00:00:04
MALE ANNOUNCER:
Tonight-- can you guess why this crook
was skating on thin ice even before he made
a major slip up?
00:00:10
And how do you send a wake-up
call to career criminals that it's time for a new career?
00:00:15
Catch it all on "America's
Dumbest Criminals." [theme music] -Duh. MALE ANNOUNCER: Now,
welcome your hosts
00:00:54
for "America's
Dumbest Criminals"-- Daniel Butler and Debbie Alan. [applause] -Why don't you
tell everybody what
00:01:05
happened to you on
the way to the studio? -No. -Come on. -No. -Come on. -All right.
00:01:10
I got a speeding ticket. -And what else? -It was on my own street. -What else? -OK.
00:01:17
I had called the
police last year to complain about the people
speeding on my street, OK?
00:01:22
They got me. -Bingo. He's on the right show
tonight, isn't he? -Yeah, buddy. -Your little mishap,
though, doesn't even
00:01:27
begin to compare
with our first story. Of course, you've heard the
phrase "thick as thieves"?
00:01:31
Well, tonight our show
is thick with thieves as we show you excerpts from
an undercover operation that
00:01:37
was run by the police department
in Redondo Beach, California. -It was the largest
sting of its kind
00:01:43
and a huge victory over
bad guys, who were grabbing the goods of
law-abiding citizens.
00:01:48
Here's the first of
our three-part look into Operation Bull Market. -We set up a
storefront operation
00:02:00
to buy stolen property
back from dumb crooks. -It's been recognized
as the most successful sting in
California history.
00:02:06
-Our story wouldn't
have been possible without probably
the dumbest crooks. It was called
Operation Bull Market.
00:02:14
We set up a storefront to buy
back property from burglars. We invested about $175,000
to buy back $4.3 million
00:02:24
worth of property. MICHAEL WEBB: We can
arrest the defendants and put them in jail, but
usually the victim just
00:02:30
doesn't get his or
her property back. So we wanted to set up a
storefront sting operation
00:02:35
so that the defendants would
bring the stolen property to us so that we could return
it to the victims.
00:02:41
JEFF CAMERON: We used undercover
officers behind the counter. The name of the store
was IVD Enterprises.
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Now, loosely translated from
Roman numerals, IVD is 496. 496 in the California penal code
is receiving stolen property.
00:02:56
MICHAEL WEBB: And we
videotaped everything. We were able to recover over
$4 million in stolen property,
00:03:03
including 212 vehicles. DEBBIE ALAN: All right. Great police work. We'll have more on this sting
operation a little bit later.
00:03:11
But right now, we
turn our attention to the plight of the criminal. Meet a klutzy crook who cut
himself during a break-in
00:03:17
and made a bloody
mess of things. It's this week's installment of
"something to remember me by."
00:03:28
-Well, the subject
decided to steal some designer jeans
from a local store. And he walked up the window
and looked in and saw jeans.
00:03:35
He wanted to bust the glass out. In the processing of
busting window glass out, he cut his fore-arm open.
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He apparently took
a bunch of jeans, wrapped them around his forearm,
and left from the scene.
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We just followed the
blood trail of jeans that he had dropped
on the way all the way back to his apartment.
00:04:00
When we got there,
the dumbest about it was that none of the jeans
that he stole he could use,
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because they were all
saturated with blood. They were pretty much ruined. And so he wouldn't have gotten
anything out of them anyway.
00:04:12
-Crime is dangerous, kids. You know, if you live where
ice and snow are a problem,
00:04:17
you probably know these tips
for winter driving-- accelerate slowly, tap the brake
gently to reduce speed,
00:04:23
remain calm at all times. Fasten your seat
belts now, kids, as you'll see ice eating ice.
00:04:32
MALE ANNOUNCER: If you've
ever driven on ice, you've experienced
a little of this.
00:04:36
But have you ever done
anything like this? He comes down the hill,
across the street, then ouch!
00:04:42
Oooh. But it's not over yet. No, not by a long shot-- bumper
cars and more bumper cars
00:04:49
until finally he
comes to a stop. -Coming off that
hill, tried to stop. She just-- like a sheet
of ice, kept sliding.
00:05:04
See, we gained momentum. Just all over the place. I was trying to
steer, because she
00:05:10
wasn't having no part of it. -I wish she would've
totaled us, because I'd get a new car out of it.
00:05:15
I wanted her to come
back and hit it again. [laughter] MALE ANNOUNCER:
It's a rare thing
00:05:21
to get away with breaking
a law of the land. But breaking the
laws of physics? Don't even try it.
00:05:36
MALE ANNOUNCER: In Houston, no
one can get on or off the train without first showing a
special health certificate.
