America's Dumbest Criminals - Season 4, Episode 7 - Artificial Dummy - Full Episode | Forensic Files

-Tonight on "America's Dumbest Criminals", wouldn't you think guys at a crack buy
would exhibit better behavior than this? Well, it won't be just the police who set them straight.
The store offered low prices. But these guys wanted electronics for nothing then.
And, who's the real dummy in this picture? Hint. It's not the one being carried.
Prepare to be carried away by the stunning stupidity of "America's Dumbest Criminals".
[police scanner] [music playing] -Duh. -Now, welcome your hosts for ADC, Daniel Butler and Debbie Allen.
[music playing] -Hi, again. We're so glad you're watching. Well, I see you brought along a friend today.
-Yeah. But now this is no dummy, Debbie, OK? This is one tough customer. This is a police dummy who single-handedly
brought thousands to justice. -Well, you might credit it to his steely gaze. But I think there's another reason for his track record.
-Well, yeah. I mean, speeding motorists see him sitting in an unmanned patrol car
and think he's the real deal with a radar gun aimed at them. -But it causes a surprisingly quick connection
between the conscience and the brakes. -Yeah, but later tonight, we'll find a police dummy personally
involved in a hostage situation. But before that, we'll encounter all sorts of other dummies
on the other side of the law. -First up, we've got a throng of thugs who gather to buy and sell drugs.
-But there are surprises in store. And not just for those making the deals. -Tonight we've got a family portrait caught on camera.
[music playing] -A couple years ago, we had a place called The Tree. And law enforcement generally calls it the Tree of Knowledge.
And the reason for that is the wide variety of people we have there doing either consuming alcohol
or doing the drug sales. There aren't there for legitimate reasons, most of the time.
And it was my job to go up there and try and catch the people that were selling drugs.
And we put a couple of undercover officers in a car and a video camera, and sent
them through there to buy drugs. And we bought drugs from quite a few different people.
And one particular day, the people that owned the piece of property had told us that there were no drug sales taking place there,
or drug purchases. And when we sent the undercover officers through there, her grandson came out there and was
fighting off the other drug dealers. And just so he could sell us the drugs. And it was a short time later, we
arrested him for the drug sales. And when we showed her the videotape, it wasn't long after that that the city took possession
of the property, turned it into a park so we could get rid of the drug dealers. -Police officers spend the majority
of their time tracking down hoodlums. But occasionally, they're able to turn the tables
and have the crooks come looking for them. -It's practically a self-service situation for our next hombre.
-Yes, just another momentous memento of something to remember me by. [music playing]
-About a year or so ago, some fellow officers and I were trying to catch a parole violator.
And we just missed him several times, apparently, at his, at his mom's house. We had his mother's phone number.
So I got a wild idea one day, let's just calling him on the phone and see if he answers
or if we can talk to him. As luck would have it, he answered the phone when I called.
And I asked him if he had recently lost a wallet. And he kind of was hesitant, but then said, well, maybe.
So I'm went ahead and told him that we had recovered a wallet during another search warrant at someone else's house
and I thought it might be his. Of course, I knew, and I'm sure he knew, he hadn't lost a wallet.
And I asked him if I could meet him somewhere, because I didn't think that-- I didn't want to push my luck by asking him
to come to my office right here. So he asked me, where are you right now? And I said, well, I'm at the Sheriff's office.
He said, well, I'll just meet you there. I've got to go to the store anyway. And he drove right down here and he walked in the door
and there was about four or five officers including myself standing in the doorway when he walked in.
And I had my hand cuffs in my left hand and I shook hands with my right hand, and he introduced himself and I cuffed him up.
And he told me, he says, I can't believe I fell for that. He said, that's the craziest thing I ever heard.
[laughter] -Savvy retailers are well aware of the impact that impulse shopping can have on their sales.
And that's why you find all those products at the checkout counter. -Yeah, but savvy retailers are also well aware of the impulse
shopping of those who seek to avoid paying for the things they pick up. -And that's why those savvy retailers set up surveillance
