America's Dumbest Criminals - Season 2, Episode 15 - Lights, Camera, Busted - Full Episode | Forensic Files

hi i'm daniel butler welcome to another edition of america's dumbest criminals [Music]
[Applause] do [Music] on this episode of america's dumbest criminal tigers get lights camera busted
give me the money a gutsy gal tries applying herself this is really stupid a crook gets all
dressed up [Music] and you want butter on your fingers hey man you wanna buy some crack the
laughs just keep coming on this week's episode of america's dumbest criminals here's your host daniel butler
usually graffiti taggers work under the cover of night defacing public property as discreetly as possible however some
clever cops in san jose california figured out a way to lure these taggers into the light in the spotlight actually
police set up a fake film production company and sent out flyers which invited the taggers to appear in a
documentary on their illegal art form a trip to hollywood was even offered as a bonus
avoiding entrapment by asking their subjects not to paint and just show them their previous works the officers slash
cameramen were quite surprised when many of their stars began spraying the wall anyway the on-camera ad-libbing resulted
in 31 arrests as the documentary turned into a giant game of kick the can perhaps dizzy from the fumes one
disappointed youngster asked a pressing question in the police station so does this mean i'm not going to la
[Music] our next story comes to us from the kerry north carolina police department a
woman had come into the shop earlier and filled out a job application she returned a short while later but not to
see if the job had been filled but rather to empty the till as soon as the woman left with her
unearned wages the counterman called the cops i'm calling from the coffee shop down at the mall here listen we just got
robbed some gal came in she filled out an application here she's uh she actually left her dress on it with all
the vital information in the hands of the police the woman was soon apprehended and charged with attempted
robbery as it turned out the woman needed the money to bail her husband out of jail
for violating parole but now they're together again in prison ain't love grand [Music]
officer carl traber recounts how he was able to get two dumb criminals to call the kettle black
my partner and i we work in wheelchair division traffic and of course friday night you look for drunk drivers
we got out there about 11 o'clock that's when we started our shift and we were going northbound on pico and we spotted
a car pulled him over said my goodness we got hardly out of the station already got a drunk driver and he was pretty
pretty breeze house put the cops on put him in the back seat and while we were checking out the car and everything
another car came by almost hit us so we chased after him not a drunk driver so we put him in the
back seat while we were in route to the station is one drunk looked at the other and said
you mean to tell me you were driving as drunk as you are so the other guy said you you have to
talk i mean i wouldn't be driving it might be as drunk as you are and the one guy said if i would be as strong as you
i would have to drive i couldn't even walk and we actually used them on the police report
as witnesses against each other this dumb criminal decided to pick up a few things at a local hardware store
after it closed unfortunately he forgot to grab one last item before he left the
building you can see our sneaky snatcher as he casually carries items in and out
of the back door of the business they probably would have made a clean getaway except for one little hitch
when police arrived on the scene they immediately noticed a piece of paper that had been used to jam the door open
during the robbery ah look at this can you believe that let me let me call it in
it turned out to be a traffic ticket issued to the american bungalow earlier that day complete with his name address
and car tag [Music] what will you do if your new vcr breaks down after a year or so well it's no
problem if you have the good sense to get an extended warranty however in this case good sense turned
out to be just plain nonsense it all started in a pittsburgh electronics store after two men presented credit
cards to buy over two thousand dollars worth of high-grade goods well why not enjoy the comfort of extended warranty
coverage you only have to fill out a simple form and our two clever consumers proceeded
to do just that however there were only a couple of glitches in the transaction number one the credit card they had just
used to make their purchase was hot uh can i get you to fill out a couple of warranties for the uh
yeah yeah number two they filled in their real names and addresses on the warranty forms the credit card had been
reported stolen just that morning to quote a police officer on the scene somewhere in this world two villages are
missing their idiots i'm daniel butler and this is the lovely the luminous beaumont bacon thank you
daniel you're welcome in new hampshire two guys stole the safe from a friend's house and made off with it in a
wheelbarrow for safekeeping not very their little plan hit a bump tipping it over and sending the safe crashing to
the ground yeah they panicked when they were spotted by a woman across the street so
they quickly picked the safe up carried it behind the wall and buried it how far
six feet under how far close under a pile of leaves actually it must have taken the police hours to
really dig and blow away all those leaks oh i'm sure it did with the woman's help
though the police caught them quickly and piled the rakish rogues into a cell for questioning well why didn't they
just hide the safe in a fog bank speaking of banks this crafty criminal in fort lauderdale decided to take a
taxi to rob a bank however the bank was closed so he told the driver to take him
to another one and wait for him to cash a check and come back out the driver figured that this was the
