America's Dumbest Criminals - Season 3, Episode 8 - Singing for Supper - Full Episode | Forensic Files

NARRATOR: Tonight on "America's Dumbest Criminals." Just how many ways can you divide the loot
when you bring everyone you know on a caper? Why would a team of savvy police officers
devise a sting operation to make crooks sing for their supper? And what would you do if a customer
decided to enter your store this way? You're in hot pursuit of the answers on "America's Dumbest Criminals."
[theme music] NARRATOR: Welcome your hosts for "America's Dumbest Criminals," Daniel Butler and Debbie Allen.
-I get a workout during that song. -Hey, what a show we have for you tonight. If variety is the spice of life, and we know it is,
you've tuned in to a veritable chili cook-off of video delight. -What was that again?
-It's a video-- it's a chili cook-off. -A veritable-- -Chili cook-off of video delight.
-Does that make you the Tabasco sauce in this bowl of chili? -No, I'm the jalapeno.
You're the Tabasco. -OK. We have stories about a foolish forger, a pushy purse-napper--
-Careful how you say that. ---a den of thieves, and a speeding excuse you just won't believe.
-Nope. One reason we do this show, though, is to underscore that crime is more than wrong.
OK? It's dumb, and a life of crime isn't just a bad career choice-- it's a step into a real cutthroat business.
Let's get a firsthand account about our first klutzy criminal from an officer in Winslow, Arizona.
[siren wailing] -Well, Debbie and Daniel, I got a dumb criminal on tape for you.
So we were dispatched to a burglary alarm along with some other officers to a local gas
station and convenience store. When we arrived there, the alarm was still going off
and we found a subject laying inside the store in a pool of blood. Later, it turns out that what he had done
was climbed up on top of the building with burglary tools and he pried open one of the ventilation shafts
and dropped about 20 feet down into the store. Once he got in, the alarm sounded,
and he soon realized that he had nowhere to go, because he forgot to drop the rope down.
So he tried to break the windows and crawl through the bars that were welded onto the windows, and during that attempt
at getting out of the window, he sliced his throat from his ear all the way to the front of his neck.
Basically, almost bled to death. That's where we found him, was laying in his blood in the store.
DEBBIE: Oh, man! -He was OK. He was OK. You know, I mean, he lived, but try explaining that injury to your insurance company.
You know? I mean, what? -I cut myself shaving, maybe? I don't know. -What were you using, Deb?
-I don't think they'd buy it. -No. I don't think so. But our next story involves jogging, OK?
-And running from the law. Let's track this story of a wacko in Waco. -I think that's a "wake-o" in "Wacko."
-Well, I was helping with the Academy, doing the physical training. And on this particular day, it was my turn
to take the group that I had to go out and run around the block, basically, down outside the police department.
About halfway through the jog, when I noticed that I heard somebody coming up behind me,
I thought, well, this is strange. These guys aren't in that good of shape. I know they can't catch me yet.
That's what I thought in my mind. But he got up and he asked me, well, are you a boxer?
I said, no. I'm not a boxer. I'm a police officer. I'm training these guys behind me.
And he kind of got quiet for a second. And he asked me, well, how long have you been doing this?
Well, just getting started. We're just getting going here. Then he got quiet for a second, and then he just left.
But when he left, he told me, bye, took off, and I noticed he was wearing blue jeans.
And I thought, what people jog in their blue jeans? But he just kept on trucking.
Well, at the same time, my partner, who was still with some of the others in the back,
he yelled at me. I turned around to see what was going on. He pointed back towards the front.
When I looked back in front of me, one of our detective cars had pulled up beside the guy that was jogging with me.
And when the guy saw that he was a detective, he took off running. Well, then I'm-- oh, OK!
Now I know what's going on. So I took off after the guy, chased him about a half a block.
Threw him on the ground, and I just started laying on him. Good thing is, one of our police cars
was the first one to get there, so they knew who I was, and they got him handcuffed and put him into the car.
And then I-- I thought it was kind of strange he was running, and I found out he'd escaped from the courthouse.
He was getting his probation revoked, and that's why he bolted out of there and saw the group of us
jogging so figured he was going to blend in with the joggers. Turned out it was police officers
he was going to blend in with, so he ended up getting caught anyway. So it was a bad day for him, good day for us.
DEBBIE: I love it. -What are the odds? Come on. Now, that jogger wannabe isn't the only guy
