America's Dumbest Criminals - Season 4, Episode 21 - Courageous Crime-Fighting - Full Episode | Forensic Files

NARRATOR: Tonight on "America's Dumbest Criminals," you think she's mad now, wait till someone
really yanks her chain. Could things be worse if the suspects on the road had been dressed in rawhide chew sticks?
Could this little fella inspire courageous crime fighting? Sit back, relax, and watch as every dog has its day
here on America's Dumbest Criminals. [theme music] NARRATOR: Now, welcome your hosts for ADC,
Daniel Butler and Debbie Allen. -Hi, there. -Good evening. We're going to the dogs in this edition
of America's Dumbest Criminals. -In fact, we've got several stories where dogs take a bite out of crime.
-Oh, yeah. And I've brought in my own dog, equipped with is doggy cam for this show.
-Doggie cam? -Oh, yeah. You want me to demonstrate? -Sure Please do. -Yeah? OK. Come on. Come here, boy.
Come here, boy. Good boy. Come on. Did you park the car like I asked you, in the shade?
-You brought your dog to park your car in the shade? -Well, you've heard of a German shepherd and an Irish setter,
right? -Yeah. -He's a Swiss valet. Yeah. Good dog. -Daniel, you amaze me. -You think I'm smart?
Wait. Check out what this dog can do. All right. You ready? -All righty. -All right.
Come here, Bobby. Find the person carrying the most cash. Come up. Get the scent of money.
Get the scent of money. That a boy. That a boy. Find him. Come on, look for a purse.
Forget the wallets. Come on. Huh? There it is. There it is. Come on, boy. Bring it back.
Come on. Come on. That a boy. Come here. Give it to daddy. Hey, there you go. -Wait a minute!
How'd he do that? -Well-- oh, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Good boy. Yeah. Actually, well, he started sniffing change in the sofa
cushions, and we went from there. You know. -Daniel. Well, I don't think we have anything that rivals that,
but we do have some good stories. We start with an unusual weapon used to hold up
a convenience store in Columbia, Tennessee. -Yep. Does a dog save the day in this?
-No. There's no dog in this one, but you can pretend there was one just outside the door,
if you'd like. Now, let's take a look at the first ever one calorie hold up as it was caught on camera.
NARRATOR: What's the strangest yet most refreshing weapon ever used in a convenience store robbery?
Well, how about a large soft drink? It's less deadly than a gun, but no less unnerving, and no less effective.
In fact, things happened so fast that the robber almost beats the clerk to the door.
How did the clerk feel? -Pretty scared. First time he'd ever been robbed. NARRATOR: Right after his close encounter with cola,
the clerk ran across the street, dialed 911, took a big gulp, and said-- -When I charged him for the gum, when I opened the register,
he threw the drink all over me and crawled across the counter. NARRATOR: And almost as fast as he'd robbed the place,
the carbonated crook was in custody. In fact, it took just 30 minutes to make the rest.
The arresting officer, a veteran with over 20 years experience, was asked if this type of assault
was one for the record books. -That's a first. First one I've ever heard of. NARRATOR: But with the aid of a mop,
the mess of this sticky stick up was soon wiped away. -The key to solving a burglary in Atlantic Beach,
North Carolina was a motel key. -But sorry, no pets allowed. -Aw. Kind of blows our whole dog theme, doesn't it?
-Well, only a few of our stories are specifically about dogs. This show just has the flavor of dogs.
-Oh, like Vietnamese food. Yeah. -Aw, Daniel. -I like it. -Here's Something To Remember Me By.
-I love [inaudible]. -Two officers were riding together. They drove past a motel parking lot in the early morning hours.
It was pretty vacant, except for they noticed one gentleman standing in the parking lot, going through his trunk.
As he looks over his shoulder and sees the squad car go by, he immediately slams his trunk, turns around, puts his hands
in front of him, and is just eyeballing the officers. Now, that is a dead giveaway for cops.
The officers rode around the corner, spoke to a citizen who had heard some noises,
searched the outside of the residence, found that it had been broken into. They were doing a search, they found a motel room key.
It was the same motel as they had just left and saw the gentleman at. They proceeded to go back there, knock on the room.
Had the guy's room key in hand. Asked him to step out. He admitted to the breaking and entering,
and he doesn't have a key to his new room. -Now, on the playground they teach you
that if you throw rocks, you're going to get in trouble. -It's a lesson that was lost on the next crook,
