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DANIEL BUTLER (VOICEOVER):
This is an ADC Warning. The crimes you are
about to see are true.
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Only the names were changed
to protect the ignorant. [theme music] Tonight, on "America's
Dumbest Criminals,"
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a girlfriend who bails out
her beau, frightening footage with a happy ending, and the
dumbest DUI excuse ever made.
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These are just a few of--
"America's Dumbest Criminals." Welcome to "America's
Dumbest Criminals."
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I'm Daniel Butler. You know, the minute you
decide to break the law, you become dumb.
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And when the going gets
dumb, the dumb get caught. And we've got the proof. You're about to meet the cream
of the criminally coddled,
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as we open the files on
America's dumbest criminals. In our first case, an undercover
officer from Birmingham
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tells us of a deadly chase. -We sent a warrant
on this house. And when we made entry-- myself
and several offices worked
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in the narcotics unit
here-- we secured the individuals inside a house. And there was this large guy,
a male about 23 years old.
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What happened,
when we came in, we could smell that they've
been doing drugs. -Aah!
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Run! Run! Hide the drugs. Hide the drugs. -Turn around. Turn around. -I didn't do anything.
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Let go of me, man. -And when he was being escorted
into a room to be searched, he got an idea
about escaping, even
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though we had the
perimeter all secured. So as he got to the room, he
just barreled his head down
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and headed straight
for the limo. DANIEL BUTLER (VOICEOVER):
Our dumb criminal is about to learn his ABCs.
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A, the window is closed. B, he's on the second
floor, not the first. And, C, he cannot fly.
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OFFICER (VOICEOVER):
Myself and other officers-- when we looked out, there
he was, straight down.
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He hit the ground. We thought for sure he was dead. We look at him, and all
of a sudden, he pops up,
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starts running from us now. When we get behind
him, he then dives off about a
8-to-10-foot drop off.
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Handcuffed behind him, he
dives off into the brush. When he does, the tree
impales him in the chest.
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And then you hear it
snap, a big old snap. Hits the ground. It pops back up. He starts running again.
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So about this time,
we're all, you know, what are we gonna do
when we catch this guy?
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You know what I mean? He fell out two stories,
and went through this tree. So anyways, we get
the guy stopped.
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We get him back
over to the house. And he's sitting there,
and he's apologizing for jumping out the window.
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He had some little lacerations,
but he had no broken bones. DANIEL BUTLER (VOICEOVER):
The draped crusader
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had made his final curtain call. The man later told police he
was giving up drugs and alcohol,
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citing they were just
too hard on the body. You can be arrested
for molesting an alligator in Miami, Florida.
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But in Pensacola,
during a cold snap, you can wear weasels as gloves. And now, actual
surveillance cam footage
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from the dashboard
of a trooper's car. It's a brush with death
we call citizen's arrest.
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This trooper just pulled over
a car for a minor traffic violation on an
interstate highway.
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As he's ticketing the vehicle,
a pickup truck loses control. The pickup truck brushed
the troopers left hip.
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The rear view mirror slapped the
trooper in the left shoulder, but the trooper is
not seriously hurt.
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The pickup truck did
not slow down or stop. He fled the scene
of the accident. The people who had been stopped
for the traffic violation
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were concerned about
the trooper's safety, but he was fine and back
in his car within moments,
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in pursuit of the
dummy in the pickup. Fortunately, a citizen
driving on the interstate who
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saw the whole thing
also gave pursuit. Moments later, he had
made a citizen's arrest.
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This driver was
dangerously dumb. You know, we've
all heard the term "the clothes make the man."
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Well, those words
were never more true than in our next story. Officer Brad Burrus
tells us why.
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-It was about February
when it's kind of cold, and it was on day shift. And me and another officer
were pulling into a pawn shop.
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I parked right next
to another vehicle. A lady was in there
counting money. And I got out of the
car, and I walked over
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to the front door
of the pawn shop. And then, as soon as
I walk in, the lady runs in right behind me,
says she got a robbed.
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[shouting] -Stay back inside. Go back inside. BRAD BURRUS (VOICEOVER):
I get in my car,
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and I circulate
about two blocks, and I see this guy walking
across this little field.
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A heavyset guy, and it's
pretty cold outside, and all he's
wearing is a t-shirt and he's sweating bullets.
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So I figured maybe he
probably did a little running. And so I got out and
started talking to him.
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Went over there where
he was standing, and there's the lady's money,
and there's a green jacket
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that he was described as
wearing, with a leather collar on it. And he's swearing
it's not his jacket.
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He just walked by. It's not his jacket. So I asked him if he had
any identification on him.
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He handed me his
driver's license. -I just gave it to you, man.
That's my daughter's--
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-Is that your picture
in that license? -Hey, I gave you that license. -Then this is your jacket.
-Oh, yeah?
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How'd you figure that, man? -Because you're wearing
it in this picture. [theme music]
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DANIEL BUTLER (VOICEOVER):
Coming up on "America's Dumbest Criminals," a dumb
criminal who can't
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tell a front from the back. Welcome back. Next, the story of
a gang who suffered
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from an extreme form
of peer pressure. Officer Studyvin and
his partner spotted a stolen car in Birmingham.