cameras, to catch shoplifters like these guys. Take a look. We'll compress this seven-minute drama to keep up the pace.
But watch how you can almost hear these shoplifters thoughts by watching their actions.
OK. Let's be nonchalant. Let's act like we're just browsing. Let's just look at things and put them back, pick them up
and put them back, and pick them up and put them in the-- oh, somebody's coming.
Oops, just kidding. I wasn't doing what I was doing. You know how these things happen.
You know, if we were really good shoplifters, we wouldn't stop with just this $20 Walkman.
We'd sneak out with that stove at the end of the aisle. OK, here we go. Why don't I put this item in your backpack
before somebody steals it? There we go, nice and snug. You take care now. I'm going to go scope out the big screen TVs.
And with that, he was gone. But about 45 seconds later, his friend has new company.
The security staff. And they want to know if they could take a peek inside that backpack.
And lo and behold, look what they find. Busted. Well, that's one man who won't be walking out with a Walkman.
[music playing] [applause] -In Marion, Illinois, it's illegal to eat a doughnut and walk backwards on a city street.
[laughter] -The Marion town fathers sure know how to take the fun out of life, huh?
But there is nothing funny about drunk driving. If there's anything at all positive about this next guy
who was charged with DUI, you'd have to say that he was careful, well, kind of. Here's 100-proof example of America's dumbest excuses.
[music playing] -Here in Carlsbad, we'd experienced some rain over a week's time.
And they'd put out roadblocks with flashing lights on them. And some of the low water crossings sometimes run water.
And we put those out to warn people from driving across them. And here in the desert, the rain dries up pretty quick.
On patrol one night, I pulled up behind a vehicle sitting at these flashing lights, and exited my car
and asked them what they were doing, because the crossing was dry. There was no water running across it.
And with the slurred speech, these individuals told me that they were law-abiding citizens
and they were waiting for the light to change so they could proceed on. We got them out of the car and give them a nice place
to sleep for the evening, and fed them real good, and took them to see their favorite person, the judge,
the next day. [applause] -You remember the classic story of "The Wizard of Oz". The scarecrow wanted a brain and the tin man wanted a heart.
All right. Well, you're going to see some twisted similarities in our next story, except that it's
the tin man who needs a brain. And instead of going to the Emerald City, well, let's follow the Yellow Brick
Road to the Blue Light Special. [music playing] -We had a big operation going. This fellow had committed a number of burglaries,
he had kidnapped this young girl. We had probably 30 officers out, helicopter, dogs working the trail.
A resident drove up to us and said, there's a man down on the bridge. He's apparently exposing himself.
Kind of didn't think, since we were looking so hard for this other guy, that it'd be the same one.
So we drove down, checked him out anyway. Sure enough, there's a fellow standing
there with not too much on. But he looked like the Tin Man. He had been breathing in paint fumes, choice
being usually silver or gold, for some reason. And he was covered with silver. Paint huffing is-- these folks would spray the paint
into a plastic bag and huff and puff. They'd inhale the paint fumes. And unfortunately for them, it makes
them do really stupid things. And it also causes very significant brain damage. The officer asked him for an ID.
The fellow located some pants, gave him an ID. And as the officer held onto his ID,
the fellow took off running. Indeed, looked like the Tin Man running through the land of Oz
without too much on. But he wasn't hard to find. He was, given the fact we had a helicopter there
and bloodhounds and 40 police officers, and he was the only man running through the woods without too
much clothes on, looking like the Tin Man. He was promptly arrested and jailed. [applause]
-One day I got this call of a traffic altercation at a location here in town. And when I got there, this couple approached me.
And they were yelling and screaming, pointing at a vehicle near them that they had
followed back from downtown Chicago. And they're saying, this is our car, this is our car,
and that man's over there driving it. And the guy' had actually stopped for them.
They were flashing their headlights and everything. So he got out of the car, and he was yelling and screaming
and he's pretty adamant about this being his car. He had just bought it. So I asked the guy, what's the deal with this car?
And he says, I just bought the car a couple days ago for $100. -I just was in need for a car.
