00:00:06
-Hi. I'm Daniel Butler. Welcome to another edition of
"America's Dumbest Criminals."
00:00:12
[theme music] [glass breaking] [tires skidding] [tires screeching] NARRATOR: On this episode of
"America's Dumbest Criminals."
00:00:44
-Yeah. -Most of you guys are-- -What? -Lousy actors. NARRATOR: A man adds more
than sugar to his coffee.
00:00:50
A Yuletide burglar gets
caught with his pants down. -No smoking in here. NARRATOR: A loser picks the
wrong place to light up.
00:00:59
-Hey! NARRATOR: A stoner makes an
indecent proposal to a cop. -Hey, what's going on, guys?
00:01:04
-Hey, listen, man, what's up?
-Hey, what's up? -Want some? -Oh, wow. NARRATOR: All this and
more, on this week's episode
00:01:09
of "America's
Dumbest Criminals." Here's your host, Daniel Butler. -Mm. Ah. There's nothing that
people look forward
00:01:18
to more than that first cup
of coffee in the morning. But as this next
surveillance tape shows,
00:01:24
there's a lot to be said
for switching to hot tea. [door creaking] Workers
at a factory in St.
00:01:29
Joseph, Missouri, had been
wondering why their coffee had been tasting so bad
in recent weeks,
00:01:34
and decided to set up a camera
to see what was brewing. They were shocked--
[splashing, whistling]
00:01:39
DANIEL BUTLER: --to
find out that one of their disgruntled employees
had been coming into the office
00:01:43
and routinely adding more
than just a spoonful of sugar to the pot. Ugh. How 'bout those Dodgers, huh?
00:01:54
Phew. [music playing] -There are many vendors with
the "no questions ask" refund
00:02:02
policy, but how
many crooks extend their victims the same courtesy? Here's one yo-yo who struck
out after making a dumb deal.
00:02:12
A clerk in a St. Peters,
Missouri, convenience store was just about to call the
cops after being robbed
00:02:17
of $100, when to his
surprise, the crook came back. -OK, man. I need a jump on my car, OK?
00:02:23
If you give me a jump, I'll
give you back the money. Look, ju-- just give
me a jump on my car.
00:02:26
If you give me a jump, I'll
give you back the money. -OK, OK. -OK? DANIEL BUTLER (VOICEOVER):
But that wasn't all the crook
00:02:31
wanted for his hot hundred. He also wanted a
40-minute head start, and didn't want
the clerk to write
00:02:38
down his license plate number. Considering that the thief
was armed, the clerk complied.
00:02:43
[tires skidding] -But he couldn't resist
sharing his new-found knowledge with local authorities,
and the bargaining
00:02:49
burglar was quickly caught. [music playing] -Sometimes dumb criminals don't
seem to realize just how stupid
00:02:57
they look when they
commit a crime, and they seem genuinely
surprised when an officer stops
00:03:02
them, like this
guy in San Diego. -I got a guy round-- again,
around between 3:00 or 4:00
00:03:07
in the morning, walking down one
of the-- residential streets. Uh, nobody else on the street.
00:03:12
He's the only one
walking in the dark, and he's carrying
a cash register. -Hey, buddy.
00:03:16
JIM LOBEL (VOICEOVER): And-- and
the first-- the first question they always ask you, when you--
when you stop to talk to 'em,
00:03:19
is why are you stopping me? And I explained to him--
-Come back here. JIM LOBEL (VOICEOVER):
--because you're carrying
00:03:23
a cash register,
and it's between-- -Stop. JIM LOBEL (VOICEOVER):
3:00, 3:30-- -What?
00:03:26
JIM LOBEL (VOICEOVER): --four
o'clock in the morning-- -Where you coming from? JIM LOBEL (VOICEOVER):
--you know?
