America's Dumbest Criminals - Season 1, Episode 8 - Social Climber - Full Episode | Forensic Files

NARRATOR: This is an ADC Warning. The crimes you are about to see are true. Only the names were changed to protect the ignorant.
[theme music] DANIEL BUTLER: Tonight on "American's Dumbest Criminals," you'll see a social climber who's falling fast,
a cat's stolen whiskers, and a major incident with a miniature reenactment. These are just a few of America's dumbest criminals.
-Hi, and welcome to the show. I'm Daniel Butler. We've got a lineup of clumsy crooks,
funny felons, and ridiculous robbers. In short, we've got America's dumbest criminals.
And here's the first one. Deputy Mark Murphy of Escambia County tells us about a youth who was running around.
-Morning day shift, and lieutenant asked-- called me by radio and asked me to check out
some suspicious vehicles in this known area for stolen vehicles. Went in there and found three vehicles.
And I went ahead and got out and ran the tag numbers. About a few minutes later, my lieutenant
arrived and started helping me out. We got the juveniles out of the vehicles and lined them up against my cruiser.
At that time, I started going down the line and started getting their names one by one.
And I got to this last guy, and I started to get his name, he takes off running.
Well, maybe I just thrown my pen and paper up in the air and take off after him.
And as we hit the edge of the wood line, as I got into the woods, I fell down because a lot of briers.
I fell down, and first thought he was gonna get away. I looked up and he falls down.
So I jump back up and start running. Well, then I fell down again. Well, I looked up, he falls down again.
Well, I jump back up after him. I then started high-stepping so I could get over the briers.
We didn't take 15 steps and we was back into the clearing just where we almost started from, just a complete circle.
Just like a rabbit runs. -Absolute proof that many dumb criminals tend to run in the same circle of friends.
In San Francisco, it is against the law to wash your car with your underwear. However, it is legal to buff your wax
to a high-gloss sheen with a gold lame bikini. And now, actual footage of a case we call Drive In Diamonds.
Police were called to an unusual jewelry store heist. What was unusual was the mode of entry.
The dumb criminal drove right in. He was picked up three blocks away with some tell-tale car
damage, glass, and diamonds in the car. A few years back, on one of his first nights as a policeman,
rookie Norman Chapman was forced to arrest a man who was too drunk to get where he was going and too gone
to get away. Here's social climber. -I was fairly new on the police department. I was working a undercover assignment.
And then I saw this guy come walking down the street. Yeah, he was walking, and then all of a sudden,
he does one of these things. And this fenced-in construction yard, something caught his eye.
So I said, I'm gonna wait till he gets in this construction yard and I'm gonna make my first arrest
for burglary all by myself. Well, he was drunk, see? So he goes ahead and he tries to climb the gate.
And the gate was wobbling. So he gets about two foot up the first time and he falls down.
He gets up, and he gets about three quarters of the way up the third time and he falls off the gate.
So the third time, he got all the way to the top. He fell off the top of the gate.
I said, hey, I gotta go down and arrest this guy before he hurts himself and I don't [inaudible]
[laughter] -That was some pretty fence-y police work there for a rookie officer.
Coming up on "America's Dumbest Criminals," an extremely low budget miniature reenactment.
-For the criminal, the last person they want to see is a cop. But let the same criminal become a victim,
and he reverts back to is basic instincts, and like the rest of us in society, calls the police.
That's what happens to the next guy in our story, only he's about to go from victim to dumb criminal.
We call this one Never Mind. Two officers were dispatched to a home to investigate a break-in.
-Well, it's time. Where you guys been? -Sir, can you calm down? We've got a report that there was
a robbery here this evening. -Well, yeah. I called 10 minutes ago. My god. Everything has been stolen out of my home.
-Sir, calm down. What happened? -I come home from work just a moment ago. My back door's been kicked in and all my stuff is missing.
Everything's gone. The drawers have been pulled out of my bedroom. My wife's jewelry is missing.
My CD player, all of my CDs, my cassette, VCR, my computer terminal, my bag of dope, my-- my--
-Dope? -Well-- -Sir, do you know narcotics are illegal in this state? -Well, yeah, of course they are.
Sure. Certainly. -So what are you saying, sir? -Well, I'm saying-- -Are you saying that you had narcotics in your home?
-No. No, what I'm basically saying as, um, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. And never mind.
Have a good night, OK? Thank you. DANIEL BUTLER: Without the narcotics, the officers could not charge the man.
You saw it here first. The man called the police to report that someone had stolen his stash of marijuana.
Look no further, folks. There's the missing link on the chain gang right there. In 1994, 96% of the national prison population
was serving sentences of longer than one year. But 97% of them had mastered the yo-yo in that first year.
Now a case that involves two different types of stolen vehicles with the same type of driver.
-I ran up on a Camaro and a guy on a motorcycle, and they were trailing one another.
And I knew both of these individuals because they'd stolen cars and what have before.
And I knew neither one of them owned a vehicle. So I turned my police vehicle around and went behind them.
And they took off and tried to attempt to elude me. So the guy on a motorcycle wound up falling on the motorcycle.
