America's Dumbest Criminals - Season 4, Episode 8 - Run-Away Cyclist - Full Episode | Forensic Files

NARRATOR: Tonight on "America's Dumbest Criminals," what does it take to attempt to steal your car from a police lockup?
It sure isn't brains. A runaway cyclist is all washed up when he hits the spin cycle.
And a bail bondsman who dresses up for a dragnet to catch his man. For these and other stories that'll curl your hair,
sit back and be amazed at "America's Dumbest Criminals." [theme music] Now, welcome your hosts for "America's Dumbest Criminals,"
Daniel Butler and Debbie Alan. -Thank you, thank you. Thank you. All right. Question, Debbie.
-Yeah? -What's your worst experience in a fast food restaurant? Worst. -Oh. Well it's kind of gross, but once I
found ants in my coleslaw. -Ew, ants. -How about you? -No, I had uncles in my beans once.
-Oh, Dan. [laughter] -Well I doubt if anybody has had an experience that even comes
close to what occurs when a crook tries to order the restaurant staff around. And that's coming up in a little while.
But first, we turn our attention toward life on the open road. -Oh, yeah. Every year, we seem to come across an Evel Knievel wannabe.
Now based on his abilities, this fella might want to reconsider training wheels.
-Fortunately for us, this uneasy rider's photofinish was caught on camera. -My partner and I were-- were working
radar on the Seabreeze bridge. A motorcycle came across at 69 to 70 miles per hour
in a 40 mile per hour zone. So Officer Tarak pulled out to stop the motorcycle. And the motorcycle immediately pulled
over to the side of the road. But he didn't come to a stop. He coasted at about three to four miles an hour.
When the light turned green, he gunned it to take off. He was going to run. Well, there was a little bit of sand on the bridge,
because of the beach being so close. And the motorcycle went right out from underneath him.
He almost hit another motorcycle. And then he went sliding face first on the pavement.
As soon as he stopped sliding, he got up, put his hands behind his back. He knew he was-- he knew he was had.
-I think it was the great Greek philosopher, Anonymous, who stated, the job's not finished
until the paperwork's done. -Since when is Anonymous a great Greek philosopher? -Oh, I don't know.
This was like 1400 A.D., I think. I went to junior college, OK? He was a junior college philosopher, Anonymous.
-Well at any rate, our next crook would have been wise to have heeded those words of wisdom.
Instead, he left something to remember me by. -We responded to a call, and upon arrival,
we discovered that the store had been robbed. CASHIER: May I help you? -Uh, yes you can.
You can give me all the money in this register. TOBE GREEN: And instead of the perpetrator taking
the money out of the cash register, he just decided to take the cash register and run out of the store.
The funny thing about it, he lived approximately two or three blocks, in a little alley behind the store.
We followed the perpetrator through the alley after the cash register's tape reeled off,
it just led us directly to his front porch. So in my years of law enforcement, that's
the dumbest incident I can think of. -He was on a roll there for a minute. You know, there's a surprising reason why they call
the police vehicle lock up, the pound. As we discover in the surveillance video you're about to see, a gassed up driver pounds on the gate
with his car to gain admittance for his buddies. -As you can imagine, that is not proper procedure.
And authorities were not favorably impressed with his bumper car shenanigans. Here's the first part of this two part assault.
DEBBIE ALAN (VOICEOVER): Your view is the parking lot outside the police lockup.
The gate is just to the left of the camera. The guys in the first car are waiting patiently
for the lot manager to return. But not for long. The new car brings passengers fueled by the fire of youth,
as well as the sanity suppressants of alcohol and drugs. They approach the office and don't like what they find.
No one's home, and only a chain link gate separates them from their impounded automobiles.
We'll fast forward a bit to find these geniuses confabbing in their own little late night Mensa meeting.
MAN 1: Dang, what should we do? MAN 2: Well, I want my car. MAN 1: Well, I want my car, too.
MAN 3: I like curly fries. MAN 1: Well, what if we dug a tunnel, and drove them under the gate?