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They gave chase, and
almost immediately, the dumb criminals
hit a telephone pole.
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Now, there were five
suspects inside the car and only two officers. Now, ordinarily, that meant
that three of the suspects
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would get away just from
the simple math of it. But these guys ran in a pack. [dog barking]
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They never broke up. They were like the
Siamese suspects. It was like the keystone crooks.
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Finally, falling down in
the middle of the road, they were captured and
immediately enrolled
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in the Witness
Protection Program. Now, actual footage of a
dumb criminal who took a test
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drive to trouble. This helicopter is searching
for a man who left a car dealership in this
car for a test drive.
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He never returned. Then, chased by police,
he fled from the car and ended up here
in the middle of
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a swollen, freezing,
flooded river. Shivering and freezing all
night, stranded in the middle
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of the river, the
fire department had to rescue our
robber the next day. Our would-be Noah was taken
shivering back to the hospital,
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and then charged with
grand theft auto, which is all in a day's work
for a dumb criminal.
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This next story involves a
smooth-talking convenience store robber who says
two words too many.
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-This here's the
story about a robber. And he walked into
this Quik Mart and decided he was gonna rob it.
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-You working by yourself today? OFFICER (VOICEOVER): And there
was a girl behind the counter,
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and he told her to back
away from the cash register. -I'm gonna rob this store. And don't hit that
button under the counter.
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-I wasn't.
I wasn't. Hey, how do you know
about that button? -He says, I've been doing
this for a long time.
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He says, I've been
robbing places since I was 11 years old. -They're gonna
catch you, you know.
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-You'd have to get up
pretty early in the morning to catch old Bo Ramsey. DANIEL BUTLER (VOICEOVER): The
intensive manhunt took, oh,
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30 seconds. The United States
has more lawyers than any other
country in the world.
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There are 846,000 active
or resident attorneys in the US today. We also have the most
ambulances, which might account
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for the unusually high
number of attorneys. And now, we take you inside the
courtroom for trial and error.
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Let's hear how a would-be
robber at a fast food restaurant arrives just ahead of schedule.
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-Now, Mr. David, what
happened that morning when the man stepped up to the
counter and demanded the money?
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-I said, I can't
give you any money, because the cash
drawer isn't open. -And when he told you
to open the cash drawer?
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-I said, it won't open
without a food order. -And when he ordered
the onion rings?
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-I said, I'm sorry. That's not available
for breakfast, fool. That's when he turned
around and stomped off.
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[theme music] DANIEL BUTLER (VOICEOVER):
Performing acrobatics that would frighten horses is
illegal in Denver, Colorado.
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However, bad contortionists
can terrify goats. Captain Don Parker tells
us about a dumb criminal
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who gets stung after the sting. -We were involved
in a sting operation one time here at the
Sheriff's department.
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It was-- we had a fake pawnshop
set up where the people came and sold us goods, and
we'd videotape them
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and recorded them and all. It went on for months. At the conclusion
of the operation,
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we shut the thing down, went
out on big arrest parties. We must've arrested
30 or 40 people
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that had sold us stolen goods. We recovered everything
from 18 wheelers down to stolen silverware,
if you can imagine that.
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We attracted national attention. We had media from all
over the country come in,
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and it went on for a week. I mean, it was a
media feeding frenzy, because the video was so good
and the audio was so good.
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Everybody just loved it. A week after the pawn
shop has been closed, we have had nothing but
nonstop news coverage.
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We send a team out there
to tear out our stuff. You know, get the
equipment out of there,
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close the building
up, and so on. We've got a great big
old truck from the jail that says Escambia County Jail.
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We've got a couple
of prisoner trustees to do the hard
labor, two guards, and a couple of
plain-clothed deputies.
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As they pull up at the front
of our closed up pawnshop, there's a guy sitting on
the front steps with a beer.
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He looks at this
entourage, recognizes one of our undercover
agents who had work
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the thing, waves to him. This guy walks over, and the
bad guy says, where you been?
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He says, we've been around. What's up? Reaches is in his
pocket, pulls that three
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stolen social security checks. He said, well, he said, I got
three social security checks.
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I'll see them to you
$0.10 on the dollor. I said, no problem. I'll be happy to take him.
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He takes him, arrests him
on the spot, of course. And, of course, they got
the handcuffs on him.
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They're putting him
back in the cruiser car. And nobody could resist,
so they had to ask him,
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didn't you recognize the
Escambia County Jail truck? Didn't you recognize the
fact that these were guards?
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He said, yeah. He said, I thought
you stole the truck and you were fixing
to sell it down here.
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[theme music] DANIEL BUTLER (VOICEOVER):
Coming up, a motorist who picks up a designated
driver a little too late,
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on "America's
Dumbest Criminals." [theme music] -Hi, and welcome back to
"America's Dumbest Criminals."
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You know, when David
Payton was arrested for a string of vending
machine robberies, of course
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he denied the charges. The man was arrested and booked,
and his bond was set at $400.
