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DANIEL BUTLER: This
is an ADC warning. The crimes you're
about to see are true. Only the names were changed
to protect the ignorant.
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[sirens] [music playing] DANIEL BUTLER: Tonight you'll
meet two dumb criminals with an extremely
short term memory,
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actual surveillance camera
footage of two women dressed for arrest, and the crime
that's all in a small family.
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All these and more on
"America's Dumbest Criminals." Hi, and welcome to the show.
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I'm Daniel Butler. You know, all crimes
are dumb, but some are dumber than others.
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And then some crimes
are the dumbest. So what does that say
about the criminals who commit the
last type of crime?
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Well, they're America's
dumbest criminals. First up, Anthony Underwood
remembers how a blockhead
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tripped up in "Below the Belt." -Partner, we stopped in, into
an area convenience store.
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You know, just making
a business check. And as we walked in,
uh, it was this male uh,
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with his back toward us, toward
the front door as though he was purchasing some store goods.
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In his left hand, there was
a large plastic sandwich bag, and it had a dark green,
leafy substance inside of it.
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And I looked at my
partner, he looked at me. And I said, no, this ain't real. As he turned to
go out, he saw us.
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And it was in plain view
what was in the bag. So he just hurriedly pushed the
door open and he broke and ran.
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MEN: [laughing] OFFICER ANTHONY
UNDERWOOD: At that time, his pants start coming down.
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MEN: [laughing] OFFICER ANTHONY UNDERWOOD: You
know the youngsters these days? He had a belt, but it
wasn't adjusted enough
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to hold his pants up. And he was still holding
the dope in his left hand. And he was trying
to pull his pants up
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with the right hand
at the same time. DANIEL BUTLER: May we
suggest suspenders? Or just get belted.
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ADC quiz number 372. After burglarizing a house and
loading his car with the stolen
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contents, a thief in
Fair Oaks, California made one last trip inside. What did he go back in for?
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Was it A, the kitchen sink? B, the family dog? Or C, to draw a warm bath? The correct answer is
C. He had a warm bath.
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It is a great stress reliever. Almost as good as
grabbing your rear and throwing yourself
off a diving platform.
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Now David Jones spells it
out for "Speed Reader." -I was running radar
and I stopped this--
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it was like eight o'clock in the
morning-- I stopped this lady. And she, before I can
even get out of the car,
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she's running back. -My son is late for school! I, I gotta go now! OFFICER DAVID JONES: So she
starts running back to her car.
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I was like, "Wait a minute! I'll give you a note!" So I wrote her a ticket
and she signed it.
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MEN: [laughing] -She had her-- -Drive careful. DANIEL BUTLER: And now,
actual surveillance cam
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footage we call
"Dressed for Arrest." These two women are shoplifters,
but not just any shoplifters.
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These two are masterminds. They're suspected of
shoplifting $60,000 worth of clothing
across 11 states.
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Having been warned
of their arrival, officials first spotted the
two getting off a plane,
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then followed them
to the mall where the two set up shop shoplifting. These ladies took numerous
articles of clothing
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into the fitting rooms, but when
they came out, they had none. They just had suspiciously
bigger, bulging purses.
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Police trail them back
to their hotel room, where they found another
$2,500 worth of clothing,
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a bag full of anti-theft tags,
and about 30 fake driver's licenses, plus a map
of their next targets.
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These two are currently
dressed in gray and unable to check out. Now Paul Heaton
teaches a numbskull
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that "It's All Relative." -One particular
evening, I had a warrant to serve on an individual
who had about six brothers.
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All these brothers
would interchangeably use each other's name when
stopped by the police.
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Only one of them
I knew definitely. I knew him by face and
knew his real name. So I went and knocked on the
door, and one of the brothers
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came who, uh, I
did not recognize. And I gave the name of
the one that I knew. -I'm here to serve a
warrant on a Mickey Miller.
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Is that you?
