America's Dumbest Criminals - Season 4, Episode 11 - Courting Disaster - Full Episode | Forensic Files

NARRATOR: Tonight on America's Dumbest Criminals, is there a difference between a leap
of faith and taking a dive? Could you be courting disaster with the person you pick as your character witness?
And there may be some funny business going on right under this guy's nose. Stick around for all the hanky panky gone awry
with the cast of characters we call America's dumbest criminals. [theme music] NARRATOR: Now, welcome your hosts for ADC,
Daniel Butler and Debbie Allen. -Hi. Hi, there. Hi, there. Well, we have got plenty of lessons
to learn in tonight's show. For example, if you don't have something good to say,
don't say anything at all. -Yep. And an idle mind is the devil's workshop. -Look before you leap.
Don't put that in your mouth. You don't know where it's been. -And just be satisfied with what you have.
-Well, and the immortal. You can pick your friends and you can pick your nose, but you can't pick your friend's nose.
-I'll just take your word on that one. Now here's one last phrase. We all know the Boy Scout motto is two simple words.
-Find girls. -No! Be prepared. -Well, you obviously don't know my scout troop. -I guess not.
-All right, well let's compromise. How about be prepared to find girls. -Daniel!
Never mind. The dad in our first story wasn't prepared at all when he sauntered into the woods.
-No tent, no food, no nothing. -But fortunately, the rescue team came ready for anything.
They even had a helicopter equipped with an infrared camera that detects heat. -Look for the hot spot to find the red-faced dad
who was caught on camera. NARRATOR: We're high above the woods in Martin county,
Florida, looking for white shapes to wave frantically. MAN: Got 'em. Three o'clock.
NARRATOR: Now wait, wait. Why not pretend like you didn't see them, and fly off, just for grins?
Oh, better idea. Yeah. Buzz them like sheep. Gee, I didn't know Florida was that close to Chernobyl.
MAN: It's going to be about 20 yards ahead of you. Just honk your horn. NARRATOR: And then drive off.
No, just kidding. MAN: I wanted to get the reunion on tape, here. NARRATOR: Cue the violins.
Here comes the big moment. No, guys. We're over here. Not that direction. Gosh, no wonder they got lost.
They can't find their way, and they're only 5 feet from us. MAN: Coming around the shoulder, I think they all [inaudible].
NARRATOR: Oh, sure. Guns they've got, but did dad remember the toilet paper? No.
MAN: Oh, there's the guy waving. He's pretty happy. NARRATOR: Well, if he's happy, we're happy.
-These days, many people seem to be living way beyond their means. Researchers tell us that the typical American household
is $38,000 in debt. -Well, they're not counting the house. But there are many ways to pick up
some extra cash to support your lifestyle. You could work a second job, start an at home business,
or sell plasma. -Or you can do with this next fella did. He robbed a bank, but he just didn't
get enough to live in the manner in which he was accustomed. -And that leads us to Something To Remember Me By.
-We had an armed robbery at one of our local banks. The guy completes his task and leaves the bank.
Goes over to Greenville, where he lives at, and decided he was going to purchase himself a nice Rolex watch.
-And the lady said that a guy came in there to purchase a Rolex watch for $5,175.
-Got the $5,000 in his pocket, but doesn't have the change the pay for it. -But wanted a credit application to fill out for the $175.
-So he fills out a credit application with his real money. -She thought it was a little suspicious, so after he left,
she called us. It was pretty dumb that this guy had the money, but used his real name and address
on the credit application. -If you're a fan of the Looney Toon cartoons, you're gonna love our next story.
-Our man on the run meets an end worthy of Daddy Duck or Wile E. Coyote. OK, everybody.
Prepare to wince. -We got handcuffs on him. -All right. -You tell us, what else is going on tonight?
You jumped a bridge, right? NARRATOR: And his jump of more than 60 feet ended suddenly, in only six inches of water.
How'd he get in this compromising position? Let's back up and have an officer on the scene brief us.
-One of our patrol units pulled him behind a van, ran the license plate number. The van came back stolen.
Now, he was attempting to stop the van. The van then fled and led loose on a high speed pursuit.
During this time the pursuit came behind a Isuzu Trooper, which also started speeding away in an attempt
to evade our officers. The Isuzu Trooper went northbound on Watt Avenue, stopped on a bridge.