MAN 2: We ain't got no shovels. MAN 1: Well, what if we tied helium balloons, and floated them over?
MAN 2: Well, we ain't go no string. MAN 3: I like curly fries. MAN 1: Hey, you could just drive your car through the gate.
MAN 2: Yeah, yeah, they'd never figure it out. It'd, it'd be like a hit and run.
MAN 1: Yeah. MAN 2: This is brilliant. MAN 1: Yeah. I'm gonna do it. MAN 2: Yeah.
MAN 3: Then can we go get some curly fries? DEBBIE ALAN (VOICEOVER): Stay tuned for the high-impact conclusion a little later.
NARRATOR: In Alabama, it's illegal to sell, buy, possess, or train a bear for bear wrestling.
-OK. Hey, when you think of the phrase, great expectations, does Dickens come to mind?
Well, it doesn't come into play into this story, unless the officer wondered why in the dickens
the motorist he stopped would deliver a line worthy of America's dumbest excuses.
-One night I was north of Alamogordo working traffic, running radar. I'd written quite a few citations for speed.
I pulled over a real young couple from-- come to find out he was a GI from Holloman Air Force Base.
Very seldom do I ask anybody why they were speeding, but for some reason, I asked this young GI.
I said, how come you're running so fast? And he said, well, I've got to get my wife to the hospital.
And I said, well what's wrong with her? He said, well, she's pregnant. And I poked my head in the window and I looked at her.
Her tummy was very flat. And I said, well how far along is she? And he looked at his watch and said, oh, about two hours now.
-OK. A little premature excuse there. Our blue light special tonight could almost be a blue-plate special.
A robber thought he'd have easy pickins when he held up a fast food chicken restaurant.
But when the thief tried to pluck the cash, he almost gets tarred and feathered.
To paraphrase the Bible, vengeance is mine, saith the lard. Before you do it, crisco-changeo,
let's roll the tape. DANIEL BUTLER (VOICEOVER): Had a bad plan you thought you'd hatch, now you're
getting clawed for some chicken scratch. Tried to get away, but get nowhere. Stopped in a hurry with the swing of a chair.
You must be a chicken, because you're just plain fried. Now take a hit, do your other side.
Here's what you get for being a jerk, going to show you some fancy footwork. You better get going, you better move quick,
or I'll whoop up on you with a big long stick. Get your wits about you, and you'd best move away.
Bet you're gonna live to regret this day. Listen to the caller, now you know, we're all done,
here's your order to go. -Ouch. I bet he wished he'd gone through the drive-thru.
And that's in contrast to the fellow who decided to drive through the gate at the police lockup, as we saw earlier.
Well, when we left, the driver was being cheered on by his friend. And here's a play by play of what happened next.
DEBBIE ALAN (VOICEOVER): The driver's got his signals. He's kicking up a little dust.
OK. Here's the windup. And the follow-through. Crash. Don't think he got a solid lick on it,
just deflected off his license plate. Here he comes again. Boom. That's it. The gate is out of there.
A grand slam. Looks like his buddies are trying to steal. There they go, one right after another.
Looks like they're all headed home. And maybe just in time, because the lot manager returns,
and doesn't think much of their foul play. Of course he takes it all in stride, because he has the license number
of every car, plus this tell-all video. -And now for a man that fits serious news like Roger Ebert
fits speedos, here's Daniel with ABC headlines. -There's a visual image. A pharmacist in Ohio didn't want the hassle of checking
a prescription for a caller, so he said he was being robbed. But crying wolf was not so foxy.
The caller immediately phoned police, who rushed to the scene to find a druggist who felt just awful about being such a pill.
He had stolen credit cards, so he figured he'd impress his gang member buddies by renting
a limousine to cruise Hollywood. Just one problem though-- the owner of the limo company
discovered the card was stolen, and alerted police. A police officer assumed the role of limousine driver
and proceeded to chauffeur the privileged party right to police headquarters where formal charges were filed.
Never mess with an enterprising nine-year-old. That's what two teenagers learned when they robbed
the little boy's lemonade stand of $6. He gave police a good description of the culprits
and they were quickly apprehended. When a local radio station championed his cause,
the boy raked in over $500 in less than two hours. Now that's turning a lemon into lemonade.