00:03:29
Where'd you get
the cash register? -Just over there. -Well, uh, I-- I don't
really know where I found it,
00:03:32
or I found it, you know,
or somebody gave it to me. And it turned out to be that
he just-- he just burglarized
00:03:36
a business no more
than two blocks away, and he stole the
whole cash register. And he was walking
down the street,
00:03:41
carrying the whole
cash register. -A cop in Merrimack,
New Hampshire, got more than crumpets
and polite conversation
00:03:47
from this group of
lunchtime losers. While on his usual patrol,
our undercover officer
00:03:53
noticed a shady group
of guys make their way around the back of a building. He casually followed them,
and struck up a conversation.
00:04:01
-Hey, what's going on, guys? -Hey, listen, man, what's up?
-Hey, what's up? -Want some?
00:04:04
-Oh, wow. - --more where this came from.
-Right. Hey, listen. I wouldn't do that
if I were you.
00:04:08
Uh, there's a lot
of cops around here. -Chill out, dude. Don't worry about it. The cops are on their
lunch break, man.
00:04:12
It's all right.
-Not all of 'em. -Not all of 'em.
You're all under arrest. -Aw, man.
-Let's go.
00:04:14
-No, man. -The bummed-out
bonehead was less than stoked about his bread-and-water
value pack, served down
00:04:21
at the station a
few hours later. [music playing] -Just so you know, dumb does
not stop on the Canadian border.
00:04:31
In fact, in this
case, it speeds up. [siren] DANIEL BUTLER (VOICEOVER): An
officer from St. Catherine,
00:04:36
Ontario, tried to stop
a suspicious car that ignored the emergency
lights and sirens,
00:04:40
and sped away at speeds of
over 100 miles per hour. The hoser shut off
all of his lights,
00:04:46
thinking that the
officer wouldn't be able to see him as
he made a variety-- -Northbound to--
00:04:50
DANIEL BUTLER (VOICEOVER): --of
turns through the neighborhood. - --Birmingham. DANIEL BUTLER (VOICEOVER): That
plan might have worked if he--
00:04:54
-Subject is slowing and he-- DANIEL BUTLER
(VOICEOVER): --hadn't used his turn signals
at every corner--
00:04:56
- --appears to be-- DANIEL BUTLER (VOICEOVER):
--until he got to his home, allowing the officer
to easily follow
00:05:00
him, and arrest
him within moments. Now "lights out" means
something completely different
00:05:05
than it did when
he wasn't in jail. I'm Daniel Butler, and this
is Beaumont Bacon in Mosaic.
00:05:12
BEAUMONT BACON: Hi.
[laughing] Hi, Daniel. A guy in Idaho had
found a pair of shoes
00:05:17
that he liked, and took
them out of the box, and replaced them with
his old, smelly pair.
00:05:21
And he ran out of the store. -In his new pair of hot heels. -[inaudible] his hot heels.
00:05:26
Luckily, the store clerk
recognized him as a window washer that worked for the
area, and immediately notified
00:05:31
the police, and-- once she had
realized what had happened. -The hush puppy poacher was
brought in for questioning,
00:05:37
but-- surprise, surprise--
denied any wrongdoing. That is, until the
detective pointed out
00:05:42
the suspicious shiny new
shoes on our footwear filcher. They kicked him to the curb.
00:05:48
-Yeah, I bet you they did. I would've. -Well, at least he was
wearing his stolen goods
00:05:52
on the outside of his
body, unlike my next story. -I'm afraid to ask. -A 28-year-old bank
robbery suspect
00:05:58
was caught a few hours
after pulling the job. He immediately denied
robbing the bank.
00:06:02
-Oh, naturally. -Mm-hm. The officers quickly noticed
that the man was unusually padded in his jeans, and
immediately strip-searched him.
00:06:10
As he bent over to
remove his pants, they noticed that
he had over $2,000 worth of bills stuffed
into his underwear.
00:06:16
-I hope it was worth it.
DANIEL BUTLER: Mm-hm. -Where can I get a
pair of those pants?