goons way of sneaking out on paying his fare so he called into the bank on his cell phone and told him to let him know
if the guy tried to slip out yeah bank robbers have been known to be slippery in the past this robber though he
returned to the cabin instructed him to drive quickly to his next destination as
they were pulling away the bank called the cab driver on his cell phone and let him know about the robbery and that the
police would be stopping by to pay his fare a little visit which they did a few minutes later wait so the cabbie ended
up not getting paid anyway well i'm sure that he was able to do a little shopping
with the reward money that he got oh good for him which brings us to our favorite part of this segment
of the week from all of the stories we received this one is our favorite an officer made a routine traffic stop and
noticed a strong smell of wacky tobaccy as the driver rolled down his window a quick search of the car produced a bag
of marijuana and the goof was put in the back of the cruiser for the long ride downtown well crook kept himself busy
during the trip when the officer took the guy out of the cruiser he noticed a wadded up piece of paper left behind on
the back seat where the guy had been sitting when they also removed the little bundle of joy there was white
powder on the seat and powder spilling out of the wadded up paper i bet it wasn't baby powder well it was just big
baby powder the crook tried to deny that it was his until the officer pointed out
that the powder was wrapped in a traffic citation that the goon had gotten a week
earlier why pay those citations when you can carry them around to wrap your drugs
at them yeah really probably even keep my vitamins fresh you know i have to get a lot of parking tickets
though [Music] there are certain things that you don't want to wake up from a nap a bear an
ex-girlfriend or a cop two burglars were busy as bees filling the back of their car and didn't seem to
notice the police cruiser parked right across the street our napping night shift officer heard
the commotion looked out of his window and witnessed the stupidity going on right in front of him
so he did the neighborly thing he got himself all gussied up and gave his new neighbors a little housewarming present
right there huh you guys do them neighbors house give me that camera a free ride down to the station
dumb criminals know a lot about putting their foot in their mouths but this next
buffoon topped them all by putting his foot in his mouth and then practically swallowing it in a court of law no less
in oklahoma city a man on trial for armed robbery had fired his lawyer and was doing a pretty decent job of
defending himself until he came up against a hostile witness can you tell me exactly where you were on the night
of july 17th you know where i was and you know and i know that you did that's a lie that's a lot i should have shot
you that night when i was there if your honor i was there of course if he didn't win the case
a man walked into this palm beach restaurant one afternoon and ordered a vodka a plate of lemon slices and sugar
this sounded strange but not as unusual as his next request do you mind if i cut
my money yeah i guess okay thanks man [Music] the counting crow then pulled out about
ten thousand dollars and began arranging it neatly on the table in front of him the waiter got the drink in lemons and
then made a quick call to the local police yeah yeah that'll be amazing officers arrived and arrested the sour
purse who it turned out had just finished robbing two small banks a few blocks away
needless to say the waiter didn't get a tip [Music] people go to the movies to be
entertained even dumb criminals but sometimes you'll find a really dim bulb who wants to light up the marquee and
get into the action himself give me the money in lebanon indiana an ex-con went to the local theater and perhaps
depressed by the coming attractions demanded a jumbo bucket of hot money from employees
police think he asked for extra butter because the sap tried to give them the slip before he even left the building
cursing a blue streak out the door it didn't take long for the authorities to track down colonel slanders and arrest
him is this the guy that you uh call about with the money in the popcorn bag yes
yeah is this uh does that look like the amount of money exactly like yes all right great anyway let me take him
outside i'll put him in the car i'll be right thank you some of you may have heard of the
five-fingered discount or in layman's terms shoplifting well let's take a look at this
gift-giving grifter who decided to try her luck and go for 10. a victorville woman had stolen a part
for her husband's car to give to him as a birthday present unfortunately she stole the wrong model
but told him that she'd exchange it the next day for the correct one opting to bypass customer service she
sneaked gift number one back to its shelf snatched its replacement and that's when
she was snagged by store security missed you see that camera right there we watched everything you've done
that should teach your husband to always look a gift horse in the mouth there's an old adage that a criminal
always returns to the scene of the crime but usually not the way these two did it happened in meridian mississippi late
one sunday night two yen broke into a restaurant made off with all the cash and books of gift certificates the
ambience at the restaurant must have been quite compelling because two days later the same two knuckleheads came
back for dinner and to add insult to injury they tried to pay for the meal with some of the
stolen gift certificates they were easily recognized and arrested now like their crustacean counterparts
the guys are in a tank of their own downtown some people just won't take no for an
answer like this dumb driver in los angeles officers pulled over a guy after he ran
a red light and found out that he was driving without a valid license after his arrest he and his car were picked up
down at the station by a relative less than half an hour later the same officers were out on patrol and noticed