-And the guy didn't have the keys to it. But what he did give me was a screwdriver,
so I'd be able to start the car with and drive it around. -That's how I started it.
That's how we start the car. -So I checked the car out, and it had a busted steering column.
And it actually turned out to be that couple's car. So the guy did end up going to jail, and he's out 100 bucks.
[applause] -Well, like we'll see in our next story, our crook's bread isn't done, if you know what I mean.
And that results in a little role reversal. Now unlike the thief, I don't want to give too much away.
So here, take a look. -We had a man that was breaking in to houses. He broke into three or four in one neighborhood.
And we ended up arresting him. We went to get one of the victims, to have her come over
and ID him to make sure we had the right bad guy. As she was approaching the car, the bad guy blurts out--
-Yeah, that's the woman who's house I broke into. -That's the woman who's house I broke into.
[laughter] -And now, for a man who thinks news briefs are something you wear, here's Daniel with ADC Headlines.
[applause] -All right. A man in Athens, Alabama was attempting to flee on foot after ditching a truck he had stolen.
But blending into his suburban surroundings proved difficult, because of one gigantic identifying trait.
A neighbor reported that a suspicious man was running down her street with a snake around his neck.
He was the only one with a snake around his neck, so in moments, he slipped from inconspicuous to incarcerated.
Things weren't too kosher for another would be robber from a Florida deli. First, the clerk walloped the crooked in the face
with a giant salami, breaking the bad guy's nose. Then Mr. Smashed Schnoz ran and hid in the trunk of a car.
As luck would have it, the vehicle was driven by an undercover police officer and the poor mensch was in jail.
A lead-footed driver in San Diego was doing over 80 miles an hour before she was stopped by a patrolman.
Now hoping to get off, the chagrined driver explained that she was speeding because she
was late for traffic school. Buh, buh, buh winning no sympathy, she finally exclaimed, look, you don't understand.
I'm the instructor. [laughter] And that closes the file on ADC Headlines, news ripped from somewhere near the back
of your local newspaper. Debbie? -For many, jewelry is a cherished keepsake. But for goodness sakes, what this guy
will do to keep a bracelet. It certainly created a memory for our next suspect. But I doubt that it's one that he treasures.
-We get a felony warrant on a domestic offender. And myself and my partner Cannonball,
we go out and try to serve this felony warrant. We make contact with the fella's wife.
She says, what do you want him for? Said we have some paperwork to have him sign
and he left a couple of bracelets with us that we'd like to get back to him. I left a card and my pager number on it.
And I said, have him page me if he wants his bracelets back. Later on in the day, he pages me.
And I have my voice mail. And he says, Detective Garcia, he says, I'd like to get my bracelets back.
I'm at home right now. So myself and my partner Cannonball go back out to his house.
And he happened to step outside, and I said, you want your bracelets, turn around,
put your hands behind your back. And we put our bracelets on him. After that, he was arrested and brought
to Yuma County Sheriff's Detention Center and booked. [applause] -OK. It's bad news to find a virus in your computer.
But what the technicians found in this printer Is a bigger fly in the ointment than any bug
infesting the Silicon Valley. -I was working one evening and requested to come into one of our local retail outlets in Syracuse.
And as I made contact with the computer technician, he said he had been working on a computer printer
and had some questions for me. He produced a little baggie with some green leafy substance
and says, ever seen this before? And I said, quite frequently. It looks like marijuana to me.
And then he proceeded to tell me that an individual had brought a printer into the store to be repaired.
He told the guy that the printer would no longer feed paper. Cannon had told him to shake the printer upside down,
make sure there was nothing in obstruction. He told the technician at the store that he had done what the Cannon had told him on the phone,
and there was nothing that he could see in there. The technician said, well, he felt he could fix it,
took it back into the shop, opened it up. And in the printer wheels, he finds all kinds
of green leafy substance jamming up the wheels and causing it not to be able to feed the paper properly.
I said, when the guy comes in to pick up the printer to please call me. About two days later, he showed back up to pick up his printer.
They paged me. I came in and at which time he was detained and arrested for possession of the marijuana.