00:06:18
DANIEL BUTLER: I wish I knew. --[laughing] Which brings us
to our "Vidiot of the Week."
00:06:24
-From all of the stories--
-All the stories-- - --that we've
received this week--
00:06:26
- --that we received. - --this is our favorite. An impatient burglar in
Van Nuys, California,
00:06:30
got a little nervous
while waiting for a jury to finish deliberations, so he
decided to make a run for it.
00:06:35
BEAUMONT BACON
(VOICEOVER): Uh-oh. DANIEL BUTLER (VOICEOVER):
And he might have made it
00:06:37
if his getaway car
hadn't been delayed-- -Come here. DANIEL BUTLER (VOICEOVER):
--between floors.
00:06:41
-Get your ass back to the-- BEAUMONT BACON
(VOICEOVER): He probably should've pressed the
button repeatedly.
00:06:44
That always makes the elevator
come faster, you know. -Never works for me. -That's 'cause you're tall.
00:06:47
[music playing] -You should never drive drunk. You know it, and I
know it, but this woman
00:06:55
must've decided that
it didn't necessarily apply to her this day as she
rolled up to a stop sign,
00:07:00
with a cop right behind her. An officer noticed a car
waiting at a stop sign a little longer than normal.
00:07:07
He casually pulled
up behind the car, hoping another car might wake
the driver from her daydream.
00:07:13
Suddenly, her car slowly
rolled back slightly into the front of the cruiser. She immediately pulled
forward and stopped again.
00:07:20
OFFICER: What is her problem? DANIEL BUTLER (VOICEOVER):
However, instead of proceeding,
00:07:23
the car rolled back into
the officer's car again. He knew something was up, and
was about to get out and talk
00:07:29
to the woman, when
she rolled back into the cruiser a third time. Well, the third time
is always a charm.
00:07:35
[car horn] DANIEL BUTLER (VOICEOVER): And
the officer pulled her over and discovered that she
was very intoxicated,
00:07:40
and having trouble
staying awake. He helped her park her car
off to the side of the road
00:07:44
and gave her a lift down to
the station, where she napped. [music playing] -An 82-year-old woman
made the mistake
00:07:55
of running through a stop
light, and then failed to pull over when a police
officer flashed his lights.
00:07:59
[sirens, helicopter] DANIEL BUTLER (VOICEOVER):
She got onto the freeway, ignoring the
irritating red flashing
00:08:04
lights and sirens behind her. She was soon surrounded by over
20 California Highway Patrol
00:08:09
and LAPD cars and a
police helicopter. She eventually got
tired of all the noise,
00:08:15
and using her turn signal,
finally pulled over, asking the officers what all
the commotion was about.
00:08:21
After they determined that
Miss Daisy was harmless, they asked her why
she never pulled over.
00:08:27
She claimed that she
did nothing wrong, and therefore didn't
see any reason to. She was sentenced to baking five
to 10 years' worth of cookies
00:08:35
for all the officers involved. [music playing] -It's definitely
true what they say.
00:08:41
There's no business
like show business. How else do you explain the
fact that Robert De Niro's name
00:08:47
alone helped the
Boston police make over 50 arrests
in one afternoon? The police department sent
out fake letters to people,
00:08:54
asking them to be
extras-- $200 a day extras-- for the "Rocky Marciano
Story," directed by Robert
00:09:01
De Niro. -Who's next here? DANIEL BUTLER
(VOICEOVER): These folks all had two things in common.
00:09:04
One, their love of show biz. -OK, listen up. DANIEL BUTLER (VOICEOVER):
And two, the fact
00:09:08
that they all had outstanding--
-Listen up. DANIEL BUTLER (VOICEOVER):
--arrest warrants.
00:09:10
-Cut. -That's a wrap for the set. -Great. -Yeah. -Great. -Most of you guys
are lousy actors.