though, especially considering how many watchful eyes were upon him. Take a look.
-We were staking out an audio store up on North Magnolia here in Ocala. We'd had some problems with some people breaking in,
throwing rocks through the front window, and they'd go in and take the audio amplifiers.
Myself and my partner back then had been staking this place out about-- I think we were on the third night
when we saw a guy coming across North Magnolia. We could see when we first saw him
that he had a big boulder, or rock in his hand. So we watched him walk across the street,
went right to the front of the audio place, and looked around a little bit, put a shirt over his head,
and takes the rock, and throws it through the front window. And we went inside the building and confronted
the guy that was in the building. Of course it was a total shock that when he turned around,
we were standing there. He came toward us, and eventually charged us. And the fight was on from that point on,
and we wrestled around with him. And when we finally got his legs surrounded, we all fell to the floor.
The fight was pretty much over then. I was glad it was over, because I'd about give out,
and he said, OK, you got me. NARRATOR: In San Jose, California, it's illegal to own more than two cats or dogs.
-I guess that eliminates the possibility of a three dog night. Sorry. That's what I get for trying to bring joy to the world.
Well, our next story follows a man who was three sheets in the wind and an accident waiting
to happen. His odd odyssey provides us with one of America's Dumbest Excuses. -Me and my partner were en route to the sheriff's department
one night, and we're driving through downtown Angola here. Next thing I know, there's this guy right on my butt.
He is just tailgating me, and he couldn't have been more than a foot off my bumper.
And I'm thinking, who is that guy back there? So I do the old tap the brakes a couple times, you know,
see if he'd back off. Well, he doesn't back off, so I turn my emergency lights on,
and he still doesn't back off. Finally, he stops. So I walk up to the guy, and I'm thinking,
oh, this has got to to be a good one. Sir, I said, is there a reason why you were following me so close tonight?
He looks over at me, and I can tell right away he's drunk. He just-- like this, and he just leans over at me,
and he goes, yeah. He goes, you got a headlight out. I go, really? I said, is that all?
And he goes, no. He goes, you were speeding, too. I was like, jeez. So we pull him out of the vehicle,
and he was just toasted. Wonder how he knew I had a headlight out when he was tailgating me.
-A dog makes a brief but memorable appearance on screen in our next story. You'll note that most of the action
happens out of the surveillance camera's view, but when you hear what's going on, you'll probably be glad.
Expect to gain a little respect for canine units as you watch this Blue Light Special.
NARRATOR: It's been a tough night for the crooks in the car up ahead. First they head to inner city New Orleans to buy dope,
then they rob the dealer at gun point. Got lost and kidnapped a pedestrian to get directions.
Oh, and did I mention they're also wanted for attempted murder? Now the guys decide to make a scenic stop on a levy.
As the crooks scatter, officers are ordered to stay in their cars while a police
dog goes to fetch the bad guys. One officer, however, didn't get the word. -No! No!
NARRATOR: And if you think the police officer had it rough, imagine how things went when the dog
made contact with the suspects. Ruff! As a footnote, the shaken officer laughed about his encounter with his canine cohort later.
Much later. -You've heard that a fool and his money are soon parted. Well, that's also true of high school buddies and their beer.
Or in this case, 50 cases of beer. Let's take a look at a wild party that never happened in Ocean City, Maryland.
-One June afternoon, a couple of our bicycle officers were riding down one of the alleys,
and they heard a disturbance behind one of the beach cottages. They went around to investigate, and found a group of teenagers
unloading several cases of beer out of a van. -Excuse me. How are you? Is anyone here 21 years of age?
-Actually, they had just gotten into town. They had just pulled up behind the cottage
to start unloading when our officers approached them. -Where did you get all that beer?
That whole van is loade.d -With the help of some friends, they unloaded about 45 cases of beer, or about 1,000 cans of beer.
Equivalent of about $800 worth, and it took them about an hour and a half to pour it all out.
Many of these kids, when they come down for their high school graduation senior weeks, they want to drink.