Initially, he was very shocked, said he had no idea how marijuana could get in his printer.
And I asked him if the printer was his. He said, yeah, it's my printer. I said, does anybody else use your printer?
He says, no, I'm the only one that uses it. After I'd arrested him for the possession of the marijuana,
I asking him, jokingly, I said, what were you trying to do, roll a marijuana joint in your printer?
He didn't think that was very funny. He didn't laugh. -Now let's look back at one of ADC's greatest hits
from the year 1997. -And now, actual surveillance cam footage of an officer who has his cover blown, but still
manages to do the deal. The first thing this dealer says to our undercover officer
is that he saw him at the police station. But he continues to do the deal. This guy knows he's a cop, but he still does the deal.
He believed right and he got busted. [applause] -In Wilbur, Washington, it's illegal to ride an ugly horse.
[laughter] -Can you believe this guy got arrested. When he got into the jail, city officer opened up his door.
The guy just took off running. He falls 20 feet down into our basement ramp gate on the secured side.
So he was trying to escape from jail and ended up in jail. Not only did he land back in jail,
but he broke both of his wrists and his leg. [applause] -Ouch. -Before you jump, know where you're jumping to.
Some people just seem irresistibly drawn to things they should avoid, like a moth to flame.
-Or a bug to a windshield. -Well, this story forces you to ask the question, who is the real dummy?
-It's tonight's mind numbing example of, We're Not Making This Up. [music playing]
-Here in Boulder City, we have a traffic enforcement dummy car that we set out in certain areas of the city
to hopefully slow down traffic or detour speeders. I received a dispatch that there was a couple of subjects
out towards the new light at Adams extension. They were messing with our mannequin dummy car
that we have out there. So I responded out there. And upon arrival, I found a white pickup truck,
four-wheel drive Chevy pickup truck, stuck in the dirt median. I asked them to step to the back of the vehicle.
And I could smell that they had been drinking. They were all standing back at the back of the vehicle,
by this point and just having a good old time. And I asked them what they were doing,
and they said they tried to flip a U-turn and they got stuck in the dirt median.
So I asked for another officer to come, just to back me up. And upon his arrival, he noticed in the bed of a pickup truck
there, the head to our dummy, Lieutenant Dan. Placed them all under arrest, at this point in time.
The funny part of the story is that the truck was a four-wheel drive, and they were so intoxicated
that when they were stuck in the dirt median, all they would have had to do was put the truck in four-wheel drive
and they would have been able to drive off. After recovering Lieutenant Dan, myself and Officer Vibrant
were able to perform first aid on him. And we're happy to report that he's back out on the streets
of Boulder City detouring traffic speeders. [applause] --[inaudible] and I don't have legs.
Well, Sergeant Spanky, it's time for the three of us to head on out. -You know, the pitiful thing is this dummy's
probably got a more active social life than either one of us. -Wanna dance later, Debbie?
Come on. -Give us a week to cheer up. And we'll be back with more far-fetched, yet true stories.
-If you can't wait, or you just, you've got a lead on a story, visit our website, at www.dumbcrimes.com.
-We appreciate you joining us. And we want to take this opportunity to thank the officers who helped us with tonight's show.
-Just like their colleagues, every day they lay their lives on the line to keep us safe from the stupidity
of would-be criminals. We appreciate your good work. -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". -Good-bye. [applause] [music playing]

In this episode of “America’s Dumbest Criminals,” we’ll witness misbehaving crack-buyers, a bunch of guys that want electronics for nothing and some dummies with a dummy-- but who’s dumber?

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 highlights foolish criminals caught on camera, including drug dealers and shoplifters, with humorous commentary from the hosts.

Key points

America's Dumbest Criminals. A showcase of outrageous criminal antics and the absurdity of their actions.
The Police Dummy's Impact. A police dummy helps reduce speeding by creating a false sense of law enforcement.
The Drug Deal Gone Wrong. An undercover operation leads to a surprising confrontation with a drug dealer's grandson.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

But these guys wanted electronics for nothing then.

0:17WatchMar 10, 2022

Tension

40/ 100Low tension

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