00:09:16
-Hey. [laughing] Yeah? -And you're under arrest
for outstanding warrants. -Hey, what? [inaudible]
[bleep] [interposing voices]
00:09:21
-Whoa, whoa. DANIEL BUTLER
(VOICEOVER): And there you have the true story
of "Caging Bull"--
00:09:25
when dumb criminals get
knocked out by their own egos. [music playing] DANIEL BUTLER: Everyone will
tell you that the only way for
any business
00:09:36
venture to succeed is through
teamwork, everyone coming together to achieve
the same goal.
00:09:43
Unfortunately, these
three business partners came together, just
at the wrong time.
00:09:50
Our shopaholics, seen here in
a clothing store near Chicago, decided to pick out
a couple of outfits
00:09:55
with their five-finger discount. However, as they attempted to
leave the store with their bag
00:10:00
of goodies, a security
guard stopped them. This is when the dumb criminal
motto came in to remind--
00:10:05
-Hey. DANIEL BUTLER (VOICEOVER):
--them of their dedication-- -Freeze, guys. DANIEL BUTLER (VOICEOVER):
--to each other.
00:10:08
-What's up? DANIEL BUTLER (VOICEOVER): One
for all, and all should run. -Wait, stop.
Stop.
00:10:11
DANIEL BUTLER (VOICEOVER):
At which point-- -No, wait. DANIEL BUTLER (VOICEOVER):
--the two men--
00:10:13
-You guys! DANIEL BUTLER (VOICEOVER):
--immediately fled-- -Come back here.
-Wait a minute!
00:10:16
DANIEL BUTLER
(VOICEOVER): --leaving the woman with the stolen goods. Now before you women out there
throw up your hands and say,
00:10:20
that's just like a man to leave
the woman behind to clean up, they do redeem
themselves, sort of.
00:10:25
The gutless goomba showed up at
her court hearing to post bail, but didn't plan on the store
security guard being there--
00:10:31
-It was me. DANIEL BUTLER (VOICEOVER):
--who immediately identified them as
her accomplices.
00:10:34
-Hey, hey, what are you-- -I'm sure it was a tearful
reunion for the trio as they were led out
of the courtroom,
00:10:40
linked arm to arm, to discuss
their new venture together-- License Plates R Us. [music playing]
00:10:51
-Many cops have to
moonlight to make a living, but this next officer got
extra cash, and comic relief,
00:10:57
from his second job. -It's obvious we're dealing
with a group of people here who-- who, uh-- for whom
planning is not a strong point.
00:11:06
Some of 'em are-- are chemically
compromised, I'll say. Uh, we've got a-- a particular
guy at-- at one of the stores
00:11:15
where I work, comes into the
store just kind of stumbling, and-- and, you know, the minute
you pick this guy up on camera,
00:11:23
even if we didn't know him
very well from the-- the eight previous arrests, you can
see the guy's troubled.
00:11:30
He stumbles back to
the meat counter-- he's hungry today-- picks out a
very large pack of-- of steaks.
00:11:39
They're four tenderized round
steaks, so this package is like two feet long, and
probably 14, 16 inches wide.
00:11:47
He tries to stuff it down
the neck of his sweatshirt, and it won't fit. So then he sticks it up
underneath his shirt, and it--
00:11:56
it looks like he has
taken a-- a TV tray, and stuffed it up in his shirt. You can see the outline
of this meat package
00:12:03
where the corners and edges
are protruding from his shirt. And then he-- he
starts to walk out.
00:12:10
I guess he-- he's planning
to be cool at this point. And of course, we snatch
him at the front door,
00:12:15
and we take him into the
sec-- security office, and we're processing him there. And I ask him, I
said-- We're getting
00:12:22
all of his background
information. I ask him where he lived, and
he told me he was homeless.
00:12:26
He lived on the street. And I said, well, man, if
you're living on the street, how did you plan to cook
three pounds of raw meat?
