America's Dumbest Criminals - Season 3, Episode 23 - Need a Lift - Full Episode | Forensic Files

ANNOUNCER: Tonight on "America's Dumbest Criminals," this couple doubted they'd get their stolen belongings back,
but they never expected to get what they got. It isn't just the spirits of this thief that need a lift.
Fortunately, he's found an officer who hold up his pants while upholding the law.
And this was probably an unforgettable evening for this guy, if he could only remember it.
For entertainment that's sure to stay with you, stay where you are. You're on patrol for "America's Dumbest Criminals."
[theme music] -Duh. ANNOUNCER: Now, welcome your hosts for "America's Dumbest Criminals," Daniel Butler and Debbie Alan.
-Hello. -Look at you. You look very nice tonight. You really do. -Thank you. -You're welcome.
-Oh, wait a minute. Is my hair messed up? Is that why you're saying that? -No, no, can't a gentleman offer a lady a compliment?
-Yes, a gentleman can. -Hey, hey, hey. -Oh. -OK, anyway I'll go ahead. Our first story concerns fashion, well, in a fashion.
So I'm just noticing things like how you look more closely, that's all. -OK, speaking of fashion, what is the strangest get up you
ever were caught in? -Yeah, that would be 1972, the platform shoes and the fur coat.
-Oh, what a picture. Platform shoes and fur coat. -Well, I bet you've been a tormented slave
to fashion in your past, I'm sure. -Yeah, you know me. Oh, but I hated the output I wore on our first taping.
That sweater was just cut the wrong way. It made me look really fat. It was just-- I mean, it just came down--
-Thank you, Debbie. Yeah, bring in a photo. -Yeah, unfortunately, it's on tape. But our first guy tonight was styling,
but not smiling when cameras caught up to him. -He was hip to a hip-hop look, but what he did wasn't hip.
And so when the police caught up with him, they had him hop in the back of a patrol car.
-But to keep him from adding a charge of indecent exposure, he needed a little pick me up.
Here's is the low down. The baggie britches look may be cool, but it's hard to run from the police
when your pants fall down around your ankles. This young car thief should have stolen a belt.
The detective probably didn't expect to dress the perpetrator at the scene, but at least he didn't
have to worry about concealed weapons. -Oh, so embarrassing. -I hate those baggie clothes.
-There are a lot of things that robbers spend their money on, their drugs, electronics, drugs, rent, drugs, cars, alimony,
drugs, gambling and, of course, drugs. -But there's one thing that the bank robbers seem to never buy
and that's stationary. -No, no. They seem to write their stick-up notes on whatever's
handy, and that leads to trouble. -Even if they did get some writing paper, they'd probably have it printed with their return address.
-Yeah, they'd put a little sticker on. Here's one more case of someone leaving Something to Remember Me By.
-A few years back, we had an incident where a bank was robbed over in the south section of the city
where a male walked into the bank and produced a note demanding money. It was a sloppily written note.
And after the teller became extremely nervous as she should have been, and went through and handed him all the money,
he left. And as he left the bank, he left the note on the counter there at the teller's office.
She called the police and the FBI, and our local agency showed up. And we were looking at the note, and we flipped it over.
And on the back side of it was the name of the suspect that had robbed the bank with his name, date of birth,
and social security number, because it was a paste note. We were able to follow up on that
and found out that he had been released from a halfway house a few months earlier, that he did, in fact, live in our city,
and it was locally to where the bank was located. And we were able to get to the house,
basically, before he got back. We went to talk to him, we apprehend him, and asked him if it was his pay stub.
Told him we had his fingerprints on it, and he confessed to the bank robbery. And so, basically, that's pretty dumb
move on any bank robber's part. -In the 911 audio tape you're about to hear, you get to hear a dumb mistake turn into genuine remorse.
And no, this call didn't come from a White House. -Unfortunately. It was placed from a business in Salt Lake City.
A guy does the right thing after doing the wrong thing, and we commend him. Listen to what a great job this 911 operator
does at keeping things together. A man upset and intoxicated threw a rock through the window, then felt bad about it,
went into this office and called 911. [phone ringing] 911 OPERATOR (ON PHONE): Salt Lake City dispatch.
PERPETRATOR (ON PHONE): Yeah, hi. I just broke into a building. I'm inside the building right now.
DEBBIE: The dispatcher, though new on the job, accepted his confession, and walked him