who was in the wrong place at the wrong time. See what happens when a trio of young thugs
step from obscurity right into page one news. -I was working undercover surveillance,
and we got information about a couple of guys doing burglaries. We noticed some guys go into the jewelry store
that our guys were window-shopping in front of, and I have a scanner in my undercover car.
And I hear the alert tone. Boop-boop-boop! "Any unit in the vicinity, a robbery in progress."
And they give out the address, and it's the jewelry store that our crooks were looking in the window of.
Right about that time, our crooks start running up the street away from the store, and I come on the air
and I tell the other guys, hey, the jewelry store's being robbed. Those guys we saw go into the jewelry store are robbing it.
Well, what we didn't know is they'd gone in and all three of them had pulled guns,
and the one guy took his gun and hit the glass case trying to get to the jewelry and the barrel broke off his gun.
I'm In the meantime, LAPD shows up, and we end up contacting them, and they covered the front of the store.
Well, the getaway car was being chased by some of our people, and I was going to help them.
And as I'm driving by the alley by the back door, here come these three guys running up the alley.
I jump out of the car and I confront them. We end up taking them into custody. What they didn't realize is there was a local newspaper
photographer who was listening to her scanner, too, and she was taking pictures of them running out
the the back door of the jewelry store, up the alley, and then right into us, where they were taking into custody.
These guys were pretty dumb, walking right into the middle of a surveillance team.
[applause] NARRATOR: Hey, here's another dumb law. In Macon, Georgia, no man can place his arm around a woman
without a good and legal reason. [applause] -That's an unusual law. I wonder what constitutes a legal reason.
Well, things were definitely nowhere near that chummy in this week's edition of America's Dumbest Excuses.
Listen to this story of a guy with a lead food and an iron fist. -A gentleman involved in a traffic accident.
Officer showed up at the scene, gave him the witness statement to fill out, and he actually put in the witness statement,
I was distracted, I couldn't see where I was going because I was busy punching my girlfriend in the face.
And that's a true story. -OK. Changing the subject now-- have you ever gone to the circus
and watched as a dozen clowns piled out of that little, bitty car? Well, tonight's Blue Light Special
is a surveillance video with similar elements, except it involves 15 clowns and three cars.
Still, see if things don't look like a three-ring circus. Check it out. NARRATOR: Hail, hail, the gang's all here,
out on the town for a little late-night shopping when there's no crowd. Well, except for the one you brought with you
to rob this Miami department store. Look at them go! It may bear some similarity to an Easter egg hunt,
but this is no day in the park. You're watching 15 thieves go after the most expensive stuff in the store.
-I have been a cop for 20 years. I don't ever recall anything of that nature in Miami Beach
before. NARRATOR: After grabbing their goods, they were convened to beat a hasty retreat.
Obviously, these people knew what they were doing. Or did they? Apparently, they'd spent so much time planning their plundering
that no one worked out their getaway. When the cops arrived, it's bumper car time.
Seven members were apprehended on the spot, and others were picked up later. No word on whether they posed in the booking room
for a group photo. -Oh, brother. And that's our den of thieves. OK, you've heard that too many cooks can spoil the broth.
Well, now you're about to see an ingenious solution cooked up by police officers dealing with too many crooks.
See if you don't agree that this sting operation is mmm-mmm-good. -One time the weather was bad outside.
It was snowing, and we didn't feel like leaving the office to try to arrest anybody that day unless it was a sure thing.
One of the detectives stayed in the office and was making phone calls to see if he could find someone at home.
The first call he made, he got the suspect he was looking for on the phone. -Hello?
DANIEL PUKACH: Doing some quick thinking, he told the suspect that he was from a radio station
and if he could hum the Campbell's Soup jingle, that he could win a case of soup of his choice.
He then asked the suspect what his favorite soup was, and the suspect told him it was chicken noodle.
He then told the suspect to sing the Campbell's Soup jingle, which the suspect did.
-Mmm-mmm-good. Mmm-mmm-good. Campbell's soups are really good. -With that, we told him that we would
be right out to deliver his case of soup. We drove out to the suspect's house, and when we pulled up,
we opened the trunk. The suspect came out to collect his soup, and he was arrested.
He did have his soup later that night, and it was in the county jail. Mmm-mmm-good.