00:05:46
-Our next story involves
health, but not trains. Perhaps the driver
caught speeding
00:05:50
had seen too many
doctor shows on TV. He thought he could play
mind games with the officer,
00:05:55
but he just wasn't
up to the task. -I had a couple
of teenage boys-- one of our little
state routes here
00:06:09
is posted 45 mile
an hour speed limit. I clocked 'em at 84 on my radar. And of course, stop the car,
and go up to the window.
00:06:19
And the driver, he's just
got a story to tell me, you know, right of the bat. Hey man, you know,
officer-- my friend
00:06:25
here, he's got a brain injury. His ears are bleeding. He's hemorrhaging. You can call his coach.
00:06:32
You know, I'm trying to
get him to his mother. She's a nurse. And I look over at the guy.
00:06:36
I said, hey, are you OK? He's kind of shocked at what
his friend's talking about.
00:06:42
I said, are you sure
you're all right? He said, Yeah. He said, I just
don't feel real good.
00:06:46
You know, my head
is kind of hurting. I said, well, I said,
I tell you what. I said, I'm gonna
get you an ambulance.
00:06:52
So I summonsed out all
kind of medical people just to check him out. I figured it was
probably just a front.
00:06:57
They were trying to back out of
the citation, because there was going to be a reckless
driving ticket anyway.
00:07:02
So make a long story
short, the whole calvary's called out-- red lights galore,
paramedics, fire trucks.
00:07:09
You name it, they were there. The guy refused the
treatment at the scene. And his friend the driver,
he kind of took his medicine
00:07:19
and signed on the dotted
line at the bottom. So that was probably the
wildest one I've ever had.
00:07:25
-Daniel could have used
that excuse this morning, because it's not a
good idea, though,
00:07:28
to cry wolf with
a police officer. Is it, Daniel? -No. I think there was something
wrong with his brain,
00:07:33
but it was figuratively,
not literally. He might find some kindred
spirits, maybe even a support
00:07:38
group, from the folks who
got stung by that sting operation we showed you earlier.
00:07:42
For more details on this
incredible undertaking, we take your back to
Redondo Beach, California.
00:07:51
-In order to get the defendants
to come into the store, our officers went
out and posted fliers
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saying that they
would buy property. And that's all it said--
just buy property.
00:08:01
And when someone would come
in and offer to sell a car, we would offer about
4% of Blue Book value.
00:08:08
So if it was a
legitimate citizen, they weren't going to
sell their car for that.
00:08:13
JEFF CAMERON: We would gain the
confidence of these dumb crooks and end up buying from them
on more than one occasion.
00:08:23
They would end up copping
out to us about crimes that they had done that
we had no knowledge about.
00:08:31
-They don't have
cameras at the back, but they have them at the front. They don't have no
cameras at the back gate.
00:08:36
And we go-- we
take people to-- we got a D lot where
everybody parks for work. So that's when I get 'em.
00:08:43
I just take people over
there and keep the car. -So we ended up pinning
a lot more crime on them
00:08:49
than they actually
had walked into. -One of them stole a car,
sold it to these officers,
00:08:56
and then promptly ran
back into the parking lot, jumped into the car, and tried
to steal it a second time.
00:09:02
JEFF CAMERON: The big take-down
day, we invited the media. It was covered by
virtually every TV
00:09:08
news station in
Los Angeles basin. -Police [inaudible] armed
with a search warrant.
00:09:12
I demand entry--
open the door now. JEFF CAMERON: They went
out with SWAT teams,
00:09:17
and arrested a
number of suspects that had been identified. -Get down on the ground!
00:09:23
Get down! -It was a proud day
for law enforcement here in the South Bay. -That's pretty amazing.
00:09:30
We'll bring this
story to a close a little bit later in the show. Here's a familiar phrase
appropriate to the people we
00:09:36
just saw and those
you're about to meet-- be sure your sins
will find you out. Or to put that in more practical
terms, if you don't turn off
00:09:45
your cell phone before you start
bragging about the hoax you're pulling, you're
going to get busted.
00:09:50
Instead of covering
their tracks, see how these teenagers
in Sandy, Utah, got stopped in their tracks.
00:09:57
-I received a call
from our dispatcher about a traffic accident. They had originally left the
scene of where the accident
00:10:05
occurred and they had
waved down another officer. And the dispatcher told
me that the five minutes
00:10:10
she was on the
phone with them, she had heard them make
some statements. She was talking to
them for awhile,
00:10:17
and then all of a sudden,
for whatever reason, they thought the
phone went dead.
00:10:21
And they couldn't
hear the dispatcher, but the dispatcher
could still hear them.
00:10:26
So they had never
hung the phone up. They just threw it up
on their dashboard, and they kept making
their statements.
00:10:30
They were formulating their
lie-- where did he hit us? Let's get our story together.