through some tricky moments on the phone. PERPETRATOR (ON PHONE): Yeah, I just got frustrated.
I'm really upset right now. All I did was break the window, and I walked away, and felt really guilty about it.
-I felt really bad for him, because I could tell that he didn't do this maliciously or anything like that.
He made a mistake, and he was upset about it. And he just wanted somebody to listen to him.
DEBBIE: The man was so confused, he had to step outside to even identify his location.
911 OPERATOR (ON PHONE): If you know what the name of it is, or anything like that?
PERPETRATOR (ON PHONE): I could go look really quick if you want to hold on a minute.
911 OPERATOR (ON PHONE): OK, will you come back? PERPETRATOR (ON PHONE): I will. So it's OK?
So it's OK? 911 OPERATOR (ON PHONE): OK. PERPETRATOR (ON PHONE): I'll put the phone down.
911 OPERATOR (ON PHONE): All right, put your hands in the air, and walk out there, OK?
PERPETRATOR (ON PHONE): OK. I'll do it right now. 911 OPERATOR (ON PHONE): OK, good.
PERPETRATOR (ON PHONE): Bye. 911 OPERATOR (ON PHONE): Bye. DEBBIE: Sometimes even tragic stories
have not so tragic endings. ANNOUNCER: Hey, check out this dumb law. In Silverton, Texas, it's illegal to drive
within three miles of the city limits. -OK. I bet that law really cuts down on tourism there.
But, hey, you know, some days we wish we could just roll back time and start over.
Well I'm sure the two young men in our next story do. They decided to rob a series of convenience stores,
but their crime spree degenerated into a comedy of errors. Here, see for yourself.
They started to rob this store, but they knew one of the clerks. So then they drove here.
-Well, evidently, they went outside, and they couldn't get his car started. And with that, he was worried, so he wanted just
to let's forget the whole robbery. He came back in, and he gave the money back to the clerk.
DANIEL: The clerk helped them jump their car, and off they went to store number three.
-He was going from one convenience store right to the other. And even after his car wouldn't start,
that wasn't enough to deter him. DANIEL: At their last stop, a police car sensed trouble
and checked their license plate. Then followed them home where $198 and a BB gun
were confiscated. -Most people that stick up a gas station or use a gun in a crime
are typically not very smart from the word go. -It's comical, but still, it's a robbery.
-You know, Debbie, I'm not a lawyer, and I don't play one on TV, but I'm pretty sure
that, "Oops, just joking," is not a defense that holds up well in court, huh? -I think you're right.
It's probably about as strong as the devil made me do it, huh? -Yeah. All right, speaking of strong, some jobs take strong backs.
And if you lift enough things, there's the chance that you're going to get injured on the job.
Some people try to see just how long they can take to get over such a problem. You're about to see some fraud investigators who were just
sick about what these fakes were doing. Would you believe this man is receiving workers' comp
because he's too disabled to work? And this guy said he couldn't walk because of back pain.
Smile, the guys from labor and industries are watching. -You can see that the person seems
capable of pretty heavy activity. He's on a construction job. DEBBIE: His claim was cancelled saving taxpayers $28,000.
This man crawling under the car filed a bad back claim. But inspectors paid him a visit when they found out
about his roadside repair service. -He's gone under this car to repair a so-called broken shock absorber.
DEBBIE: This stranded motorist is really a state inspector who just saved the system $170,000.
Oh, my aching pocketbook. -Hey, hey. Police officers wear name tags so that everyone can read them
and know who they're dealing with. Of course, doing that reading thing comes a lot easier when
you're sober, which our next guy wasn't. Witness how name dropping can get you punted right into the pokey.
-I had locked an individual up for a DWUI and placed him under arrest, and brought him in.
He was supposed to appear in court. And it turned out, he never appeared in court.
Issued some warrants for his arrest, and about two weeks after the warrants were issued, I
stopped the same car with the same driver. As I approached the car, the driver of the car
turns around and said-- -John Clemens and I? We're like this. -Uh-huh. We're like this.
In fact, John Clemens practically raised me. -And here I'm standing in front of the guy,
and he doesn't recognize me, because he was so drunk when I locked him up last time.
-Coming up later, a guy really gets socked, but now with news being too disturbing to the special
prosecutor, here's Daniel with ADC Headlines. -It's going to be pretty disturbing.
When a county jail in Florida received a bomb investigators sprang into action. First, they traced the call to their own holding cell.
Then they went to investigate where they found only one inmate who could have made the call.