-You all right? -Yeah. -All right, come on. Let's get you up. Where's [inaudible] Camaro at?
-Huh? -Where's your friend in the Camaro? -I'm all right. -Where's your friend in the Camaro?
-I don't know what you're talking about, man. -No, I saw you riding. Where's your friend at?
-I don't know nothing about no Camaro. -Come on, let's walk back here. -I knew that his friend didn't own a Camaro.
So he said he didn't know where his friend was going. I proceeded to go where I thought
the guy may have went in the Camaro. So as I proceeded to go where I thought he went,
all of a sudden this guy come walking back toward me. And I was like, now that's dumb.
Now he didn't think I realized that was him in the in that Camaro? So anyway, I ended up putting him in the police car.
And I asked him, where was the Camaro? And he went on to say, what Camaro? I don't know nothing about no Camaro.
And then why you coming back this way? I was just walking from over at my sister's house.
So I said, OK, fine. So I continued to drive around the block looking for this car.
And I guess after riding five minutes, I found the Camaro. And I said, remember you said you didn't have no Camaro?
What is this? Well, you know, wouldn't you try to get away, also? Man, you was so dumb, why would you even come back?
Well, I wanted to that y'all had catched my friend. -Both men were arrested and charged with grand theft auto.
Now actual footage of a case we call The Cat's Meow. This is a famous cat sculpture.
It was on display in the Fort Lauderdale Art Museum. One day, the museum's curators discovered
the cat's whiskers were missing. Two of them had been stolen. So the Fort Lauderdale Police Department
had to bring out the K-9 unit. Not the drug-sniffing dog, not the bomb-sniffing dog,
but the cat-sniffing dog to retrieve the whiskers. You know, many times a burglar pulls off the heist
and, because he wasn't caught on the spot, believes he's gotten away with it. Like this next guy.
He robbed a place and soon discovered that he'd left more than just the scene of the crime.
Here a fool and his tools are soon parted. -At that time, I was east precinct, and one of the guys that worked this precinct out north came
over to my channel and they said-- MALE VOICE OVER WALKIE-TALKIE: Uh, do you remember Roy?
-Yeah, what do you have? MALE VOICE OVER WALKIE-TALKIE: Apparently he stole a pile of tools down at the Sears
and left his driver's license. We just need somebody to go and pick him up. [laughing]
MALE VOICE OVER WALKIE-TALKIE: Subject's address is 6-- OFFICER MCINTOSH: And they said, well, wait a minute,
let's get his address for you. And I said, well, I know where he lives. So I rolled up to his house and I said, Roy,
lemme see your driver's license. He patted his pocket and he said, I ain't got it.
And I said-- -Well, you got a sander we could borrow in the car? -Oh boy. -And he just lowered his eyes like that and went like that.
[laughter] -Because he knew he was had. DANIEL BUTLER: Definitely a candidate for the witless protection program.
In Oklahoma, It used to be against the law for three or more dogs to stand together.
Here 17 puppies stage a protest of the law. Coming up, the amazingly lifelike miniature reenactment of tie tack terror.
It's low budget. [theme music] -Next up, we've got some muggers for you to laugh at.
They rob a couple on the walk and then find themselves unable to run. David Jones of the Wilton Manors Police Department tells us why.
-We responded to a strong-arm robbery which just occurred, which is an attack by someone forcibly
to steal from somebody else. And we got a general brief description of who we were looking for.
And just as we were arriving into the area, we see the car, we see these guys, and we cut them all off right there.
And the guy's were like amazed at how could anybody get there that fast when it turns out they robbed
the people in the back parking lot, and by the time they got around to the front, got in their car,
and started leaving, there we were. What we had to tell them was they parked in the front parking lot of our police station,
so it was like no way to get away. [laughter] -I see the big letters of the police building.
I mean, how could you not see it? That's where the pulled in and they look both ways, right in front of them, "Police."
DANIEL BUTLER: Sure, they were really dumb. But nice hat. ADC quiz number 808-- In Tennessee, there once
was a law that said if a woman was driving, her husband had to walk ahead of her waving-- A, an insurance
policy; B, a red flag; or C, a white flag of surrender? The correct answer was B, a red flag.
If she'd had more than five accidents, though, she also had to be accompanied by a brass band.
Now actual footage of a very difficult way to wash your car. Two teenagers stole a car.
The police spotted them and gave chase. In the high speed chase that ensued, the two teenagers lost control and rammed
their car into a motel laundry. The kids were not seriously injured, but they were obviously confused just
about how you launder stolen goods. And the police immediately hung them out to dry for creating drive-thru laundry.
Now a case where the criminal calls a very wrong number. -At the time, my job was to contact people and, you know,
try to buy or sell drugs in an undercover capacity. Well this time, I had been in contact
with this guy who was looking to buy some crack cocaine. So I was posing as a seller of crack cocaine for this guy.
He contacted me a couple of times. I had some drinks with him. He was trying to buy a certain amount,
and we were kind of arguing on how he was going to buy. Well during our contacts, he would-- I would call him.
Well, on one occasion, we were nearing the time where I would sell the crack cocaine to him, so I gave him my pager number