And we want them to have fun, but we're serious about enforcing the underage drinking laws.
Ironically, our officers had just been to their county talking about underage drinking
enforcement, so obviously they must have missed that presentation. -And now with the news that you won't find anywhere else,
and what a relief that is, here's Daniel with ADC Headlines. -Many schools have new get tough policies on behavior and attire
on campus, but a typo in the high school student handbook in Hendersonville, Tennessee pushed
zero tolerance to new limits. It said, and I quote, profane language will not be tolerated.
Stern discipline will be death to any student guilty of this conduct. Now according to the principle, it should have read
discipline will be dealt to any student. He added most folks know that it was a misprint.
And they actually give you a timeout right before death. Too much peeking in Pekin, Illinois.
When it got too hot, a 76 year old man shed his clothes and gardened au natural.
Wearing only a straw hat, work gloves, and sandals. His predisposition toward exhibition
had garnered the gardener 15 arrests for public nudity since 1962. Upon his last visit to court, the judge
warned that further flashings could result in jail time. I can't assure anything, the old fella responded.
I just hope heat wave's over. For his neighbors' sake, so do we. Fights break out over all sorts of things-- drugs, women,
who gets to go to the john first. But here's a new one, fresh from Bessemer City, North Carolina.
Shots were fired as two roommates argued over who had finished off their Frosted Flakes.
Now, I think someone's a little cranky because they're not getting enough fiber in their diet.
One man, whom we'll refer to as you Toucan Sam, accused his cousin, let's call him Tony the Tiger, of being a moocher.
Ferocious, furious, Toucan Sam grabbed a knife, and Tony the Tiger went for his rifle.
A bullet ricocheted off the floor, hit Sam in the elbow. Fortunately, the violence ended before the conflict
resulted in a cereal killing. And that closes the file on ADC Headlines, news ripped from somewhere near the back
of your local newspaper. Debbie? -What exactly does it look like to raise a ruckus?
Well, we think we know. We've got the story of a woman who threw such a fit in court
that she turned a minor charge into major trouble. Let's go courtside for this Special Delivery.
-Gal walks into a courtroom. She's coming back for her jury verdict in a drug case of possession of methamphetamine with intent
to distribute. When she comes back, she sits quietly at the table. She's about half an hour late, and the jury's
not very happy at having to wait for her to return. So the jury gives their verdict.
-Judge, members of the jury, I want you to find this woman guilty of possession of drugs,
and I think that we find that we should put her away. -Jury finds the defendant guilty as charged.
-What? How could you have done this to me? I cannot believe you did this! -And, uh, she's not very happy with the jury,
and she starts cussing, and kicking the table, and cussing at the prosecutor, and cussing at the judge,
and she's just not a very happy gal. So they decide that it's probably in everyone's best
interest if they go ahead and remand her into the custody of the sheriff's deputies,
who are waiting patiently for her. They take her into custody. She's trying to hand her purse off to her attorney, who says,
I don't want that. So they get her cuffed up, they get her taken back into the place where they keep people that
are remanded into the custody of the court. And lo and behold, in her handbag they find
eight rocks of methamphetamine, in addition to a very large screwdriver, which somehow made it past security.
All in all, it wasn't a very good day for that gal. -If you play with fire, you're going
to get burned, though maybe not as you'd expect, as this arsonist quickly learns.
Featuring a cameo by a dog, let's blaze a trail to Pinellas Park, Florida. -There were kids on scene that were
starting fires out behind this house. When we got on scene, walked around to the back of the house, we saw this one kid
that looked up, and then took off through the woods. Well, me and my partner decided we
were going to try and catch him. -And our lieutenant decided that, discretion being
the better part of valor, he'd use his mind. -We've got a dog! You'd better stop!
-Overheard the lieutenant yelling out, stop! He was going to release the dogs. -The funniest thing about this is most people know that fire
departments don't have dogs, and they especially don't have dogs that chase people.