The driver got out, laid on the ground. The passenger jumped over the bridge, thinking it was not far down, when instead,
the drop was about 50 or 60 feet. Landed down in the river and broke both of his legs.
If they had pulled over originally, they never would have been stopped. So in this case we got two for one.
NARRATOR: In Prunedale, California, it's illegal to install two bathtubs in the same house.
-And with a name like Prunedale, I wonder if they allow two toilets under one roof?
I sure hope so. Well, each week this show demonstrates that police officers truly have a great sense of humor,
but law enforcement is serious business. Those who try to get off the hook by joking around
may discover that it's the folks with the badges who have the last laugh. Here's America's Dumbest Excuses.
-You know, this deputy sheriff, he saw a guy up there did a minor traffic violation, tail light out, or something,
and so he tried to pull him over. And the guy would not pull over. And I mean, he chased him for a couple miles,
and finally when he did get him over, he walked up to him, and he said, you know, this had better be real good.
And the guy said, well, officer, he said, not too long ago, my wife ran away with a cop, and I thought
that was him trying to bring her back. -Remember the old TV show "Lassie?" And that guy, Timmy?
Timmy was always getting stuck in a well, or in a cave. What was with that kid? And he'd always send Lassie for help.
She'd run home and start barking, and the adults would ask, which one this time, girl?
The well or the cave? Then they'd go running to get the kid out. Well, all right.
Tonight we've got a story of a crook looking for help. Maybe he should have looked for a well-groomed collie
instead of who he found. Here's our Blue Light Special. -We had a chance to meet a guy that
wanted to rob a bank down at Pinellas Park. So he reached out to us to help him do the bank robbery.
We set him up in a motel room, and he brought all his guns in, brought his mask in, and showed us,
told us how he was going to do it, and wanted us to help him do it. After that, every little meeting in the hotel room,
we went out and took a ride. And he took us to a bank down there, the First Union Bank,
and we'd go around it, he'd talk about how we were going to do it. When he came back to the motel room,
we already had our guys inside there. He had to get the guns on, and stuff. He had a rude awakening when he went back inside.
They knocked him down and took his guns away. -Former president Ronald Reagan is quoted as saying,
you can tell a lot about a fella's character by the way he eats jelly beans. Well, there are no jelly beans in this story,
but beans are spilled, and a lesson is learned about the importance of prudently
picking your character witnesses. Take a look. -We had one of our local transvestite
walk up and say, your honor! -No, I wasn't loitering [inaudible]. Me and my friend Shaniqua here, we were at home.
-And he says, oh, really? Do you have a witness to prove this? -Yeah, I can prove it.
Shaniqua, come here. I can prove I was at home. -And the transvestite walked up there, and when he walked up,
the officer says, excuse me, your honor, I need to whisper something to you real quick.
And he whispered something, and they said, sir, I hate to tell you this, but we have
19 warrants for your arrest. And they both went to jail. -Here's the Dennis Rodman of journalism,
Daniel with ADC Headlines. -OK. A thief caused a major brouhaha as he robbed a convenience store in Monroe, Louisiana.
His weapon of choice? A cup of coffee. And I think we all know how scary convenience
store coffee can be. He threw it at the store clerk, grabbed some cash from the register, and ran.
15 minutes later he was captured with grounds for his arrest. If you're a police officer, it's hard to leave your work
at the office-- especially when it practically comes knocking on your door. A purse snatcher dashed several blocks
from the scene of the crime, approached an out of uniform officer who was standing outside
of his apartment, and pleaded, you've got to hide me! The cops are looking for me!
Well, the officer was obliged to take time off from his day off and arrest the man.
In real estate, three things matter-- location, location, and location. That can also be true of apprehending crooks,
as an escapee from a Montana prison discovered. While waiting in line at a Seattle Mariners ballgame,
he heard someone call his name and turned around. There stood the vacationing assistant warden of the prison.
And as you might expect, the stunned escapee forfeited his free agent status. And that closes the file on ADC Headlines,
news ripped from somewhere near the back of your local newspaper. Debbie? -How much trouble can one person get into in an hour?