and he was to call me whenever he was ready to buy the cocaine. Well, the page numbers of our police department,
they're all in a row, so my number was right next to the number which is a call out-- a SWAT call out number.
So whenever you dial this number, every SWAT member of the police department gets the page.
[phone ringing] -Hello? Well, this guy had written the number down incorrectly that I gave him and had inadvertently
wrote down the SWAT call out number. So whenever he was about due to call me, sure enough, I got the page because I'm on the SWAT team
also. Unbeknownst to me, he had activated the SWAT team basically. He called that number.
Every SWAT member of the police department called that number, identifying themselves
as Sergeant Johnson, Pensacola Police Department. You paged me. Officer Johnson, Officer Smith-- everyone called this guy.
And so I call-- I recognized the call and it was at the right time. So I called and he just picked up and hang up.
He was obviously scared to death. So the next day, I contacted him again thinking no one would be
stupid enough to call me after this. But he did call me, and we met. And after some discussion, I persuaded him
that the pager company had made a mistake and put my number next to a police department's number,
and that there was no way that I was a police officer and all this stuff. So I ended up selling crack cocaine to him.
We ended up arresting the guy. And come to find out, he was a law school graduate.
[theme music] -What can you say? It was his call. Now we take you inside the court room for a trial and error.
Let's hear how a robber ran into a convenience store and let the clerk's fingers do the walking.
-Now Mr. Reed, what did you do when the defendant ran into the store, demanding money and threatening your life?
-Well, I reminded him, like on television, a condemned man always get one last phone call.
-And what did he say to that? -He said, OK. -And what did you do? -I called the police and they arrested him.
[theme music] DANIEL BUTLER: The interstate was slick with rain when Sergeant Johnny Cooley was working
several multiple car accidents. But what happened next was even scarier. -I'm sitting there working a wreck with about three or four
cars piled up, twisted every which way and we got the road blocked. In the extreme left-hand lane next to the rail,
there was about just enough for a car might a truck to clear, go through there. There was a truck driver driving a tractor trailer out of Texas.
He rounded that curve 17th Street, wide open. Didn't realize that everything was blocked ahead of him
there was a multiple car wreck. He gets on his brakes. You know, I hear him sliding and I turn around and look.
He's coming directly toward me. His truck jackknifes. When his truck jackknifes, he straightened it up
And he went right between-- I stepped up on the rail, which is a little cement thing like this.
He went between the wrecked automobiles and me. And he brushed my tie tack on my tie.
I was leaned up. I was looking over the-- over the rail. And it's 65 feet down. DANIEL BUTLER: We wanted to do a full-scale reenactment
of Sergeant Cooley's dramatic story, but it wasn't in the budget. So we now present an extremely low-budget
miniature reenactment. MALE VOICE: Uh-oh. What's that ahead? It's a car accident. [semi truck horn blowing]
MALE VOICE: There's a cop in the road. [semi truck horn blowing] [brakes screeching]
-He made it through there. But then when we straightened up, then he hit his breaks again because the road was completely
blocked up here with another wreck. So he jackknifes a second time. And this time, the clams the rail.
he goes over the rail, which is like, six-- you know, four or five feet high. He goes over the rail, and the whole tractor
is just dangling in the air. [brakes screeching] MALE VOICE: Oh no. Another accident.
Oh my god. No brakes. (YELLING) Help me. -So you know, I regained my composure and I--
[laughter] -I walk up there, and this guy-- you know, he cracks the door open on his cab,
the cab of his tractor trailer. And he says, uh-- he says, officer, he says, you know, I hate to ask you this,
but I know you're real busy and everything, but do you think you could possibly get me out of this truck?
[laughter] DANIEL BUTLER: In Maryland, it used to be against the law to seat lions in the theater.
But dogs could play on playgrounds. You know, we couldn't have done this show without the cooperation of the men and women
of law enforcement across America. We'd like to thank them for their time, their dedication,
and for making our lives a lot safer. And we learn that cops are just people, too,
with just one exception-- they're willing to lay down their lives for us. [theme music]
[theme music]

In this episode of "America's Dumbest Criminals," we'll witness a social climber who's falling fast, a cat's stolen whiskers and a major incident with a miniature reenactment.

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 showcases absurd criminal antics, including a drunk thief and a man reporting stolen drugs.

Key points

America's Dumbest Criminals. A hilarious look at some of the most ridiculous criminal antics across the country.
Drive In Diamonds. A thief drives right into a jewelry store for a heist, but it doesn't end well.
Never Mind. A man calls the police to report a robbery, but his own crime is revealed.
The Cat's Meow. A famous cat sculpture loses its whiskers, leading to a unique police investigation.
A Very Wrong Number. A drug dealer accidentally pages the SWAT team instead of his buyer, leading to a hilarious twist.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

Only the names were changed to protect the ignorant.

NARRATOR's introduction

0:11WatchDec 2, 2021

Tension

30/ 100Low tension

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