America's Dumbest Criminals - Season 2, Episode 13 - The Boulder, The Stupider - Full Episode | Forensic Files

NARRATOR: Hi, I'm Daniel Butler. Welcome to another addition of "America's Dumbest Criminals."
[theme music] On this episode of "America's Dumbest Criminals"-- designated driver, a couple of boobs in "The Boulder,
the Stupider." A crook cracks a smile in "Moon Over First Fed." Some brawling brothers cool off, a reckless road flasher.
-Put that in D as in Depart. -Hey, son. Pull it over, son. NARRATOR: All this and more coming up
on "America's Dumbest Criminals." Here's your host, Daniel Butler. Maybe they should spell the name of the Colorado town Boulder
without the U. Captured on videotape and in real life, these next brain surgeons are as brazen as they come.
Part of ABC's dumb and dumber crowd, here's a duo that should be called the boulder and the stupider.
Their first strike is the bike impound cage right outside the campus police station
at the University of Colorado. Abbott and Costello cut the top lock but can't get the gate open because they don't notice
the bottom lock-- or, apparently, the surveillance camera pointing straight down at them.
Unfortunately for the cocky pair, they strolled away before an officer from inside the building came to arrest them.
Hoping the cops were as dumb as they and had left keys in their cars, the unabashed burglars
were quickly blocked in the lot and apprehended by the astonished police. They were arrested for a second degree burglary
and hope one day to break out of jail on Pay-Per-View. Sometimes it's a police officer's job
to make sure cooler heads prevail. But when you come across a hot air family like this officer did, you might have
to chill things out yourself. It was a hot August day, very humid, and a call was made to the local precinct.
It was a domestic disturbance. When the officers arrived, three brothers in their early 20s
were fighting over a fan. They had one fan, one bedroom, and they were arguing over whose turn it was to spend the night in relative peace.
-Let's just relax, OK. We're going have to settle this here because our main concern
is we've got neighbors that are calling because they can hear you disturbing the peace out here.
NARRATOR: The officer suggested that they all share the fan and the bedroom. The suggestion was denied rather vehemently
by two of the brothers, leaving the officers no choice but to find a nice, cool place for them to spend the night.
The smart brother was allowed to stay behind and enjoy the fan and bedroom all to himself, proving once
and for all it's not the heat, it's the stupidity. Let's check out the case of the one that got away,
if only for a moment. Hal O'Kane talks about a plunging purse snatcher from Sacramento.
-One individual down there went into a bar and he stole a purse off the bar. And he ran westbound towards Front
Street, which borders the riverbank. NARRATOR: A patrolman in the area heard the shouts of "Stop, thief!" and took up the chase.
-Along there at that time was a seawall, and it's about four foot high. Unbeknownst to him, on the other side of the wall
is a drop down to the riverbank when the river is low. And of course, that's what he did.
He took a plunge. And he ended up in a shopping cart that had been abandoned there.
It was necessary for the rescue squad to use bolt to cut him out of the shopping cart.
NARRATOR: Drop 'til you stop. The boys down in the lab are trying to figure this one out.
When people get a good idea, a light bulb goes on over their head. So what happens when a dumb guy gets a bad idea for a crime?
A fuse blows? This officer and his partner were parked across from a closed construction site late one
night in Oakland, California. -What have we got here? -I don't know. Hey, hold it.
What do you think you're doing? NARRATOR: It became perfectly obvious what the foolhardy flash jacker was
doing-- stealing the blinking light. What will never be clear is why. Trying to be as discreet as possible,
the light-fingered lunkhead strolled casually down the boulevard. -Hey, what's under your shirt, man?
-Nothing. -Sir, could you please remove the light from your shirt? -How'd that get in there?
-Come on, let's go. Light please. NARRATOR: The moth-like mastermind was arrested for theft under $200,
and the light was still flashing when delivered to the property clerk. And now, crimes of the week with Daniel Butler and Beaumont
Bacon. -Hello, I'm Daniel Butler, and this is the vacuum-packed Beaumont Bacon. -Knock knock, Daniel.
-Who's there? -Dumb criminal. -Dumb criminal who? -Dumb criminal who tried to defend himself in court.
-What's so unusual about that? -I'm glad you asked. Here's my story, and stay with me on this.