00:10:34
What were we even
doing on the road? How fast were we going? We were coming back from church.
00:10:39
About this point, I arrived. After hearing that
information from dispatch, I knew what we were
dealing with-- they were
00:10:45
going to file a
false police report. Well, I talked to the
passenger in the car,
00:10:51
and basically told them I
knew what they had done. They never hung up
their cellphone,
00:10:55
and he kind of shook
his head in disgust. I took my codebook
over there, and let
00:11:00
him read the law on filing
a false police report. Then he told me the
whole story, that they
00:11:05
just saw somebody they knew. They started flipping
each other off with the infamous middle digit.
00:11:10
Well, they got mad,
and he got mad, and they played a little bumper
tag down the streets of Sandy.
00:11:15
He was getting
afraid at this point that his dad was going to be
mad because there was damage
00:11:18
to his truck, which I'm
sure would be the case. I walked by the
car-- I also noticed
00:11:24
there was a video camera in it. And I asked to see what
was on the video camera.
00:11:29
And of course, they
didn't want to show me, but eventually they did. It was more or less their
pursuit of the guy who hit 'em.
00:11:37
But there were also some
parts of them pulling up next to each other and given
each other the finger.
00:11:41
Decided not to file
any charges on 'em. We took the people who filed
the complaint home, let them
00:11:49
tell the story to
their mom and dad. To say the least,
mom and dad were not happy with their son's behavior.
00:11:54
We felt they were going to get
more justice from an angry mom and dad than they would in
the juvenile court system,
00:12:01
so we let them
resolve the situation. -Round three at the Bull Market
sting operation is coming up.
00:12:13
But now, the news from
a source whose name is more credible
than Stone Phillips,
00:12:17
Cokie Roberts, or Wolf Blitzer. Here's Daniel with
ADC Headlines. -Well, a Chattanooga
prisoner was on work release
00:12:31
and restricted to the facility,
except when commuting to work. But everything changed when
a sentencing judge happened
00:12:38
to read the prisoner's score
from a charity golf tournament in the local newspaper.
00:12:42
Well, he's now serving his
entire four years sentence, and it'll be a long time before
his tee-time comes up again.
00:12:50
Penny-wise, pound-foolish-- that
was the epilogue on this story of a man in Providence,
Rhode Island,
00:12:55
who knocked over an
armored car driver, grabbed the four closest
money bags, and fled.
00:13:01
Well, it so happened that
the bags that he grabbed contained $800 in pennies
for a staggering total weight
00:13:11
of 120 pounds. He was easily
overtaken by police. I mean, I think you're
only brought good luck
00:13:17
from pennies you
find one at a time. Beefeater is a brand of gin. Beef eaters with an "s" is
a brand of toy dog bones.
00:13:26
Apparently, a pair of thieves
in Newark weren't watching their P's and Q's-- or their
s's-- when they made off with
00:13:31
799 cases of something they
thought would be a black market bonanza, instead of a
golden retriever's nirvana.
00:13:40
Well, so much for barking
up the wrong tree. And that closes the file on
ABC Headline News, ripped
00:13:46
from somewhere near the back
of your local newspaper. Debbie? It's time for the closing
chapter of our inside look
00:13:56
at the Bull Market sting
operation in Redondo Beach. Join us in a post-mortem
celebrating the finale
00:14:02
of this stupendously
successful charade. -In the end, we identified
and arrested 96 suspects.
00:14:10
We filed 539 felony counts. About 84 of the 96 suspects
had prior felony arrests,
00:14:19
which meant obviously they've
dealt with law enforcement before, so they've got to got
to be more of the dumber crooks
00:14:24
that we have to deal with. We recovered 212
stolen vehicles. It was interesting in a number
of the conversations what we
00:14:34
heard from the crooks, such
as-- they were boasting, I'm never going to get caught,
and the cops are so dumb.
00:14:41
They'll never catch me. Well, we've sent them
all back to prison, and they'll be there for awhile.
00:14:47
Now, behind the
counter in the store was a trophy from the
Police Athletic League.
00:14:54
And on a couple of
occasions, these crooks would noticed that and inquire
why we had such a trophy?
00:15:03
And they were simply told-- with
the undercover officers trying to keep a straight face-- that
they contributed to the Police
00:15:10
Athletic League, and that
was just one way that they kept the police
out of their hair.
00:15:16
If it weren't for
the dumber crooks, we wouldn't have had
Operation Bull Market.
00:15:20
And if it weren't
for dumb crooks, I probably wouldn't
have a job, and you probably wouldn't have a show.
00:15:28
-Yeah, I guess that
makes Debbie and I doubly indebted to the police officers
for their great police work.
00:15:34
Now we move on to an operation
far less sophisticated-- there are no
undercover officers,
00:15:39
no months of planning. In fact, officers
didn't even have to leave the station
to make this arrest.