-No. OFFICER PAUL HEATON: You could
see the relief on his face when I gave the other name.
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He said-- -I'm Randy Miller. -Randy? -'Cause he knew he
didn't have to lie. The warrant wasn't on him.
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Well, it was. -No. [laughs] I'm, I'm Randy Miller. -Randy Miller. Nice to meet you.
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You're under arrest. -Oh no, come on, man! -Yep. -Ouch! -Well, no. -Come on, that's my brother!
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-I said, "Come on." MEN: [laughing] DANIEL BUTLER: Later
on tonight's show, you'll see the profoundly
ignorant tooling around town.
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-Due to a typographical
error, we erroneously reported last week that many
of the criminals portrayed
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on this show are members
of the Mensa Society. What we meant to
say was that most
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criminals are a
menace to society. Next up, an undercover
officer gives a dumb criminal the finger.
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-My partner and I were
in a known drug area and we spotted a white
male who was riding
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a motorcycle and a
white female in a car. The man was following
much too closely for her.
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We decided to pull
him over and ask him to quit following so close. We turned on blue
lights and sirens
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and um, attempted
to pull him over. He attempted to turn off on
another road and lost control
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of the motorcycle and went down. FEMALE OFFICER: Stay
right where you are, sir. UNDERCOVER OFFICER:
He jumped right up
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and there was a small fence
that obviously he didn't see. -Get down on the ground!
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Stay right there! -So I pointed my
fingers at him, and I said, "Sheriff's Department!"
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My partner said, "Shoot him!" The man said, "Oh my god, no! Don't shoot me!" -Don't shoot me!
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-Shut up! -Don't shoot! Don't! -Roll over! You're going to jail! You are going to jail!
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-That's your [bleep] finger! -We found out why
he was running. He had three warrants
out for his arrest.
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And I got him with this. DANIEL BUTLER: In
New Mexico, it used to be against the
law for a taxi driver
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to force a customer into a cab. Fortunately, it's still
against the law for a pilot
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to force a passenger
out of a plane. Next, a tipsy mush-for-brains
gives a policeman
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a ride on the "Merry-Go-Round." When Officer Tony Jordan
sighted a pickup truck driving
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erratically, he directed
the intoxicated driver into a mall parking lot. However, the chase
didn't end there.
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At least, not exactly. The officer got out of his car,
approached the pickup truck,
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and then the driver
continued to drive. At 10 miles an hour. In a circle. Right in front of
the police officer.
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He was discreetly trying
to get rid of any evidence. By throwing beer cans out the
window as he guzzled them.
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Round and round he went on
the merry-go-round of life, drinking and driving,
driving and drinking.
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Eventually, the man was caught. He was charged with DUI, driving
on a suspended license, stolen
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tags, resisting
arrest, and littering. -Hey! Come over here! Hey! Come over here!
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DANIEL BUTLER: Not only was
the man wearing a bad wig, but he was also dizzy. And now, Bruce
Harper of Las Vegas
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tells us a story we
call "Door Knockers." -We got a call of a,
of a, a family fight
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at one of an apartment complex. And uh, we went to
the complex and we were-- we didn't know
exactly where it was at.
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Someone said, an
unidentified caller said it, somewhere in the
complex they're fighting.
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So as we go around, we
hear doors slamming. So we hear door slam. So we start identifying where
it's at from the door slamming.
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So we walk up and
we finally pick out the apartment that
uh, it's coming from. And we hear the door slam and,
and stuff fall off the wall.
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So we knocked on the door and
we take a position on each side, not knowing what
we're gonna find.
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We knock on the door and this
lady opens it up stark naked, and starts yelling. Said, "It's about time you--"
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Apparently, whoever she was
expecting was running late and she was getting impatient.
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And when she, we
came to the door, she thought we
were her uh, date. So she, she's standing
there looking at us while I,
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she's grabbing stuff
to cover herself. She was quite surprised when we
showed up instead of her date.