In addition to being held for battery on a law enforcement officer, he upped the ante by being charged
with making a false report of a bomb. The guy only had one phone call. The police officer in San Mateo County, California,
asked the man standing next to the car with the two broken windows to show him some ID.
He handed the deputy the only documentation he had with them, a copy of a current arrest warrant against him
for driving with a suspended license. Hey, it had his name. It had his age. Detroit police officers were showing neighborhood children
how their new squad car computer equipment worked when a curious pedestrian inquired about its abilities.
The officer asked for his driver's license to perform a demonstration. He eagerly complied and in moments the officers
were able to arrest the man for an armed robbery he pulled two years ago in St. Louis.
Go figure. And that closes the file on ADC Headlines, news ripped from somewhere near the back
of your local newspaper. Debbie. -These days, the world is full of people wearing beepers
and most of them seem to sit near me in theaters. Don't you just hate it when those things go off
and you're trying to enjoy the movie? Well, the guy you're about to meet got beeped.
He got back to the person who called him and then he got caught. Here's the story.
These guys are behind bars because when someone reached out and touched one of them via a pager, he touched back.
The problem? The pager was one of a number of items stolen in burglaries at three homes.
-One of the victims of the three burglaries had a pager stolen. She inadvertently-- her husband had the pager replaced--
inadvertently dialed the old number. And the person who stole the pager returned the call.
-The guy called back and said, I don't know what's going on, but somebody keeps using my beeper.
So I said, whoa. -She called police who then beeped the burglar and traced the call.
Busted. This little convenience item will keep these guys inconvenienced for quite some time.
-You know, one of the worst liabilities of being a criminal is that there may not be anyone willing to give you
a Band-Aid when you get a boo-boo. Well, our next guy thought he was on the cutting
edge of being bad boy, but he was moments away from slicing and dicing himself. What you're about to see isn't all that funny,
but it sure left the crook in stitches. Check it out. -Other officers tell me of a story in which the 911 phone
rang, our dispatcher answered the call. We were able to tell that the call was coming from a local place of business.
-I got cut all over my arms. -The caller, however, said that he was in a local motel room.
We knew immediately that something was wrong. So the communications officer sent officers
to the place of business shown on the screen. When they arrived, they did find that the building
had been broken into. Once inside, they located the suspect who obviously had been cut.
He told them that he'd been chased by several other subjects and attacked, and had broken into the building for safety.
-Three guys were mugging me. Tried to mug me, take my money. -The manager of the building was called
and found that money was missing. The man they contacted had been drinking and was probably under the influence.
And they asked him where the money was? He said it was in his trousers. They asked him why he took it, and he said his father taught
him, you don't leave money lying around. This was left lying around. So he took it for safe keeping.
Another crime solved, a burglary ended. -I don't think daddy meant that, huh? OK, get this synopsis we received when
we first heard about this next story. Guy thrown out of trailer with socks tied together.
Well, who could resist a come on like that? Here's the yarn we were told in Henderson, North Carolina.
-A couple months ago while on patrol it was kind of slow. Several officers responded to a breaking and entering call.
We get there and you're just not going to believe this. There's this guy laying beside the home in his underwear
with his socks tied together. Of course, we still think we've got a break in. Can't get anything out of the guy.
He's so drunk he can't talk. He can't stand up. We finally get somebody to the front door,
so come to find out, he had gotten drunk. The friends tied his socks together as a joke.
He goes to get up out of the bed, socks tied together, he stumbles, falls out of the window, lands outside the window just sitting there.
-Dude, where's the bottle opener? -The funniest part about the whole thing is that they didn't take him in the front door
when it was all over with. They picked him up and put him back through the window with his socks still tied.
-We're real sorry about this, I swear. It won't ever happen again. -Now we're going to pull a fast one with this quick story
from Del Rey Beach, Florida. A purse snatcher who's escape leads him to be picked up by an officer's pickup.