Well, here's the case that would leave time management experts in awe. Experience the efficiency and incompetency
of tonight's Special Delivery. -One day I was driving down the road, and some guy started backing his car out of the parking spot.
And when I realized he was backing out a little bit too far, it was too late by then.
He backed into the side of my car. So I stopped my car, and I walked up to the driver,
and I told the driver I need to see his licence and registration. He got a little bit nervous, and he
gave me his driver's license. I saw his driver's licenses was just issued on that same day.
And he told me that he just got done taking his driver's test an hour ago. So I said, boy, your day's not going too well, is it?
He said no, it's not. I said, well, come on back to my car, and let's talk about this.
He came back to my car, and when I asked him for the insurance information, he said he didn't know where he c it at.
So I told him, that's fine. I'll just go up to your car and see if I can find it for you.
And as I walked up to the car, I noticed he had dropped his shirt. So I picked his shirt up, and out
fell a big back in marijuana. So I started my accident report, and then I read the vehicle registration, and the vehicle
came back stolen. Talk about a bad day. First day as his driver's license, he backs into a police car, gets caught
with a big bag of marijuana, and in a stolen car. -It is not often that a well-heeled gentlemen such as I
have the opportunity to use the term booger in a program seen around the world. Why I was picked I cannot say, but I do know that
the utterance of that one word-- booger-- sets the stage for the barbaric story about to be flicked your way.
Observe. -Sitting on a bench, I'm talking to another officer. I see this guy walking down the hallway,
and the next thing you know is he takes his right index finger and puts it in his nose.
The guy's picking his nose, and he's looking-- looking at me right in the eye. Now as he gets closer, he pulls his finger out of his nose.
As he walks by, he wipes his finger-- -Booger. -A booger on my boot, and I realize that this guy
needs to have a little talking to. -I don't think he was mad, he was just shocked somebody would do something like that.
-So I stood up, and I told him to stop, and he turned around and said hey, what's going on?
You don't have a right to tell me to stop. -I looked over, and I noticed Officer Nelson had a subject
detained, and sitting down in hiccups. -I explained to him that this guy just put a booger
on my boot, and we looked at each other like, this is not happening. You know, we expect to have people yell at us,
scream at us, and call us all kinds of names, but I don't think there's ever been a case where a guy has put
a booger on a police officer's boot. NARRATOR: Now let's look back at one of ADC's Greatest Hits.
Evidently the guy rolled out of bed one evening and decided that he wanted to go out for a drive.
He went to the Baltimore Municipal Lot, broke into one of their vacant buses, and away he went.
MAN: Has hit several citizens' vehicles, and is still continuing southbound on GW Parkway.
NARRATOR: At one point there were as many as 50 police cars involved in the chase, which followed the ghost driver
for about 40 miles until he finally crashed into a guardrail just outside of Washington, DC.
[shouting] MAN: OK, the bus has just crashed. We're approximately two miles southbound.
We're south of Route 610. The bus has crashed. Get over. We need clear, in case the guy bails.
-Well, a couple of years ago, on a routine patrol with Corporal Simon, we had stopped at an intersection at 263 and 202,
and we were stopped at a stop sign. We noticed a car go by, and the people in the car
took one look at us, and they floored the car and took off. We suspected something, so we took off in pursuit.
About two blocks down the street they made a turn into a private driveway, and they all bailed out of the car
and started running. And we pulled in right after them and jumped out of the car,
and ran one down. Corporal Simon had run the tag on the vehicle, questioned him, and found out that it had been stolen.
So we transported the subject back to the station, and I drove the stolen car back to the station.
So here I am driving the stolen vehicle down the road, I'm in full uniform, and there's a hitchhiker in view.
He's got a red bandana around his head, and I recognized the bandana from the three
that jumped out of the car. So I slowed down to pick him up, and reached over and scratched my arm to hide the police patch.
And he motioned to the bushes, and two other gentlemen came out of the bushes and got into the car.