a car pull up beside them at the light i can't believe this guy the same guy who they had just arrested
was driving the same car he was just as surprised as the officers beside him and
was arrested again this time he was in double trouble his car was impounded and he was
incarcerated [Music] sometimes in life when you do a good deed you're rewarded in some positive
way in the future this officer must have been in the karmic express lane an officer from
portsmouth virginia decided to be a good samaritan when he encountered a drunk and opted to give the guy a lift home
rather than a trip down to the station however as he was about to pull away another man jumped into the passenger
seat hey man come on buy some crack yeah get in although the officer was in plain
clothes his badge was clearly in sight and his gun was on his belt even his radio was broadcasting police call and
there you are oh come on man come on the officer then took the confused crackhead for a little wheeling
and dealing down at the station the footage we are about to see is from an in-store closed-circuit security
camera now what makes this footage stand out from the average caught on tape fare
well it's not just that we see our stupid suspects in plain sight no it's not even the fact that they thought
destroying the camera would also destroy the tape machine located in another room
it's the fact that the very next day one of these morons showed up at the police
station for an unrelated charge wearing the same chicago bulls jacket and cap he
wore in the robbery the officer who had taken the initial police report and watched the
surveillance tape was working that day and instantly recognized the perp arresting him on the spot and that's no
bull [Music] we hope you've learned one thing this week for every dumb crime there's an
even dumber criminal just waiting to bungle right here on america's dumbest criminals
[Music] huh wake up oh man on the next episode of america's dumbest criminal open
the video debut of roller bullies a motorhome mad man takes a short trip a drunk driver tries breaking a habit
a dumb doper in monkey nazi monkey doom all this and more on the next episode of
america's dumbest criminal hey give me your money we have a lot of traffic warrants in los
angeles uh thousands and thousands of traffic wars and of course the suspects the violators
they realize that if you come to the house and you say are you mr wilson all they have to say is no
and unless the police officer has independent knowledge that this is mr wilson we can't arrest him and when we
ask him for id he says i don't have any so what are you gonna do so i devised something with my partner what we did is
i said that we had a warrant for example for roy wilson went to the address knocked on the door
and said police officer mr uh are you mr bill johnson he says no oh wait a minute
now it says here 52 fourth avenue uh he says no i'm not bill johnson i said the physical description you fit
the description he says no i'm not bill johnson so i said can you prove that you're not
bill josh i said of course i have a driver's license let's see of course the driver license said roy wilson i said oh
roy wilson you know we happen to have a warrant for roy wilson also and so it worked pretty good uh we got him on
that one so it was it was kind of fun you didn't have to fight the guy you know and he did go to jail and obviously
that's our job to arrest the violators as i told you i retired from the los angeles police department in 84 and i
joined the los angeles community college district as a police officer and we had kind of a interesting experience
there unfortunately we had a lot of break-ins in the men's locker room and the victims were mostly the football
players who when they go practice which they did every day they put their stuff in their their wallets and their stuff
in the lockers lock them up and then went out to practice field so we did we had a little stakeout and one of our
cadets uh observed a big tall six foot three uh size african-american about at least 200 pounds or heavier
break into one of the lockers so he called us so we came running out and of course the guy spotted us and took off
unfortunately he went the wrong direction he went right across the football practice field and we couldn't
catch him because we had all our gear on and of course he was free and so i call it out to the football
players there's the guy who is breaking into your lockers and the whole 30 40 men team were after him
and they have some good runners especially the wide receiver and to make a long story short they
caught up with him on coldwater uh coldwater canyon and my job basically was to keep the
football players from killing him they really got a hold of that guy [Music] you

In this episode of "America's Dumbest Criminals," we'll see someone get "Lights, Camera, Busted," witness "A Gutsy Gal Applying Herself," see a criminal get "All Dressed Up" and ask "You Want Butter on Your Fingers?"

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 features criminals caught in absurd situations, from a fake film set to a woman robbing a coffee shop after applying for a job.

Key points

Tigers Get Lights, Camera, Busted. Clever cops lure graffiti taggers into a fake film shoot, resulting in 31 arrests.
Robbery Gone Wrong. A woman fills out a job application only to rob the coffee shop she applied to.
The Case of the Stolen Credit Card. Two men try to buy high-grade goods with a stolen credit card, leading to their arrest.
The Burglars Who Returned for Dinner. Two burglars return to the restaurant they robbed, trying to pay with stolen gift certificates.
The Drunk Driver's Double Trouble. A man gets arrested twice in one day for driving without a license.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

Ain't love grand?

A woman robs a coffee shop to bail her husband out of jail.

2:57WatchFeb 17, 2022

Tension

40/ 100Low tension

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