00:15:45
Watch the binging bozo bomb as
he tries to bail out his buddy. -Several years ago, I was on
patrol-- as a matter of fact,
00:15:54
I was finishing up a shift. I was heading up the highway
leading toward our police
00:15:58
station when I observed
the car in front of me that was going slower than
the posted speed limit.
00:16:06
Nothing that unusual
about that, but what caught my attention was, he made
a right hand turn at the street
00:16:11
prior to the police station. He almost struck the curb. So I followed him up that street
and I intended to pull him over
00:16:18
as he made a left hand
turn into the parking lot at the police
station, basically.
00:16:24
At that point in time, he went
through a marked stop sign and a "do not enter" sign
and went around the rear
00:16:30
of the police station where
it's restricted access, right past the back door of the
police station, around
00:16:36
the far side of
the police station, and pulled his car over
near our sally point,
00:16:39
where we bring our prisoners in. And as he got out of
the car, I asked him if he needed any assistance,
if I can help with anything.
00:16:46
-Uh, yeah, I just-- I came
to pick up a friend of mine. -And I realized from his
demeanor, his staggering,
00:16:52
that he was drunk. -Uh, I think y'all arrested
him for drunk driving. I haven't had anything to drink.
00:16:58
Not at all. No. No.
What? Turn around?
What for? POLICE OFFICER: Put your
hands behind your back.
00:17:03
-Oh. POLICE OFFICER: You're
under arrest for DUI. -No, really, I just came to
pick up a friend of mine.
00:17:09
Y'all arrested him. I'm trying to do him a favor. -So basically, he
surrendered himself.
00:17:14
I walked him 20 feet
inside the police station and arrested him for drunk
driving at that point.
00:17:18
-I just came to pick
up a friend of mine. Y'all arrested him.
POLICE OFFICER: Come on.
00:17:22
In the building. In the building. -I'm trying-- I'm trying
to do him a fa-- favor!
00:17:27
POLICE OFFICER: Watch your
step, watch your step. MALE ANNOUNCER: Coming up--
tonight's chapter in "we're not
00:17:35
making this up" shows
a crook's civility towards a civil servant, and
it's nothing to sneeze at.
00:17:48
-Would you allow me
to quote Emily Post? -Well, all right. Go ahead. [snorts] -Daniel.
00:17:54
You can dress this guy up, huh? -What? -All right. Emily Post said that manners
are a sensitive awareness
00:17:59
of the feelings of others. -Mm-hmm. -And our last story
tonight portrays one of the most
sensitive criminals
00:18:05
we've ever come across. -Yeah. Excuse me. Oh, he's a real
pussycat, this one. Yeah, Deb.
00:18:10
-I'm glad you said "excuse me." You've heard that bad
manners can cause problems?
00:18:13
Well, watch how good manners
bring this criminal's downfall. -Several years ago-- I was
still a police officer--
00:18:26
I had a conditions
call, a burglary call. The purpose of that job
was to help bring down
00:18:30
burglaries on the
midnight shift. One day, we responded to
a burglary in process.
00:18:36
By the time we got to
that particular job, several uniformed police
cars had already arrived.
00:18:41
They had done a thorough
search, and they didn't come up with anybody. -You all right?
00:18:45
You got a cold, or something? -Yeah, I've had a cold for--
gosh, about two weeks now.
00:18:49
-We were getting ready to leave. Police officer sneezed. I heard a voice
said "gesundheit."
00:18:54
-Did you hear that? CRIMINAL: Gesundheit! -I [inaudible] he had
climbed up into the ceiling.
00:19:07
I heard a voice
said "gesundheit." -Ah. There you go. DEBBIE ALAN: Aww. He's a nice guy-- he did
have some good habits.
00:19:17
-He did, except for that little
breaking and entering habit. -Naughty, naughty. -And we'll take this opportunity
to say bless you for watching
00:19:23
"America's Dumbest
Criminals"-- keeps us in a job and off the streets. And that's got to be good
for something, right?
00:19:28
-In your case, yes sir. Well, we're signing
off for now, but we'll count on seeing you next time.
00:19:32
-There's a lot more dumb
where these stories came from. -If you've got a
lead on a story,
00:19:37
or you just can't wait till next
week for more state of the art stupidity, visit our website
at www.dumbcrimes.com.
00:19:45
-We want to thank
you for joining us and extend our gratitude
to the law enforcement
00:19:48
officers who make
this show possible. Every day, they lay
their lives on the line
00:19:52
to keep us safe
from the stupidity of would-be criminals. -As always, we
hope that we've all
00:19:57
learned from other's mistakes. -But if you haven't yet, we
just might see you next week
00:20:02
on "America's
Dumbest Criminals." -Goodbye! [applause]