America's Dumbest Criminals - Season 1, Episode 15 - A Real Drunk Driver - Full Episode | Forensic Files

NARRATOR: This is an ADC Warning. The crimes you're about to see are true. Only the names were changed to protect the ignorant.
[sirens] [theme music] NARRATOR: Tonight on "America's Dumbest Criminals," a drunk driver takes more than he bargained for,
surveillance camera footage from the convenience store from hell, and a glad bag that turned into a sad sack.
All this and more on "American's Dumbest Criminals." -Welcome to "America's Dumbest Criminals."
I'm Daniel Butler. You know, every day when I come into work, I wonder, will this be the day that we won't find any silly,
stupid slow-witted criminals. But fortunately, for every crafty criminal out there in the world, there are at least 10
plain old-fashioned dummies, out there breaking the law every day. So join us now in scraping the bottom of the barrel, as we
open the files on America's dumbest criminals. NARRATOR: First up, a reverse prostitution sting
nets some pretty weird customers. -I was sitting about a half a block away from her when she just did one.
She sent that one off one way. She did another one. She sent him off another way.
In-- in her mind, she's got to try and send them in different directions, so the take-down teams can cover him,
plus she can still get the rest of the johns. Well this one guy seen her talking to a car.
But when he seen her talking, he didn't keep driving. What he did is he stopped.
And he pulled up right in front of me. And me and my partner were sitting there,
and here this guy pulls up face to face with us. Now here we are with our police stuff on,
never looked in front of him at all. Never saw us. He kept looking back at her. Well, she seen him.
And she finally walked over to him. -What will it take to party tonight? -Well, what you got?
-So I got 28 bucks. Wait, I got some frozen lunch meat. -Well, if all you got is 28 bucks and some frozen lunch
meat, we can do some business. UNDERCOVER POLICE OFFICER: We can hear what's going on also.
And when she finally says, OK drive around the block, we just kind of stepped out of our cars
and walked over to him, told him he was under arrest. -Hey Romeo. -Hey. -Hey you see us over here.
You're busted. -Oh man! -Put your bologna away. NARRATOR: In South Dakota it used
to be against the law for a married man to talk to a single woman. Here a wife takes the law into her own hands,
and attacks a single woman with vermicelli. Now Earnest Burt of Birmingham catches a man green-handed.
-One instant we had a call on a burglary. And when we got over there, we heard the door bang
and we heard the person that called the police in the back holler and say, there he goes.
So when I run around to the back-- -Hey, hold it, police! Come here. EARNEST BURT: The guy walked up to me, had a bag of marijuana,
a lunch-size bag full of marijuana in his hand. -That's good. What have you got?
-What? -What have you got in your hand? -And I said, what have you got? He said, what.
I said, what have you got in your hand. And he looked and he said, oh nothin'. And I grabbed him and handcuffed him, and put him under arrest
and took him off to jail. NARRATOR: ADC quiz number 819, from 1993 to 1994 there was a change in the rate of serious crime.
How did the rate change? Did it A, decrease 3%; B, increase 5%, or C, decrease 10%?
The correct answer is A. Serious crime decreased by 3%. However, really dumb crimes seemed
to have increased dramatically during the same period. You have just taken a job as a clerk on the night shift
at the convenience store from hell. Who's your first customer? It's a mutant packing heat.
He Demands all $37 in the cash drawer, and gets away. Now, who's your second customer?
A gorilla packing heat. He takes all the bananas, and a yard and a half of beef jerky.
Now who's your third customer? It's your father-in-law dressed as a member of the House of Commons.
Since you have no more money, he takes all of the smokeless tobacco, and demands
the correct time in Nova Scotia. Just the first 15 minutes of your first shift as a clerk in the convenience store from hell.
Now a story that would be poetic justice if it weren't so dumb. It was the day after the lottery drawing when Alice Crumb
stopped by the little store where she had purchased her local lotto ticket the week before.
Going up the list of winners, she realized that her number was only one digit off from being a $20 winner.
That's when greed replaced common sense. With a ballpoint pen, Alice crudely changed a seven into an eight, and presented it to the clerk.
-Hey, I won! -Let me see! Let me see! -I won! I won! I won! -You are a winner. NARRATOR: The Cashier spotted the forgery instantly, and had
a coworker phone the police, while she appeared to be processing the win. While she was being read her rights,
an officer made an interesting observation. -She would have been a $5,000 winner.
Look! -No way! -Yeah, look! If you wouldn't have altered this ma'am, you would have won $5,000.
NARRATOR: That's right. She'd altered her $5,000 winning ticket to match the $20 prize.
And it ended up committing a felony. -Good [bleep]. What kind of [bleep] is this?
I'll be [bleep]. You need put these [bleep] so that you can see 'em better [bleep].
NARRATOR: She'll have a lotto time to think it over in prison. Coming up, a dumb criminal who has a very special surprise
for the police in his garage. -Many people have written to us, concerned that our show is demeaning to criminals.
We'd like to respond to that letter by saying, thank you for your vote of support.
NARRATOR: And now, Officer Doug Baldwin of Pensacola tells us about how he went barely undercover.