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DANIEL BUTLER: Now we take
you inside the courtroom for Trial and Error. From actual courtroom
transcripts,
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an officer tells us
about some car thieves who went just a little too far. -Officer, at a
previous hearing you
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stated that the suspects
had stolen a number of cars in the past two years, correct?
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-Yes, ma'am. 25. -And what happened
at that hearing? -Well, they were
released from custody,
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realized they didn't have
enough money for the bus, so they stole number 26. [gavel rapping]
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DANIEL BUTLER: Coming
up later, a high speed chase that the
police really love because it came complete
with visual aids.
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[music playing] DANIEL BUTLER: Next, Jerry Potts
recounts glaring doltishness in a case called "Late Again."
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-We stopped the individual
coming across the Bay Bridge locally here. He was speeding.
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And as the officer stopped
him, got out of the car, walked up there to him,
uh, he asked the guy.
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He said, "Why were
you going so fast?" And he looked at
the guy-- officer-- and he said, "You know, I
was going to the courthouse
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to pay the last ticket. I'm late." [laughs] DANIEL BUTLER: And now
actual surveillance
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cam footage of "The Door Man." Normally this
surveillance camera pans the entire parking lot.
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However, now it's broken,
stuck on one small section. Knowing this, the security
guard parked his own car
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in the one spot where
it would be on camera. So guess which car a dumb
criminal decides to break into?
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The thief acts fast, running
up to the car, opening the door and jumping in. Then to his dismay, he's
unable to hot wire the car.
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So he decides to
steal the radio. Unfortunately for him, in
tearing apart the dashboard,
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he turns the lights on. His attempts to turn
the headlights off only cause the lights to
boost up to high beam.
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Finally, he pulls out the radio
and hands it off to a friend. At this point,
officials were still
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unsure of the identity
of the suspects. That is, until they
pulled up in the camera
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in their own vehicles. The police instantly recognized
the automobiles of a car theft
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team they had arrested
just last month. Next, Officer Buddy
Tidwell takes us out
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with a truckload of dumbos
in "Tooling Around." -Not too long ago there
were some unfortunate
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transient uh, thieves
going along the interstate. And uh, one night
they decided that it
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was time for them to
get off the interstate. They went to the rear lot
of this roofing business
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and saw that there was a
truck there loaded with tools. And it was fairly
easily accessible,
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so they got into the
truck, hot wired it, broke out with the truck
full of tools, and left.
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[engine starting] -Well, the following
morning the roofing company called and asked for a
policeman to come by and take
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a report on the stolen
truck and tools. So a policeman I
know was going there. -So uh, you guys in the
roofing business too, huh?
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OFFICER BUDDY
TIDWELL: He had gotten a second call as he
was responding there. And, uh, the burglars had
shown back up with the roofing
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company truck with the
same logo on the side, attempting to sell the truck to
the people they stole it from.
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Apparently, they didn't know
that, the area that well and they'd only seen the
back of the business.
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So when the officer arrived,
they, they locked them up. MEN: [laughing] DANIEL BUTLER: In
North Carolina,
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it used to be against
the law for a women to wear shorts in public. The punishment was a
swift kick in the butt.
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Next, Steve Parnell recalls
a meeting of the half minds in "AKA." -I was working a wreck.
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Man, it's all confusing
and everything. I mean, the car is in
the middle of the street.
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And there was witnesses
that saw the wreck. They were standing on the side. I got traffic going
uh, north and south,
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traffic coming up Second Avenue. Traffic just going
everywhere. [laughs] So finally we got to
the witnesses, right?
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This one girl, she's like,
"I, I know what happened. I know what happened." So I goes up to her with my
pad out, and I say, um, "OK,
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did you see what
happened?" "Yes, I saw everything that happened." -You see this fool in this
gray truck right here?
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He goes flying around
the corner, man. And just said, boom! And went dead smack into
that clown right there!