-Coming up later, an undesired level of convenience in a convenience store. But first, with news that would make even Jerry Springer
a little bit queasy-- and that's going some-- here's Daniel with ADC Headlines. -All right.
A guy just had a gut feeling that customs officials were going to search his bag and find the little stash
of marijuana he was transporting. So, he grabbed someone else's bag off the luggage carousel
and proceeded through customs. When officials opened that suitcase, they found several pounds of cocaine.
OK. What are the odds? And you thought getting stuck with a little layover was a hassle.
He got 20 years, I think. An intoxicated robber in Ionia, Michigan, threatened to call police when two service station attendants
failed to hand over their cash. They refused, thus forcing his hand. So he made good on his threat and was promptly arrested
by the police officers he summoned. Go figure. A National League umpire was charged with stealing 4,180
baseball cards from a store in Bakersfield, California. When asked his motive by police, he
said, well, to collect and trade. Now, here's an expression he might understand-- you're out of there.
And speaking of "you're out of there," finally, a pair of nervous robbers entered a Michigan record
store vigorously waving handguns. The first shouted, "Nobody move!" And when his partner moved, he shot it him.
True story. That closes the file on ADC Headline News, ripped from somewhere near the back of your local newspaper.
Debbie? -Somewhere in the very back, huh? OK. Something to think about. When you're driving, your right foot has two choices--
right?-- at any given moment. The brake will keep you from harm's way. That other pedal makes things fall down and go boom.
DEBBIE (VOICEOVER): We all know that accidents happen. Having a little fender-bender doesn't make you a criminal,
but what if you cause wholesale destruction to a retail establishment by creating
your own drive-through? That's adding a little too much convenience to your local convenience store.
-It sounded like a bomb going off, literally. It scared me to death, it kind of shook me up,
and then, all of a sudden, I felt-- I felt, like, little sprays of glass come at me.
And that's about all. DEBBIE (VOICEOVER): Still, it could have just been an honest mistake-- unless he caused this much destruction
and left the scene so fast that he left rubber on the linoleum floor. Now, that's a crime.
And destroying the Slurpee machine? Well, that's just a shame. [applause] -Don't you just hate it when frozen beverage
machines are innocent victims? Doggonit. Well, we all know that forgery is wrong,
but the particular case of forgery allowed this crook to sign his life away by signing someone else's name.
We go to Redondo Beach, California, where Service Specialist Nancy Krajcik will dot every I
and cross every T for this episode I'm Where? You're Who? -We impounded an individual's car
because the driver had a suspended driver's license. A couple days later, the husband of this individual
came to the front counter of the police department and provided me with a form signed
by a judge releasing the impound of his car. In looking at this form, I noticed a couple things.
First of all, most of the form was filled out in black ink, but the judge's signature was in blue ink.
I told the individual at the front counter, have a seat or come back later. I need to verify this signature or the validity
of this document with the court. And he said, OK, fine. I'll come back later. So, in the meantime, I call the court.
The court checks with the judge. Judge says, no, I never signed that. Have an officer come in-- fill out a crime report for forgery.
This individual calls me back on the phone, and I said, I just called the court,
and they said, yes, they gave you a bunch of paperwork. So come on back down to the police department.
Sure enough, about 15 minutes later, the guy comes to the front counter knowing that he forged a name on the document.
Says, I'm here to get my car. I said, OK. Hold on. So we had an officer go out and arrest him for forgery.
-Have a nice day. [applause] -Not. We just love it when the crooks make it easy for the police.
OK. How do you take one prime and turn it into two? Let's go to Ocala, Florida and hear
how a purse snatcher doubled his trouble. -This story was just too fun to pass up.
We do so many crime stories, that this one came as comic relief and was a lot of fun to go out and do.
What happened was, a lady had just moved to Ocala. She had only been here maybe a week.
Her whole entire home was in boxes, so there was a TV, a stereo-- a thief's dream.
Everything you could possibly want was right there. This thief happens to crawl in and passes up all the goodies,
and in turn takes her purse. Then a week later, she kind of thought maybe she misplaced her purse, but wasn't sure.
Finally got the feeling, yeah, something probably happened. That same day, her telephone rang,
and it happened to be the thief. He says to her, lady, I think I probably have something that you probably want.