00:12:35
And he looks at me, and
he gets this really kind of sheepish look, and he
just-- he kind of gives me
00:12:41
this little chuckle,
like, well, I hadn't thought about that part. -You know it's dangerous,
and yet you think about it.
00:12:50
You know it's illegal,
and yet you try it anyway. You know you should
wait, and yet you don't.
00:12:59
Like this woman. An officer in Rosenberg,
Texas, stopped a woman for driving through the
railroad barricades--
00:13:04
-Well, ma'am-- DANIEL BUTLER (VOICEOVER):
--one afternoon. - --you can explain that--
00:13:07
DANIEL BUTLER
(VOICEOVER): She refused-- - --to the judge-- DANIEL BUTLER (VOICEOVER): --to
believe that it was illegal.
00:13:10
-No, I'm not signing any ticket. DANIEL BUTLER
(VOICEOVER): The officer argued with the woman
for a few minutes,
00:13:13
and finally wrote her the
ticket, at which point-- - --to appear in two weeks-- DANIEL BUTLER (VOICEOVER):
--she refused to sign it,
00:13:16
stating that it obviously
wasn't against the law. - --or explain to the judge. -I'm not signing any ticket.
00:13:19
I'm telling you. -Ma'am, let me
ask you something. What is it that
you don't think is
00:13:23
against the law with
what you just did? -Sir, I just don't understand. If it's against the
law, why do they
00:13:28
have that space there
for me to go through? -There you go, ma'am. -Needless to say
Choo Choo LaRoux
00:13:38
got a one-way ticket to court. DANIEL BUTLER (VOICEOVER):
There's an old musical standard
00:13:43
that our parents all knew,
"Smoke Gets in Your Eyes." Nowadays the places where a
person can enjoy a cigarette
00:13:49
are numbered. Our next walking
chimney could not have picked a worse time
or place to light up.
00:13:56
A young man in
Metairie, Louisiana, was concerned about a pal
who had been put in jail
00:14:01
over the weekend, and walked
into the city lock-up, and asked about him. Ignoring the fact
that it's a jail
00:14:07
in a smokeless
public building, he decided to smoke a
little pot to relax-- -There's no smoking in here.
00:14:12
DANIEL BUTLER (VOICEOVER):
--sharing the experience with the policeman at the information
desk by blowing some--
00:14:15
-Hey! DANIEL BUTLER (VOICEOVER):
--smoke in his face. He was caught one
block away with some
00:14:19
of the weed in his possession. From our smoker's point of
view, one good thing did happen.
00:14:24
He finally got to spend
some time with his friend. [music playing] -The mind of a
criminal can often
00:14:32
come up with a strangely
different sense of logic. Let's look, for example,
at our next case.
00:14:38
The Petaluma police were trying
to coax a known criminal out of a trailer home, and
had even threatened
00:14:43
to send in the K-9 unit. However, the criminal
did not emerge. Eventually, two of
the officers entered
00:14:50
the trailer, which at
first seemed empty. Their canine counterparts soon
sniffed out our perpetrator--
00:14:55
[dog howling] DANIEL BUTLER (VOICEOVER):
--who had tried to hide in a large
animal carrier.
00:14:59
When questioned as to
what he was thinking, his answer was, I
didn't think the dog
00:15:04
would pick up my scent in there. [music playing] -We all know how hard it is to
keep the kids from getting up
00:15:14
at the crack of dawn to open
their Christmas presents. But what do you do
when it's not your kid?
00:15:20
On Christmas morning, in
Chevy Chase, Maryland, a couple called the police to
report a burglar in their home,
00:15:25
who was downstairs
attempting to stuff their presents into his
pants and sneak out.
00:15:30
Police quietly entered the house
and arrested the little elf, who must been looking
for a pair of suspenders
00:15:35
that he obviously misplaced
before leaving the North Pole. He was last seen decking
the halls at the local jail.