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The suspected
snack machine snake was allowed his one phone call. Then the accused
vending violator
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waited for his girlfriend to
arrive with the $400 bail, which she did. All 1,600 quarters.
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A two-bit thief who needs to
get a life and a new girlfriend. [theme music] Police horses in New York
get a 15-minute break
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for every two hours they work. But in Wisconsin,
dairy cows get an hour and a half nap every day.
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Officer Brian Barton
told our ADC crew about a particular
drunk who chose the wrong designated driver.
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-OK, I was in a downtown area,
and they put out on the radio about a vehicle
involved in an accident
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and gave a description. [siren blaring] A few blocks away
from the accident, of the scene of the accident,
I observed a vehicle
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with a lot damage to the
driver side of the car. [inaudible radio dispatch] When I stopped
the vehicle, there
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were four individuals in it. The only door that could come
out was the passenger door,
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and they started coming out
the passenger door of the car. -Hey. Sir, are you in the back seat?
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Exit the vehicle first, please. You weren't followed. -Man, I totally shouldn't--
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-Clear the vehicle please. Thank you. -The driver being the
last individual coming out
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of the car had crawled
across the front seat, obviously intoxicated. And as he got out
and got to his feet,
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he kind of leaned up against
me, poked me with his elbow, and he said, tell
him you was driving.
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[theme music] DANIEL BUTLER (VOICEOVER):
ADC Quiz number 1213. The largest jewelry
heist ever recorded
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occurred on July 12,
1987, in London, England. How many millions in precious
jewels did the thieves steal?
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A, $12 million? Be, enough to keep
Ivana Trump happy? Or, C, $14 million
worth of jewels?
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The correct answer was, C,
the thieves stole 40 million in precious jewels,
almost enough
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to keep Ivana Trump happy. And now, actual footage
of a bank robber knows as the Stinky Bandit.
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This man had robbed
many banks, and he was caught on surveillance
cam more than once.
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But he was identified by
everyone-- all of his victims, all of the bank tellers-- by his
unusually repugnant body odor.
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Yes. This man robbed banks. But he obviously didn't bathe. And everyone smelled a rat.
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It's too bad we don't
have smell-o-vision. [theme music] [theme music] -You know, sometimes to
catch an evasive suspect,
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the police must have
dogged determination, even when they don't have a dog. Here's 25-year Birmingham
veteran Johnny Cooley
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with a story we
call "No Dog Night." -This woman had been
divorced from her husband.
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And he kept coming
around and harassing her. And he did this, like,
five, six times a week.
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Every night, we'd
get a call up there. Her husband's back up there. Well, every time we
would go up there,
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he would see lights
coming down the road. Well, he would run into
the woods behind our house.
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So we never could catch him. So one night, we
were fairly close, and she had sent--
I sent Lee up there
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as a backup with another car. Well, you know, we
went around the house. He went this way, and
I went around this way.
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Nowhere in sight. So we got to looking
in the backyard, and we noticed that
the door's open
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that goes underneath the house. - --in there. Can you open the door? -You ready?
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-Yeah. -Police department. Come on out. -We happened just to look in
there and shine our light.
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And he was crawled up in a
crawlspace underneath the house and had a pistol
in there with him.
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He said, y'all don't come in. He says, I'm gonna shoot if
y'all come through that hole.
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-Come on out with your hands up. Come on out. -And we tried talking to
him, you know, to come out.
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And he wouldn't do it. So I told-- I told my buddy. I said, I made sure
he could hear me.
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I said, well, about the only
way we gon' get him out of there is call a canine unit.
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But go ahead and call a canine. Let's get a dog
started over here. We get a couple of German
shepherds, and he'll come out.
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-Come on out. I'm going to send those dogs in. I'm gonna call the canine unit. -You're gonna have to come
on in here and get me.
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JOHNNY COOLEY (VOICEOVER): So
in two minutes, I told my buddy, I said, go see if the
dogs are here yet.
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You know, he did. He act-- stomped his feet. He was standing
right there, though.
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He come back in just a
second, and he says, yeah, they're here, so
where do you want 'em?
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I said, we need to put them in
this crawl space right here. He's up underneath that
brick column right up there.
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Go ahead and unleash the dogs. And my buddy's just
standing there. He's going-- [barking]
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-[barking] -[barking] And this guy says, don't
put them dogs in here. [fake barking continues]
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-There's a real dog out there. All right. Don't put them dogs in here. Don't put them in.
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I'm coming out. I'm coming out. -Stay down, now. Keep your head down. Come on out.
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Hands behind your back. Hands behind your back. Other hand. Other hand. JOHNNY COOLEY (VOICEOVER):
And I handcuffed him.
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And got him up, started
walk-- now he was looking. He was looking. -Where them--
where's them dogs at?
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[officer barking] -Oh, man. Y'all done fooled me. -Life on the other side of the
law isn't glamorous at all.
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It's just plain stupid. Well, that's all the time
we have for this show. We'd like to thank the men
and women of law enforcement
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throughout the country for their
dedication and their stories. I'm Daniel Butler saying, don't
be dumb, don't break the law,
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or we'll catch you. Next time, on "America's
Dumbest Criminals." [theme music]