And she said, well, if you have my purse, you're exactly right. I'd like to have that back.
So he wheels and deals and says, well, I know exactly what you're worth, lady. I have your purse.
I've gone through it. How about I'll sell it back to you? -Well, this was a fanny pack.
It wasn't even a real purse. -Well, she only had some loose change and canceled all her credit cards, so she said,
it's really not that much to me. And he said, hey, lady, who do you think I am? I'm not up here just playing around.
You need your purse back. I'll give you time to think about it. By this time, she's already called the cops.
He calls back and says, lady, I've been thinking about it, and I'll give your purse back to you for $200.
So they set up this meeting to meet at a church, and a Marin County sheriff's deputy
had dressed up in her clothing. -And he took the bag, and he shuffled and walked, just like I walked.
-And he's walking across the lawn, and in the darkness, I looked out the window and I said,
boy, Mom, this guy's good. He looks just like you from the rear. -Dropped off the money and gets back to the house.
Well, the thief had called again, saying that he did not see the money this time.
Not only did he not see the money, but he also did not hear the sheriff's helicopter
hovering up above and past the K9 Unit and past two cop cars. And the whole entire time that he's calling this lady,
she's star 69ing. So, the third time that he calls her and says he doesn't see the money, the sheriffs already know where he's calling from.
Well, this guy was so stupid that he even took the purse. Instead of just dropping it out the window,
he lobbed it over the root. It turns out this guy-- this wasn't his first failed attempt
at stealing a purse and trying to sell it back. He has an 18-page-long rap sheet and tons
of botched burglaries and robberies. [applause] -You got to hand it to our next crook.
He tried to be flexible when his victim had no money to hand over. -Yeah, well, and it was his "I'll work with you"
attitude that earned him a spot in We're Not Making This Up. -Really? -Nope. -About a year ago, we got a call about a robbery that had just
occurred at a personnel service. And we arrived and people were running around excitedly at the business.
We made contact with them and they told us that a guy who had come in about a month previous
and had signed up to be a temporary employee with them had failed his testing, had done very poorly.
They were unable to place him. He returns on this day armed, confronts a bunch of the people
in the business there, orders them all in the back room, has one of the secretaries tie them up with cable ties,
and then has the manager go to his office and asks him to write a bunch of checks.
Make them for $1,700.30. So the manager writes his name down and asks if he spelled it right, being that they knew who he was
from their records, and writes him the two checks. Well, he takes the manager back and ties him up with the cable
ties and fires a round from his gun into the carpet in front of him and says, now you know I'm serious and leaves.
Well, as we were arriving, they're trying to relay the story to us. He had put the cable ties on loose enough that everybody was
loose before he'd even gotten out of the building, and they hand us a copy of his driver's license.
Not hard to track down from there. [laughter] -Gosh. I guess that means he won't be getting any more
referrals from that temp agency. -Well, no. He had a temporary brain, OK? -Yeah.
-Both of them can't be temporaries. We want to thank you for joining us and extend our gratitude to the law enforcement
officers who make this show possible. Every day, they lay their lives on the line
to keep us safe from the stupidity of would-be criminals. -As always, we hope that we've all
learned from others' mistakes. -Hey-- but if you haven't, we just might see you next week
on "America's Dumbest Criminals." -Goodbye.

In this episode of “America’s Dumbest Criminals,” we’ll witness a huge divide of loot when you bring everyone you know on a caper, a group of officers that make criminals sing for their supper and a clever way to break into a store.

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 absurd criminal antics, including a bungled burglary and a creative police sting operation.

Key points

A Dumb Criminal's Mistake. A burglar falls into a store and injures himself while trying to escape.
Jogging from the Law. A man tries to blend in with joggers after escaping from court, but gets caught.
The Soup Sting Operation. Police trick a suspect into revealing himself by offering him a case of soup.
The Purse Snatcher's Call. A thief tries to sell back a stolen purse, but gets caught by the police.
Temporary Brain. A robber ties up employees loosely and leaves behind his driver's license.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

Crime is more than wrong; it's dumb.

1:49WatchMar 3, 2022

Tension

45/ 100Some tension

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