-I was thinking that maybe it would be a good idea to start barking like a dog, but then I heard barking.
And I thought it was my partner barking, but it turned out to be one of the neighbor's dogs
that was agitated by us running through the woods. Well, immediately the kid running stopped, put his hands
up in the air and says, OK, you got me. -We do have a dog. It's Sparky, the faux fire dog.
-We never had the heard to tell this guy that we didn't have a dog, and we're thinking he's going
to be watching this in jail. -When we were standing there waiting for the police
to arrive on scene, the lieutenant asked me if we had retrieved the dog. And I said, yeah, Sparky's back on the truck.
NARRATOR: Now, let's look back at one of ADC's Greatest Hits. This was our somber suspect's second time
in front of this particular judge. The first time he showed up to court without his pants.
The judge wasn't impressed. Now in front of judge again for burglary, he knew he couldn't use his body to impress the judge,
so he decided perhaps a patriotic serenade might do the trick. -Will everyone please rise for the singing
of the national anthem? -Mr. Gilmore. -(SINGING) Oh say, can you see by the dawn's early light--
NARRATOR: Yeah, well, unfortunately the judge was not wooed, and he removed the warbling rock
star from the room. And they didn't hear a peep from him after that. NARRATOR: In Paulding, Illinois, a policeman
may bite a dog to quiet him. -All right. Our final story has no dogs, but if you think of fire hydrants
and trees, you're scent marked and ready for this story. -Watch as the fields of criminology and urology cross
paths in We're Not Making This Up. -I was working a task force type of thing. Legendary story that they told about this one detective
unit that had a way of getting confessions. And the way they would do it is they
had a detective who would wear a white smock, like a doctor's jacket. His wife was actually a pharmacist.
And they would tell the suspect that they needed a urine sample from him. And he, of course, would question why.
And they would tell him that they had this doctor who was trained in lie detection through urine analysis.
And the guy would pee in a bottle, pee in a jar for him, give him a urine sample.
And they kept a jar of apple juice in the drawer of the detective's desk, and they'd ask them a series
of questions, those of which they knew were the truth, and those that weren't. And they would ask them a truthful question,
and the doctor would take out what the suspect thought was the urine sample, take a little swig,
swish it around his mouth, swallow it, and say, yeah, that's the truth. We believe him on this one.
And when they would get to a known lie, or one that they thought that was a lie that would bolster
their case a little bit, the doctor would take it in his mouth. And as soon as he'd taken it in his mouth, he'd spit it out,
and he'd say, that's a lie. And the expression on the guy's face, like, he knew it was a lie. -I did it!
I did it! -They knew, pretty much, it was a lie, anyway. You could say the truth leaked out.
I dunno. [barking] -OK, OK. I know. The story had the same effect on me, fella. Yeah, my dog needs to go, and coincidentally, so do we.
-But we'll be back next week with more crooks and fewer dogs. -Yeah. Hold your water while I say thank you
to the police officers who helped us tonight. Stay. -We also like to express our appreciation
to all who work in law enforcement. We are glad you're on the job for us each day.
-Yeah, and if you haven't visited our website, drop by this week. The address is www.dumbcrimes.com.
-As always, we hope that we've all learned from other's mistakes. -Yeah, but if you haven't, we just
might see you next week on America's Dumbest Criminals. OK, boy. Let's go.

In this episode of “America’s Dumbest Criminals,” we’ll witness a woman who definitely doesn’t like her chain yanked, some suspects who find themselves tailed by dogs and a stuffed Dalmatian doll sure to inspire some courage.

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 bizarre crime stories involving dogs, a soft drink robbery, and a courtroom outburst.

Key points

America's Dumbest Criminals. A humorous look at bizarre crimes and the criminals behind them, featuring canine antics.
The Cola Robbery. A robber uses a soft drink as a weapon in a convenience store heist.
The Singing Suspect. A burglar attempts to charm the judge with a rendition of the national anthem.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

You think she's mad now, wait till someone really yanks her chain.

NARRATOR

0:05WatchMar 10, 2022

Tension

40/ 100Low tension

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