It's a juicy one. There's this man, and he robbed a movie theater in broad daylight.
There witness-- hundreds of people around going to see a movie, and then he fired a gun
at cops who were trying to arrest him. -But I'm sure he had a good alibi. -Bad movie.
Well, he finally did, anyway. He insisted on representing himself in court because-- get this-- he claimed that a guy
named Jim had spiked his drink. So now it's Jim's fault, Mr. Blame. So naturally, he was confused and did, you know,
what all of us do when we get confused. I don't know if you do this-- -Scratched his head?
-No, he put on a bulletproof vest, grabbed a gun and a ski mask from his car, and decided to rob a movie theater.
-I haven't done in a long time. -Long, days. Days. You're out now. We're so glad to see you.
And then the same guy claimed that he wasn't resisting arrest, but rather he was trying to quickly get out
of the way of the many cop cars that just happened to be following him for an hour or so.
-Good idea. -Ah, well, the jury didn't believe him, of course. Isn't that tragic?
-I'm misting up right now. But at least the car was his, unlike our next story. A young man of Virginia Beach arrived
at his preliminary hearing for car theft. After being granted a delay, he and his friend
drove off in a shiny new car with New York license plates. -That was nice of his friend to drive
all that way to support him. -Well, actually, they didn't. An officer noticed these chuckling chums as they drove
off and ran the plates on the car and found out that it too was stolen. -You're kidding.
-No, I'm not. -It had to be some kind of innocent coincidence, right? -Nah. Just like when they happened to pull it
into a local convenience store for a snack and didn't notice the police precinct just
across the street. But the police noticed them. Maybe they should have taken a cab-- I mean, hailed a cab.
-Hail no. Hail. Cab drivers have enough to worry about as it is. An officer in Baltimore sent us this story about a cab driver
that had been robbed at gunpoint. I mean, scary. The officer asked him where he had picked the guy up fully
expecting to get some obscure street location. But instead, the officer, he got an exact address.
-No, you mean like near a particular landmark or some corner. -No, it turned out that the crook called for a cab
to pick him up in front of his own home. He rode a few blocks and then he robbed the driver at gunpoint
and fled right back to his house, which is where the officer found him a few minutes later.
-What, was he too lazy to go out and commit a crime? He had to have it delivered?
-Sometimes, you just can't get up and out to actually-- -I know, I know. Which brings us to our Vidiot of the Week.
In Kansas City, Missouri, this officer had occasion to speak to a man who was a suspect in a recent burglary.
The man denied any knowledge of the crime, so the officer if the suspect happened to know what
the device on his cruiser's dashboard was. In truth, it was a Motorola radio, but the officer convinced the man that it was a lie detector
machine and when it sensed a lie, its green light would turn red. -OK, what's your name?
-Danny Hicks. -OK. Mr. Hicks, were you involved in a burglary last Friday night?
-No, man. -It's a lie. NARRATOR: All the officer had to do was press in the microphone
button to get the red response, and the crook's guilty conscious did the rest. -All right, I did it.
The stuff's in my brother's garage. -OK, thank you. Dispatch, I have burglary suspect in custody.
I'm on my way. You mean that's a radio, too? NARRATOR: He cannot tell a lie. The case was so open and shut it never went to court.
Wait, wait a minute. Does that red light mean that I'm lying now? -No, it means that we're still on the air.
-I knew that. We'll be right back with more of "America's Dumbest Criminals." Many people start their workday with a doughnut
and a hot cup of coffee. Dumb criminals are no exception. However, on this morning, the nut took the dough
and ran, just not far enough. After getting a call about an armed robbery at a local donut
shop, an officer stopped by to take a report from the cashier. She said that a guy had ordered a donut and coffee.
But when the clerk brought them to the counter, the breakfast burglar pulled out a knife
and demanded all the cash, then took his breakfast to go and ran. As the clerk was finishing a report,
her eyes opened wide, causing the officer to check out this new customer. It was the bearclaw bandit.
The officer told the geek that he couldn't carry that knife, then arrested him. And as he was leading him to the car,
the officer asked the goon why he had returned to the scene of the crime. He replied, they give free refills.