-Several years ago I was working narcotics undercover. And we were-- we were having this problem
in this high-draw crime area where people were standing out on corners, selling drugs.
Um-- in my phase of working in narcotics, I did a lot of street activity. I went out in the streets, chased people, and apprehended
them uh- in the process of them selling drugs. On one particular day, um-- I drove through there,
and I seen who was out there selling drugs. All these guys know me from working the streets there.
And they were pretty familiar with who I was. So once I realized who was out on the streets selling drugs,
I went back to the station. I changed out cars. And so I drove back in the area, and I put on a ball cap,
and I never wear a ball cap. Nobody have ever seen me in a ball cap. I just don't wear them.
So I put this ball cap on and drove into the area. And this one particular guy that I know, and I know that he knew
me, I drove up to him and I said, hey man you've got something for sale. He said, yeah what you want?
He said but we've got to be careful because I see Doug Baldwin. He's driving around, speaking of me, working undercover.
I say, well I to get a 20 piece. You gotta 20? He said, yeah but let's hurry up.
Because Doug Baldwin is in the area. So he sold me the 20 piece of crack cocaine.
I gave him a $20 bill. And as soon as he did that, I took off of a ball cap and I said, John, you're under arrest.
And he said, ah! Doug, that's you! And he got scared. Only he-- he was real dumbfounded.
How dumb can I be, you know, selling to Doug, and I'm talking about Doug? NARRATOR: In Chicago, it's against the law for barbers
to eat onions between 9:00 AM and 5:00 PM. But it is legal for them to consume at least two gallons of malt liquor.
And now let's take a short ride to the big house with a real drunk driver. The man this officer just pulled over is very drunk.
He was lucky to be conscious, let alone able to drive. He probably couldn't walk, so we got behind the wheel.
As the officer began a field sobriety test, he heard a loud crash. -Stay here! Do not get in that car.
Stay here! NARRATOR: Two cars had just collided less than 50 yards from where they were standing.
The officer ran down to the accident to see if there were any injuries. He had no more than gotten there when
he heard the squealing of tires, and turned to see the drunk driver drive off at a high rate of speed.
He radioed in for help. Within 30 minutes several police units and uniformed officers
were pounding on the front door of the man's house. A still very drunk and now confused man, answered.
[knocking] -Where's the car? -The-- the car? -The car. Where is the car? -It-- it's in the garage, of course.
-Let's go. NARRATOR: The police lifted the garage door, and sure enough there was the car.
-See! I told you. Good night. -Get back here. NARRATOR: Another open and shut DUI.
Now we take you inside the courtroom for trial and error. Now from actual courtroom transcripts,
a grocery clerk relates how a robber gave as good as he got. -Mr. Richardson, would you please
tell this court what the suspect did right before he ran from your store? -Well, he pulled out his wallet as if to pay,
and I opened the cash drawer. -And that's when he grabbed the cash from the drawer?
-Right. He took the money. But he left his wallet. NARRATOR: And now from the ADC security
cam vaults, the "Powder Room." Here a band of well-choreographed thieves move into a convenience store.
The man in the center of the picture is choreographing the entire operation. Watch now as the team goes into action, luring the clerk away
from the cash register, the thieves have the money at their hands. So now the conductor motions to one of the women
to move in and steal the cash. All right. Wait. Wait, though. There's been a hitch.
Let's go down to the field and see what the problem is. OK, she really has to go to the bathroom.
All right. There's gonna have to be a break here. He's motioning her back to the ladies' room.
OK. We're going to have to start the whole robbery over again. Coming up, you'll find out why this dumb criminal became
the prince of thieves on "America's Dumbest Criminals." [sirens] NARRATOR: Next up, a creative second-story man
who should have thought of a second story in, "Prints of Thieves." -I was working uh-- burglaries, residential burglaries,
plainclothes. I had a break-in at an attorney's house. And the idiot left his fingerprints in this house.
So naturally, we got him identified, and I had a warrant issued for his arrest. So I was out on the street one morning.
And lo and behold, I ran across this guy. Frisked him. And of course, he had a bunch of jewelry on him.
So I took him downtown into the investigations division, sat him down and started talking to him
about break-ins in the area. And he said, no, it's not me. I ain't been doing that.
-What about all the people that saw you at the scene? -Someone who looks just like me, man.
-Oh, somebody who looks just like you, man. What about the jewelry we found in your pants?
-Somebody else's pants, somebody else's jewels. -And I said, well how do you explain
your fingerprints in this man's house? And without thinking the guy said-- -Somebody's been leaving my prints all over town.
Are we done here, man? NARRATOR: Let's face it, he had-- Now a logical drunken heretic gets scooped in "D.U.I.-O."
-I'm working routine patrol, and it's about 3 o'clock in the morning and I'm driving down the street,
and this citizen comes out and frantically flags me down. And says, there's a man over at the Catholic Church,
and he gives us the location, and says that this man is standing in front of the church.