-I was off duty, and I was getting a sandwich at the sub shop. I was pulling out of the parking lot,
and somebody jumped in the back of my truck. I got out and said what was going on.
He kind of recognized who I was. And I realized that he just committed a purse snatch.
And I chased him across the street into a Swiss Chalet, a little chicken place. I chased him into the bathroom.
He was trying to flush the evidence down the toilet. We got the police, and we made an arrest on him.
Sometimes dumb criminals just fall into your hands. -It's a shame that our final fella didn't audition
for the circus before leading a life of crime. -His story has elements of a high wire stunt,
a trapeze performance, and a balancing act. -But mostly, I think he was just a real clown.
-Oh, yeah. Now appearing in the center ring is tonight's death defying appearance of We're Not Making This Up.
Had this young man in the early 1980s when I was a detective that was a hot-prowl burglar.
That's burglarizing a home when somebody's inside of it. Fortunately for us, there was a feisty old lady
that was the victim who confronted the man, and screamed at the top of his lungs,
and ran out the front door. The thing that he'd forgot was his wallet and his driver's
license in the driveway as he ran away. Did a photo lineup and identified the bad guy.
He did three years in the State Penitentiary. A year and a day after he got out of the penitentiary,
he was back to his old form. And he burglarized another home. This time the people, instead of screaming,
they called the police. When we set up a perimeter around the house, and as we announced ourselves and told him to come out,
he decided to bail out the bedroom window. But he forgot to look before he jumped out the window
into a Cypress tree, which knocked him back into the house. He jumped again at the Cypress tree.
Back into the house. He jumped a third time, and the cops were finally able to catch him as he hit the Cypress tree.
And we arrested the young man for one count of burglary. Well, the district attorney didn't like that,
and he upped the charges to four counts of burglary. It was his opinion that he broke into the house,
that's one count. Jumped out of the window and was thrown back in by the Cypress tree, that's two counts.
hit the Cypress tree again, three counts being thrown back in. Hit the Cypress tree again.
Now he's got up to four counts of burglary. The individual served another eight years
in the Nevada State Penitentiary. The moral of the story is look before you leap.
-[inaudible]. -But the tree was an accomplice. -Remind me not to get before that judge, though.
-The tree is on yard arrest, though. -Oh, Daniel. You know, that's not the kind of story
you're going to be bragging about to your cellmates when you hit the jail either, right?
-I think you're right. -Well, it's time to head them up, move them out. -Are we on a cattle drive here?
-Well, yeah. I think you're right again, but before we go, we want to say thanks.
Thanks to you at home for watching. -You betcha. And very special thanks to the officers
who helped us out tonight. Without them, we'd be two well-groomed people with nothing much to say.
-Two? -Well, seriously, we do want to express our appreciation to everyone who works in law enforcement.
-It often seems like a thankless job, I'm sure, but our world would be a far worse place
if you guys weren't on the job. -And we'll be back on the job next week to once again poke our finger in the underbelly of society.
-Yeah. Hey, if you've got a lead on a story, or if you just can't wait till next week for more state
of the art stupidity, visit our website. -The address is www.dumbcrimes.com. -As always, we hope that we've all
learned from other's mistakes. -But if you haven't, we just might see you next week
on "America's Dumbest Criminals." -Goodbye. See you next week. [theme music]

In this episode of “America’s Dumbest Criminals,” we’ll witness a couple getting more than their belongings back, a cop that helps a criminal with his pants and a fella who can’t recall his unforgettable night.

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 covers dumb criminal antics, including a thief with sagging pants and a remorseful vandal who called 911.

Key points

Unexpected Returns. A couple gets back more than they bargained for after a theft.
Fashion Faux Pas. A thief's baggy pants lead to an embarrassing arrest.
The Note That Gave It Away. A bank robber leaves behind a note with his personal details.
A 911 Call Gone Wrong. An intoxicated man calls 911 after breaking a window, seeking help.
The Tree's Role in Crime. A burglar's escape attempt leads to an unexpected twist with a tree.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

But they never expected to get what they got.

Unexpected outcomes in crime stories.

0:10WatchMar 3, 2022

Tension

40/ 100Low tension

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