He's sure going to miss that perk in prison. This NYPD officer was in the right place at the right time.
But as far as the fleeing foolish fugitive was concerned, the officer's arrival on the scene
was just a stroke of luck. The officer was assigned as an investigator in an unmarked car
when he answered the call of a patrol officer requesting assistance. The patrol officer was pursuing a man
who had fled the scene of a traffic accident. When the officer arrived at the parking lot
where the accident had occurred, he saw the patrol officer trying to catch the suspect, but to no avail.
The suspect even ran around the officer's car twice before the officer yelled at him to hop in.
The frantic fugitive hopped in the unmarked police car in less time than you can say, "I'm an idiot."
Unfortunately, the runaway rogue hitched a ride in the wrong car. The officer was going nowhere other than straight
to the local precinct. Didn't anyone ever tell the ninny not to accept rides from a stranger?
We all know that disabled persons should have equal access, and they do. But not necessarily to all the merchandise
when there's no one to make a sale. Undaunted by his wheelchair but thwarted by his thought
process, our gliding grifter believed he had it all planned out. What he didn't plan on was his fingerprints or a surveillance
camera, his tracks, and a trip to the county jail. There's nothing worse than being woken up abruptly
from a nice long nap, your dream of being stranded on a remote island with the cast of Baywatch
suddenly cut short by the cold, harsh voice of reality-- the cops. A woman in Chattanooga, Tennessee
called to report a burglary in progress in her home. She had managed to get out of the back door
and call from a neighbor's house. The thief was in her living room. When the police arrived, they found
an intoxicated man asleep on the sofa. He was quickly escorted outside. When the woman saw him, she said,
that's my neighbor from up the street. The slosh-meister just muttered about being removed
from his own couch as he was walked to the squad car. Seems he had chosen the right block but the wrong house.
He was arrested for public intoxication and got a chance to sleep it off down at the station.
Just goes to show you that this kind of thing doesn't only happen troubled celebrities,
but to troubled citizens just like you and me. Well, you. Many people believe that if you do good,
it comes back to you twofold. If you do something bad, the same. However, if you do something dumb-- well,
I think you're going to see what I mean. A police cruiser was attempting to enter a parking structure
but was blocked by a car parked in front of it. The officer made a couple of polite taps on the horn,
signaling the car to move on. It didn't. The oblivious occupants didn't acknowledge the warnings.
When the cops ran a quick check on the vehicle, they found that it matched the description of a car that
had fled the scene of a bank robbery just blocks away. Needless to say, the cops were more direct this time
and quickly arrested the bunglers, who, to make things worse, had picked the wrong place
to sit and count the dough. They obviously didn't realize that they had been blocking
the parking entrance to the police station, just on the other side of the block.
In five to ten years, I'm sure they'll sit around their cells and laugh about all of this.
I know we did. It's bad enough when dopey crooks put self-incriminating evidence on film, but how would
you like to be the mixed up moron who committed the highly negative act of bringing actual evidence
to a film store instead of the film? Here in Lancaster, California, a customer dropped off some film
to be developed, or so he thought. Instead of a roll of film, the canister contained cannabis-- marijuana, hemp, wacky weed.
The clerk immediately notified the police, so by the time the forgetful photographer figured out his mistake,
he did have some photos to take care of, after all-- mugshots. The man may claim he was framed, but either way,
it's not a pretty picture. Of course, don't drink and drive is a rule everyone should live by.
But leave it to a dumb criminal to obey those wise words and then screw them up by having his 12-year-old son drive home
instead. -I think you better-- you better-- drive the car. -You sure? -Yeah. -A kid's driving that car.
NARRATOR: When police tried to pull their truck over, the drunk dad told his son to slow down
and continue home, which he safely did. -What is this, sir? NARRATOR: Police also found a bag of methamphetamines
on the proud parent, who was arrested and clearly deserves to be grounded, as well.
