go, we want
to thank all the officers who helped with tonight's show.
00:19:33
-Law enforcement is
often a thankless job, but we want to go on record
as being in your corner.
00:19:38
-As always, we
hope that we've all learned from others mistakes-- -But, if you haven't, we just
might to see you next week
00:19:44
on America's Dumbest Criminals. -Good bye! [applause] [music playing]