00:15:44
[theme music] -Well, our bumbling
buffet is now closing, but please join us next week,
as we serve up another heaping
00:15:50
helping of hapless
hoodlums, here on "America's
Dumbest Criminals." NARRATOR: On the next
"America's Dumbest Criminals."
00:15:58
-Your reason you're
driving so fast is because you're
running out of gas. -Oh, no.
00:16:02
I should have half tank. NARRATOR: A Halloween
hoodlum picks the wrong clerk to hold up.
00:16:08
-Let go, let go. -Uh-uh. NARRATOR: An arguing couple lets
a cop settle their differences.
00:16:12
-Let's go, uh-- let's go
take a look at that, miss. NARRATOR: A bank
robber gets robbed
00:16:16
himself during his getaway. A crook gets caught with the
goods after a car accident.
00:16:21
All this and more,
on the next episode of "America's
Dumbest Criminals." -Wait. -I was working, uh-- working
night shift, oh, about--
00:16:28
was about eight years
ago, nine years ago. And, uh, we got a standard call,
an alarm call, over, uh, uh,
00:16:34
in an industrial
area of the city. Um, that late at night, it's
not uncommon to get a, you know,
00:16:39
a burglar alarm call. Uh, I responded and, um, heard
the alarm going off, uh, walked
00:16:45
up to one corner
of the building. Um, I was familiar
with the building, and-- and knew that we only
had an entrance and an exit
00:16:52
to the building. All the windows were covered
by the-- the metal grates, the fire bars.
00:16:57
Uh, the doors were covered,
and the windows were covered. Well, as I looked
into the window
00:17:01
to see what was going on, uh,
what was activating the alarm, as I looked in, the same time,
the suspect who was inside
00:17:08
looked out, so we basically
went face to face. And I think we actually scared
each other, uh, more than I
00:17:13
think either one really knows. Um, I kind of jump back. Uh, he-- he jumped back and
went into building, further
00:17:20
in the dark where
I couldn't see him. I pulled back, away
from the building, and called for additional units.
00:17:25
Uh, in the meantime, I
was checking the doors from my point of view to make
sure that he didn't get out,
00:17:30
and in the back of my mind
I knew he couldn't get out, because the doors
were-- were grated,
00:17:33
and they had the
bars in front of 'em. So the only way to get in
would be through the roof.
00:17:37
Uh, while I'm waiting for
the, uh, responding units to-- to come, I
heard a loud crash.
00:17:43
Uh, I ran back up to the side
of the window to look inside, and I found him
laying on the floor.
00:17:48
And he was laying there, and
he has gloves on-- like I say, he had his gloves on--
and he had the, uh,
00:17:52
the dark clothing,
which would be typical for a
burglar at nighttime. Uh, it, uh-- it was apparent
that he broke his leg.
00:17:58
Uh, he had his gloves
still on his hands, and apparently the screwdrivers
he had in his pocket had-- had
00:18:04
basically poked him in the
legs, and he was bleeding. Uh, we called for an ambulance
and the fire department
00:18:09
to come, because we
couldn't get entry inside, because
of the fire bars. Uh, while we're
waiting, I decided
00:18:14
to take a picture of the guy
while he's lying on the floor, so I could use it later
on in court as evidence.
00:18:19
So I took a Polaroid picture
of him laying inside, uh, the closed
business, and you could
00:18:23
see the hole in the ceiling. And he was laying on the ground
with-- with the gloves on,
00:18:27
and the, uh, the screwdriver
stuck in the side of his leg. And his leg did
appear to be broken,
00:18:31
and he was hollering
and screaming. So I took a picture
with the Polaroid, and, um, when, uh, the
fire department got there,
00:18:37
we made entry, and
gave him medical aid. When it came time for
court, I produce the, uh,
00:18:42
Polaroid picture to
the judge at court, and basically, the--
the judge says, you're not gonna
fight this, are you?
00:18:47
And he said, no, I'm
not gonna fight this. So basically, it never went
to court, never went to court,
00:18:52
because I had everything
on the Polaroid.