00:00:04
tonight on america's dumbest criminals just because santa can make it down chimneys why do crooks believe they can
00:00:10
do it too this cabbie isn't driving miss daisy but he'll definitely come out
00:00:14
ahead and maybe just maybe this guy should have called a cab instead of tempting fate you're destined for a
00:00:21
head-on collision with these and other frazzled folks right here on america's
00:00:25
dumbest criminals [Music] wow [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Applause] all right now tonight we present a study
00:01:12
in contrast actually uh much like you and me what are you doing say look right step
00:01:17
down there what are you doing yeah it's avant-garde tv come on step down see all
00:01:21
right look at this look i'm gepetto what you don't realize is that i'm 510.
00:01:29
he's eight one wow well sure with the shoes no this doesn't work i'm talking
00:01:33
to your knees yeah but my knees are listening heavy they're we'll be listening and conventional i
00:01:41
think you were making a point though yeah yeah that tonight's show is full of
00:01:45
contrast well that it is we're going to take you from high-tech surveillance to
00:01:49
a guy who blames his driving problems on a deer yeah yeah often our surveillance
00:01:54
camera footage captures people who are clueless about electronic wonders but not this next guy no not this next guy
00:02:00
he wasn't just a novice in such wizardry he was a cell phone salesman watch how a
00:02:06
sticky fingered approach to computer software will clean his clock [Music] this employee of a cell phone franchise
00:02:19
thinks he has a great idea he'll go downstairs take a computer game off the shelf and return to his workspace in the
00:02:25
center of the university bookstore now here's the master plan download the program on his computer at
00:02:31
work and then transfer it to his computer at home but here's the problem four different cameras are following his
00:02:38
every move downstairs upstairs downstairs upstairs three trips in less than two hours and
00:02:46
every minute of it is on tape oh what are you looking at don't be silly those cameras aren't on yeah it's just a
00:02:54
prop really it is isn't this fun playing games at work and nobody knows i've got to tell somebody
00:03:01
about this just two weeks earlier co-workers had teased him about not wearing shoes at
00:03:07
work they had seen his bare feet on camera and told him to put on his shoes if only he had put on his thinking cap
00:03:14
instead [Music] some people break the rules plain and simple others however try bending them
00:03:24
and bending them until they snap back and whack them right in the face watch it all right that's the case with
00:03:31
this guy who isn't exactly a drunk driver or is he his unconventional approach earns him a place in something
00:03:37
to remember me by [Music] i was dispatched to a prowler call and as i'm arriving in the area we get a
00:03:51
description of the vehicle that the prowler's supposed to be in from our dispatcher
00:03:55
the dispatcher gives us the description as i'm passing by a quick shop right
00:04:00
there i noticed that there's a vehicle parked in the lot that looks exactly like the one that they had put out they
00:04:06
also put out a description of the person that was driving it so i pull up into the quick shop and go inside there's
00:04:12
only one guy inside so i go up and talk with him say hey is this your truck outside and he says no
00:04:19
no not my truck so at that point i basically told him that i knew it was his truck
00:04:26
and i knew that he was drunk because the guy was staggering as he was walking around the quick shop smelled real bad
00:04:32
from alcohol no no no that's something that's not my coffee i tell him i know
00:04:36
you're drunk so just don't get in your car and drive you need to walk home
00:04:40
and we won't have any problems otherwise i'm going to have to rest for dui
00:04:44
just go walk on home okay okay so he walks off i leave the store i see him leave he walks about a
00:04:51
half block away i go around the corner and sit and wait because i know this guy's most likely going to be back to
00:04:57
drive off as i'm sitting there watching i see him walk back up onto the parking lot and
00:05:04
pretty soon i see the vehicle leaving only he's not sitting in the driver's
00:05:10
seat instead he's running alongside of her driving it with his right hand stuck
00:05:15
in the window and i thought maybe somebody was pushing but when it cleared into my view i could
00:05:20
tell nobody else was helping him so i pull up behind him and turn on my red lights and as i do that he looks