Made a u-turn in the car and floored it so they didn't jump out, and in the interim
I said to them, hey, fellas, you recognize the car? And one of them in the back says oh, [bleep].
When we got back to the station, brought them inside. As soon as we opened the door, Corporal Simon recognized them
and says, boy, you guys must be pretty stupid. NARRATOR: In Wisconsin, butter substitutes
are not allowed in state prisons. -The call involved a neighbor complaining of a car going
around in circles in this cul-de-sac for about an hour. He didn't hit anything, but then he
turned-- he stopped the car, backed up, turned around, and went back the other way.
My partner and I, we drove down there. When we get there, there's no car. There was skidmarks and acceleration marks,
and all the marks in the world that you could see in this cul-de-sac, all going around in circles.
I said, well, what happened to the car? And the guy says, he went down that driveway.
And this guy is off perpendicular from these skid marks. He's high center on this mound of dirt.
When I opened the door, the guy said, can I help you? I said, no, sir. Valet parking.
Can I help you? And he says oh, yeah, great. Hey, just park it anywhere. He turns it off and hands me the keys.
He is just way drunk. Just drunk. -What about the valet? -Oh, don't worry about if, man.
It's on me this time, OK? -Oh. All right. -The guy said he was caught in traffic.
Just caught in traffic for the longest time, and finally took an off ramp, and then he
got caught between two brown trucks. And I go hey, partner, you're under arrest for DUI.
-Just when I thought we couldn't get any fouler than the story on boogers, along comes something equally distasteful.
-He means that quite literally, folks. Here comes a gut-wrenching tale of severe justice
that could only belong in the segment we call We're Not Making This Up. -This guy's laying in bed one night,
he hears some commotion out in his driveway. He owns a great big motor home. He gets out and he looks, and he sees
a guy siphoning gas out of his motor home. So he puts on his pants and his tennis shoes,
he runs out and hollers at the guy who's siphoning gas out of the tank. -Hey! Hey!
Hey! -The guy that's stealing, or doing the siphoning takes off running. This guy chases him, and he gets about a block.
The guy that's being pursued just stops and starts puking everywhere. They take back off again, and the guy chases him
another block or so, and this guy stops, pukes, and keeps going. But the guy never can catch the guy after two blocks.
But the guy he's chasing has stopped and thrown up twice. He thinks, well, I'm rid of him.
So he walks back to his motor home to check out how much gas he had stolen, and he noticed the gas tank was not open.
The guy had stuck a hose down in the holding tank, and had been sucking raw sewer out of his motor home.
-Jeez. All righty. All right, Deb, how does it feel to be part of the queasiest show on TV?
-Ask me when my stomach settles, OK? -Well, all right. We're all out of body functions-- I mean stories,
so I think we'd better go. -But we will be back again next week. -With a whole show on sea sickness aboard prison ships.
-We will not. -No, just kidding. But hey, if you'd like to look us up on the web,
surf on over to www.dumbcrimes.com. -We'd like to thank the officers who helped us with tonight's show.
-And for all the people in law enforcement who keep this crazy world a little saner for all of us.
-As always, we hope that we've all learned from others' mistakes. -But if you haven't, we just might see you next week
on America's Dumbest Criminals. -Bye, bye.

In this episode of “America’s Dumbest Criminals,” we’ll witness the difference between a leap of faith and taking a dive, a disastrous character witness and some funny business happening right underneath someone’s nose.

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 a lost dad, a foolish bank robber, and a chaotic police pursuit with humorous commentary from the hosts.

Key points

America's Dumbest Criminals. A hilarious exploration of the blunders made by criminals across the country.
A Dad's Wilderness Adventure. A father gets lost in the woods and is hilariously rescued.
The Bank Robber's Mistake. A bank robber tries to buy a Rolex with stolen money, leading to his capture.
The Siphoning Incident. A man chases a thief only to discover a disgusting truth about the theft.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

You can pick your friends and you can pick your nose,.

A humorous take on choices in life.

1:35WatchMar 10, 2022

Tension

40/ 100Low tension

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