Our next surveillance footage shows off this dumb criminal's biggest assets. If you live in the Indianapolis area, please help us
find this guy and buy him a belt. He has robbed a series of banks in an effort to buy this very necessary device.
He obviously needs our help. If you see him around town, call the FBI. They have one waiting for him, ready to wear.
One size fits all. You know, a smart crime is hard to find, but there's no shortage of dumb criminals.
See you next week on "America's Dumbest Criminals." On next episode of "America's Dumbest Criminals,"
a hemped-up hoodlum in "Helping Hands," a roving rover in "Walked Dog, Curbed Brain," a crooked cruiser in "Chasing
Lamey," a resourceful rascal in "Shorts of Breath." The laughs just keep coming on the next episode
of "America's Dumbest Criminals." -My partner and deputy Rick Book and I were assisting patrol officers with a call of a home owner
holding a suspect in his residence at gunpoint. A burglary suspect and at gunpoint.
We got the call, we were the first officers there, and we meet with the victim, who shows us the suspect, who's
sitting all on the dining room floor looking very dejected and lethargic almost to the point where
he's fallen asleep. We handcuff him, identify him, and we ask the victim, how'd you find this guy?
How did you catch him? And he says, well, it happened like this-- I came home from work, I found my sliding glass door open,
saw some personal property on the floor next to the door, which included a bike and some power tools.
So I decided to slowly go through my house and see what I could find. Well, he ultimately gets his own bedroom
and not only sees more properties stacked on his, which include some firearms and things like that,
but he confronted face to face with the suspect. He was a bit scared and shocked but he had the presence of mind
to reach between the mattresses of his bed and pull out a handgun that he had hidden there.
He points at the suspect and yells at him, "wake up! You're under arrest." Guy fell asleep.
The knucklehead broke into the house. He apparently is a transient who has a drug problem,
so he was up all night long and decided to burglarize the house. Got a little tired and hungry.
Went to the refrigerator, got out some food, and ultimately ate it. Fell asleep and had a little cat burglar nap.
My partner, we had to stop laughing, because it was kind of embarrassing to be laughing
in front of the suspect's face and all. We finally gather ourselves and say, what's up?
And he says, well, I just wanted to come in and get some stuff. It was pretty amazing.
We just couldn't believe it. We have a lot of things happen out there, some of them
sillier than others, and it's like, these guys, when they take on this life of crime,
they go, OK-- if you're going to be a criminal, you've got to stand in line here and take these stupid pills.
We drive around a lot and we stop people that we think fit a profile and we talk to him.
And a lot of times, we find narcotics either in their pants or shirts or whatever clothing.
And you wouldn't believe how many people say oh, well, that's not my pants or that's not my shirt.
But one time, I believe one guy said, well, that's not my underwear. A lot of people, again, like I said
before, they take stupid pills. It's like they go to a class. They go, OK, they teach them how to dress,
they teach them how to not wash themselves, not take care of their house, not take care of their kids,
and they just teach them not to be very smart. And when you talk to them, you look at them
and their body language tells you one thing. And you say, you have any drugs or weapons on you?
They look around, not any weapons. OK. Well, then give us the drugs.

In this episode of "America's Dumbest Criminals," we'll understand "The Boulder, The Stupider," "Moon Over First Fed," see how "Brothers Cool Off" and experience the "Road Flasher."

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 absurd criminal antics, including a donut shop robbery and a burglar who fell asleep in the victim's home.

Key points

Dumb Criminals in Boulder. A duo attempts to break into a bike impound cage but fails hilariously.
The Fan Fight. Three brothers argue over a fan, leading to police intervention.
The Bearclaw Bandit. A man robs a donut shop and returns for free refills after being caught.
The Sleeping Burglar. A burglar falls asleep in the house he broke into, leading to his arrest.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

Maybe they should spell the name of the Colorado town Boulder without the U.

Comment on the stupidity of criminals in Boulder.

1:08WatchFeb 17, 2022

Tension

25/ 100Low tension

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