00:05:28
back and kind of loses control of the vehicle at that point and just about crashes into the curb trying
00:05:35
to get the vehicle stopped i walk up to him and say what are you doing because i'm thinking this guy's really an idiot
00:05:43
and he looks at me and says well you can't arrest me for dui i wouldn't drive
00:05:49
i was walking turn around get your hands up against the vehicle his basic point was that since he wasn't inside the
00:05:55
vehicle he couldn't be arrested for dui that didn't consider driving totally i
00:05:59
was walking home put your hands up against the vehicle give me your hand behind your back
00:06:03
so basically i ended up arresting the guy for what i call dw rui driving while running under the
00:06:10
influence which though in some states is called a pui with that or pushing under the influence yeah same
00:06:20
thing it's happened so often that we have come up with a name for it it's santa
00:06:25
syndrome it's the insane belief that crooks hold that they can sneak and slither their way through ducks chimneys
00:06:30
and other objects that are always smaller than they appear yeah our latest victim put the squeeze play on himself
00:06:37
in a home where he could have become a permanent fixture let's go up on the rooftop to fish out our latest victim of
00:06:44
the santa syndrome santa zooms up the chimney with the blink of an eye this would be rather required a crane
00:06:53
and a firefighting unit instead of making off making a smoking exit with stolen goods he sat tight
00:07:00
very tight what was it like in there rather dirty and real tight there wasn't
00:07:06
a lot of air in there based on the way this guy is moving this soot-covered fellow won't be returning to cinders
00:07:13
anytime soon hopefully this little slip up and slide down have taught him a lesson that'll
00:07:19
help him stay clean after all everyone else knows that grime doesn't pay [Music]
00:07:28
[Applause] [Music] [Applause] hey check out this dumb law in oklahoma it is illegal to fish for whales
00:07:45
some kids wonder how some laws come into existence well our next story is a head
00:07:50
scratcher as well but it's an excuse not a law and not just any excuse the story
00:07:55
this guy told was strange enough to be enthroned among america's dumbest excuses
00:08:00
[Music] guy's involved in an accident we show up and he says hey this wouldn't happen if
00:08:07
that deer just would use the crosswalk and then he went on to describe the deer to us as being big brown and eyes that
00:08:13
glowed in the dark so we had something to look forward to christians hate it when wildlife doesn't
00:08:22
follow the rules daniel oh yeah oh i guess that rebellious streak is what put the wild in wildlife
00:08:29
huh well tonight's blue light special is a little gem about a wild man who saved
00:08:34
officers a lot of trouble to catch him so listening for drugs they didn't need
00:08:39
undercover officers or unmarked cars no sting operations or wiretaps the only way it could have made it
00:08:45
easier on them is if he driven himself to the jail and locked himself up see what we mean
00:08:54
i was working undercover a few years ago in narcotics division and i was doing some cold hits at the layton
00:09:00
hills mall and i saw these guys and and went up to him yo mike mike oh wait a minute you're not mike never
00:09:07
mind i'll see you later and he goes wait wait what do you want and i said well i'm
00:09:12
just looking for a pipe man me and my buddy over there we just scored some bud and we want to blaze up and we'll pinch
00:09:16
you a big old butt if you can can just give us a pipe and and he said well let me ask my friend he talks to his friend
00:09:22
and his friend says sorry we don't have a pipe okay see you later and i turned
00:09:26
to walk away and and he said well wait a minute come here just a minute and so i
00:09:30
walked up to i said what do you want he goes you know anybody wants to buy some crank
00:09:33
oh funny you should ask i didn't have any buy money on me at the time so i pointed to my partner who was parked in
00:09:39
a swat truck about 50 feet away had red and blues right on the front of the swat
00:09:43
truck i said i don't do that stuff but my partner there he he loves to tweak my
00:09:47
buddy there so if you can give me the stuff i'll go show it to him if he thinks it's good man we'll buy it from
00:09:51
you because i wanted to see his doe so he pulls the dope out he gives it to me and he looked right at the sweat truck
00:09:56
too and i thought oh my gosh i blew it he's gonna see those red and blues it's
00:10:00