And he's yelling and screaming and throwing rocks at the front of the church. So I go looking for this man, and-- and my partner and I
find him. So we stop him and he's-- he's obviously and admittedly intoxicated. And he's very drunk and he's walking.
And I said-- -What's going on? -There supposed to have-- -OK. Talk to us. We're asking you questions.
-OK, I'm at this-- I'm mad at this church. -OK, calm down. SAM HILLIARD: And he was very upset about this.
So my partner and myself pats him down for weapons. And he finds this-- this large O in his pocket.
It's literally about this big, and it's an O. We said, well what's this O? And he says-- he says, well that's my souvenir
from the church. We said, what? And he says-- -It's my O. -It's your O? No sir. If it's from the church, is not your O.
-Well it turned out it's the O in Catholic that's on the front of the church. So he says, that's my O. We said,
no, it's got to go back to the church. And he says, well, OK. So my partner and I, we go back to the church.
And sure enough, the Catholic is there, and it's missing the O. So we're standing there, and we're putting the O back
on the church, and we're writing the priest a note, letting him know what happened at the church and everything.
Where we don't see any other obvious damage or anything. A few minutes later, here comes a car.
It comes creeping by real slow. And my partner looks over and goes, hey Sarge is that him?
And I looked and low and behold, it's our guy that we stopped down the street. And now he's driving a car and he's drunk.
He comes out, and ranting and raving, I want my O. We said, what? -We explained to you it's not your O. Sir,
we have to place you under arrest for DUI. -He goes, if you guys were stand-up guys,
you'd give me my O. I want my O, and it belongs to me. So we ended up arresting him for DUI, for drunk driving.
And subsequently, we got to court, and he stood by his story and he wanted his letter O.
NARRATOR: A street mugger in New York City snatched a brown bag from a woman walking her dog.
Surprised, it contained the trinkets her pooch had deposited on the sidewalk. It's not worth a lot.
But to him it was special. This is actual footage of this week's America's dumbest excuse.
The two young men who stole this van told the police that the double-wide mobile home ran
a stop sign, thus striking their stolen parked van. Now their backup story was that the wicked witch of the East
had actually dropped the double-wide on them. The police bought neither story, and the youths were arrested
for a stolen vehicle, and failing to stop for a double-wide mobile home, and the wicked witch.
[theme music] [sirens] -Fort Lauderdale, Florida, home to spring break, beautiful beaches, and thousands of
honest, hardworking Americans. But even Fort Lauderdale has not escaped the influence of dumb crime.
NARRATOR: An undercover officer from Fort Lauderdale tells a touching tail of felon fellowship in "Good-Buy."
-Several years ago we'd made some purchases out of a house of cocaine. We executed the search warrant.
As people were exiting out of the house and unloading the gear and so forth, there's another vehicle that pulls up.
-Wait a minute. Can I help you? UNDERCOVER POLICE OFFICER: The people get out of the car, and the lady,
the first thing she does, she throws down a bag of cocaine that she'd brought with her.
-I think what we'll do is just move our car down that way. -OK. Wait a minute. Lady, what is that?
-I don't know. -Uh, did we get that on tape? -Did you get what on tape? -That little package you just dropped must be yours.
-You got film? -Are we uh-- denying we dropped that? Are we confused? We don't know.
-I didn't drop that. -Oh, is that right? All right. Guess what? Don't you go anywhere.
UNDERCOVER POLICE OFFICER: We up and advised them that they were under arrest for the cocaine, and come to find out that they
were-- they had 10 ounces of coke in the car that they had bought from the gentleman
that we just executed the search warrant on. And they were actually just stopping by to say good-bye.
They were leaving the state. NARRATOR: And they did get to leave, but not the state.
They were immediately enrolled in the witless protection program. -Well, that's our show for this week.
We hope you'll all agree that it was time well served. Our appreciation to the men and women of law enforcement
across the country. I'm Daniel Butler saying, don't be dumb. Don't break the law, or we'll catch you next time
on "America's Dumbest Criminals." [theme music]

In this episode of "America's Dumbest Criminals," we'll witness a drunk driver take more than he bargained for, surveillance store footage from the convenience store from hell and a glad bag that turned into a sad sack.

Crime is no laughing matter, except when the criminals are bumbling fools. Hosted by Debbie Alan and Daniel Butler, this show looks at lawbreakers through a humorous lens.

Brief Summary

This episode highlights ridiculous crimes, including a man offering lunch meat for sex and a drunk driver crashing during a sobriety test.

Key points

Reverse Prostitution Sting. A reverse prostitution sting nets some pretty weird customers, including a man with frozen lunch meat.
Lottery Ticket Felony. Alice Crumb alters her lottery ticket, losing a $5,000 prize and committing a felony instead.
Drunk Driver's Garage Surprise. A drunk driver leads police to his garage where his car is parked, after a crash.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

Only the names were changed to protect the ignorant.

NARRATOR introduction

0:10WatchDec 2, 2021

Tension

40/ 100Low tension

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