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OFFICER STEVE PARNELL: I
said, "What's your name?" She says, "You
want my real name?"
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-You mean my real name? -And she said, "Well, I didn't
know if, I didn't think, I didn't want to
give you my real name
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'cause I didn't know you
just gonna run me in or not." And I say, "Yes, I
want your real name!
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What you think? I don't want your play name!" Hey, I ain't seen a damn thing. Ask them!
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-That was the dumbest
thing I heard in a while. [music playing] [music playing] DANIEL BUTLER: Our
legal department
00:14:48
has advised us to make the
following announcement. Some meat heads
referred to on this show
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may actually contain
up to 50% soy filler. Now Doug Baldwin of Pensacola
takes a bite out of crime
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with "Dogged Determination." -We were chasing
this car one day. This guy had just uh, committed
a narcotics transaction
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and we started chasing this car. So uh, during the chase,
the guy stopped the car
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and jumped out of the
car and started running. And during the chase, he ran
into this fenced in compound
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where there are signs all around
that says, "Guard Dog on Duty." So I saw him through
the fence line,
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but I'm very hesitant to
go inside the compound because of the guard dogs. And he comes back
towards the fence,
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and I jump over the
fence and I handcuff him. And as we're walking
out the compound,
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these two attack
dogs started running after us and we took
off running, both of us.
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I did the best I could to
keep him from uh, being bit. But you know, there's signs
all around the compound
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and he chose that
compound to go in. And I thought that was
pretty dumb. [laughs]
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DANIEL BUTLER: Arf, arf, arf. Dumb. In Rhode Island, it used to
be against the law for a woman
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to take a cigarette from a man. So men found other ways
to take their breath away.
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Next Floyd Hyde takes us on an
unintentional high speed chase. -OK, I was dispatched to a
personal injury accident.
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And um, course, when
there's somebody that's injured in an
accident scene, that takes priority, priority
over everything else.
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Uh, so to get to the accident
scene, the shortest distance, I was gonna use the
interstate system.
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And as I merged onto the
interstate running blue lights and siren, I fell
behind this Trans Am.
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And when I did, it, uh, he
was doing the speed limit, but he suddenly sped
up, and it was evident
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that he was starting
to try to outrun me. I couldn't pursue him. I was on my way to
where somebody was hurt.
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Well, as I got up
to my exit, I, I figured that he would
continue on the interstate.
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Instead, he made the exit also. Well, that was fine. I kept telling the
dispatcher where we was at.
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But I wasn't gonna
change my response route to the collision scene. When we got off the
exit, he turned left.
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That's the way I needed to go. We continued on to my next
turn and he made the same turn.
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Well, every time that
I needed to make a turn to get to the accident,
uh, he made the same turn.
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And this, this continued all the
way through in a pursuit mode, as far as he was concerned.
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But I was still
responding to the wreck. I wasn't gonna change my route. And uh, as we got to
the accident scene,
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there was another officer
that got to the scene just before me, and he was there
to take care of the injured.
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So I was gonna continue
with the pursuit. But when we got to
the accident scene,
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I saw smoke and fire
coming from his engine and he blew up his engine. So he had to stop at the
collision scene also.
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And then um, the only
reason he was running is he had a suspended license. That was it.
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If, if he wouldn't have sped
up when I fell behind him, I would've passed him, went
on to the collision scene.
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If he would have stayed
on the interstate, I would have let him go because
I had to get to the collision.
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Uh, but he took every turn
that I needed to take. He was just going my way. DANIEL BUTLER: In criminology,
this is known as dumb luck.
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And with that, we've reached
the end of the line up. Our thanks to the men and
women of law enforcement
00:18:31
who gave us the stories. And please join
us again next week when once again
we open the files
00:18:36
on "America's
Dumbest Criminals." I'm Daniel Butler saying,
hey, don't be dumb. Don't break the law.
00:18:44
Goodnight. [music playing] [music playing]