never gonna work now and i couldn't believe the idiot still sold me the dope even after seeing those
00:10:05
red and blues like this guy's really stupid man there's a reason why builds called doe
00:10:16
yep here's something to keep in mind an id with something added can easily become the word idiot that's what you'll
00:10:23
find spelled out in our next tale let's take a little road trip to orem utah
00:10:29
we got a call on back in september of two guys who had gone into a local computer store
00:10:35
to fill out an application for credit for some laptop computers the problem was they'd been in the same
00:10:43
store two months earlier and had ripped that store off for one of their laptops on a previous time the clerk recognized
00:10:52
them and called us when they saw they were filling out this the second application they got a little bit hinky
00:10:57
and left while they were supposedly checking out this credit application when we pulled
00:11:02
them over we found that they each had two phony california drivers licenses with the same name all the information
00:11:10
in fact everything was the same except for the photos which were the two bad guys
00:11:15
that's a pretty easy case to make when they make it that easy for you by using
00:11:19
the same name for both guys [Applause] [Music] [Applause] coming up later a man with multiple
00:11:31
marks on his record doesn't know when to quit but now with news that contradicts
00:11:35
the theory of evolution here's daniel with abc headlines [Applause] [Music] [Applause]
00:11:45
a man in columbia missouri was pulled over for driving without his headlights on no big deal right but he feared that
00:11:51
he was being stopped for driving with a suspended license or for possession of marijuana
00:11:56
to avoid further problems he identified himself as his brother bad choice his brother was currently being sought
00:12:04
for two outstanding arrest warrants okay growing more panicky he assaulted the officer and fled only to be captured
00:12:12
the next day and have eight charges filed against him he should have quit while he was ahead you know
00:12:17
to make his getaway from a bank robbery in traverse city michigan the unarmed man demanded the keys to a car belonging
00:12:24
to one of the tellers he ran out of the door and immediately they called police when officers arrived they found the
00:12:31
frustrated suspect still in the parking lot trying to figure out how to drive a stick
00:12:36
shift you know he thought his getaway would be automatic but you know maybe not just any car we'll do
00:12:44
in a clutch huh 30 fugitives responded to a phony contest sponsored by state and federal
00:12:51
officers in gary indiana all were seated awaiting the announcement that they had
00:12:56
won valuable prizes when the curtains opened and outstepped 20 uniformed officers
00:13:00
with cups in hand one of the disillusioned felons reportedly asked do i still get my tv
00:13:08
and that closes the file on adc headlines news ripped from somewhere near the back of your local newspaper
00:13:14
debbie just how much is a friendship worth if a friend ran out of gas and needed help
00:13:23
you'd probably come to the rescue huh but what if that out of gas vehicle was
00:13:27
stolen from your place of business now that complicates matters well that's only the beginning of problems for our
00:13:34
next crook take a look we got a call from a sheriff's department in arizona regarding the
00:13:40
truck that was stolen from a business there seems the employee taken the truck drove to vegas or to our area
00:13:48
didn't have any gas so he called back to the employer asking to get some money wired 24 gas
00:13:54
that's dumb employee there called police department knowing the truck was stolen
00:13:58
they relayed the information dust he still parked at the gas pumps when we got there
00:14:03
he snuck up behind that took him out of gunpoint placed him under arrest what he didn't realize is he had nine
00:14:12
thousand dollars underneath the front seat of that truck and the nine thousand dollars was that week's payroll could
00:14:17
have gone out and bought gas bought some new truck and played a lot of slots in vegas
00:14:21
[Laughter] hey now you've always heard the expression things go better with coke
00:14:28
well not in this case here's another expression that's appropriate old habits
00:14:33
die hard and for this guy he couldn't have been in a worse place for that truth to come to light here's this
00:14:39
week's dim-witted chapter of um where you who [Music] one night i arrested a young man for
00:14:50
possession of rock cocaine he was taken to jail and showed up about a week later for his preliminary hearing
00:14:56
in court while walking into the courthouse he was passing through the metal detector and set it off right at about
00:15:03
the same time the judge is walking through the courtroom doors out towards the lobby area where the
00:15:07
metal detector was the bailiff at the court made the young man empty his pockets into a tray next to the metal
00:15:14
detector he was unaware that he had brought three rocks of cocaine into the courtroom with him and set them down the
00:15:20
tray right in front of the judge so in addition to the count of possession of rock cocaine that i arrested him for the
00:15:26
judge gave him another count right there and sentenced him to jail he should have
00:15:29
known the rock didn't roll most people are at least a little bit embarrassed when they get a ticket or
00:15:37
are charged with breaking the law but not this guy he's fighting back with some very original logic
00:15:45
one day i noticed the vehicle was speeding down the freeway checked the license plate and it came out stolen so
00:15:49
i turn on the lights and siren the vehicle speeds up and he's all over the road running off in front of cars trying
00:15:55
to run cars off the road eventually gets off the freeway runs red lights just all
00:15:59
kinds of dangerous stuff well eventually we even have to sort of ram the vehicle
00:16:03
to get it to pull over and stop and pin it the guy even fights with us trying to
00:16:06
get out of the car well he cools down we get him in the car in handcuffs and he's
00:16:10
actually being quite friendly he says well what are you guys going to charge me with suddenly read off this long list
00:16:15
of all the charges all the felonies against him you know evading arrest stolen car no license uh you know uh
00:16:21
being under the influence of drugs and i said oh yeah and you weren't wearing
00:16:24
your seat belts guys get real big and he says wait a minute wait a minute all right i stole a car and i was driving
00:16:30
without a license tonight i was resisting arrest but i had my seat belt on no way you can pin me down without
00:16:36
wearing my seat belt i was wearing my seat belt all right all right i have my seat belt on
00:16:45
[Applause] [Music] [Applause] now we come to our last story of the evening which centers around a relaxing
00:17:00
drive in the country well drive yes relaxing no what it actually was was a setup for a crook to rob the taxi driver
00:17:08
but we don't think his mental meter was running because of what he did next see
00:17:13
how justice is swiftly dispatched in tonight's episode of we're not making
00:17:17
this up [Music] a couple of weeks ago there was a man hired taxi cab and he had the taxi
00:17:29
driver just ride around randomly from place to place finally ended up on a country road over here in chesapeake
00:17:38
and at that point he decided to rob the cab driver that'd be a good time to pull
00:17:42
over come on give me your money come on that's all you've got that's it get out
00:17:49
of here and the cab left and of course called in the robbery well the robber found out
00:17:59
that he was out on a country road with nowhere to get back to town so he went to a
00:18:06
house nearby and called the cab company he called the same cab company and talked to the same dispatcher that he
00:18:12
talked to earlier was the dispatcher recognized his voice called the police cab driver went up and picked up a
00:18:20
police detective they went to the country road and picked up the suspect right near where he was let off and
00:18:28
arrested him on the spot i just wanted a cab put your left hand behind your back
00:18:36
[Applause] [Music] [Applause] just call him one of america's dumbest criminals but unfortunately he's far
00:18:48
from alone in wearing that title and we'll be adding more crooks to the lineup so make sure you join us next
00:18:53
week and if you've got a lead on a story or you just can't wait till next week
00:18:56
for more state of the art stupidity visit our website at www.dumbcrimes.com to put it simply committing any crime is
00:19:05
dumb that's the underlying truth we bring each week and every week we want to make sure that we recognize the law
00:19:11
enforcement officers who work really hard to help protect us and keep us from harm's way we thank them for the job
00:19:18
they do and we thank you for joining us tonight as always we hope that we've all
00:19:22
learned from others mistakes but if you haven't we just might see you next week
00:19:26
on america's dumbest criminal goodbye [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music]
00:20:02
wow [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] you