And that closes the file on ABC headlines, news ripped from somewhere near the back
of your local newspaper. Debbie? -A mistaken identity is nothing new. Shakespeare used it as a plot device.
It's been a clever trick in dozens of movies. But it's not so clever here. And maybe that's because a poor Joe
Blow mistook his own identity. Its tonight's embarrassing Special Delivery. -This man came to court one day, and he was highly intoxicated,
and he plead guilty to giving a false name to a police officer. Well, he couldn't pay his fines, so we put him in jail the
serve his time. After a couple of days, we checked the photograph. It didn't look like a bit like the man that we had in jail.
So we went into the jail, and we asked him who he was. And he admitted that he was the cousin to the man
that he plead guilty for, and that he was so intoxicated that he must've accidentally plead guilty for the guy.
And we asked him, we said, you know, why did you, why did you stay in jail? And he said he felt like we wouldn't believe him.
We charged him with criminal impersonation, and he plead guilty to that, and we gave him time served.
So basically, he sat in jail for four days for his cousin for absolutely no reason at all.
-You know no one ever said the life of a bails bondsman was glamorous, although Joey Barnum, no relation to PT,
has hobnobbed with plenty of stars in his day. Not only is it not glamorous, in this case,
it's downright homely. Here's a man who will do absolutely anything to get his man.
-Sitting in this office one night about 9 or 10 o'clock, and I get a phone call.
And it's a guy I bailed out before. He said, Joey, he says, I owe you one. He says, you know that guy you're looking for,
$25,000 bail who jumped bail on you? I said, yeah, yeah. He said, well, he's down at this bar.
He says, and if you get down there, you know, you might be able to get the guy. But be careful, because the guy's packing a gun.
He knows what you look like. So two weeks prior to this, my wife and I had a Halloween party.
So I dressed in drag. I went in the back, jumped in my car, and I go down to this bar.
As I walk in, sure enough the guy was sitting there spending money like a drunken sailor.
But I walked in, and I squeezed in between him and another guy. Now, I must've looked pretty good,
because the guy bought me a drink. So, anyway, I'm drinking. I'm drinking my drink.
And I'm nervous. How am I going to do this? You know, I know the guy's packing a gun.
All of a sudden, the door opens up. Who walks in but my wife? She didn't trust me.
-Joseph, what are you doing in those clothes? JOEY BARNUM: I said, oh, my God, if I'm gonna make my move,
I'd better do it now. So I dumped my drink in the guy's lap. He jumps up. I hit him with a left hook and a right cross.
As he was going down, even the bartender said, holy cow, can that broad punch. So, I put the handcuffs on.
I jump on him. I put the handcuffs on him. And, uh, just then I get a beep-- I get a beep on my beeper.
So I go to the phone. And the guy says, Joey, he says, my son is over here in the Alhambra police department.
He says, can you come over and get him out? I says, yeah. I says, it'll be about 45 minutes before I can get there.
He says, Joey, he says, by the way, he says what do you look like? I says, I'll be wearing a red dress.
DANIEL BUTLER (VOICEOVER): Now let's look back at one of ABC's greatest hits. From the ABC security cam vault, no cops here.
This is actual hidden surveillance footage of an undercover officer buying cocaine in a motel room.
The man you'll see in the ball cap is a dealer. And what did they watch on TV while doing a dope deal?
Well, every dope deal begins with small talk and shooting the breeze. And in no time at all, the dealer
is ready to risk 20 years in prison for $1,600. -All right, they're going out to the car
to pick it up and bring it back in. DANIEL BUTLER (VOICEOVER): Now the one thing
that always takes the most time in every dope deal is counting the money. Finally, the deal is done.
But the undercover officer decides to give the dealer one last tip. -[inaudible].
NARRATOR: In Oregon, it's illegal to use canned corn as bait for fishing. -Oh, a while ago, I was working at the station.
And I got a phone call one morning from a burglary victim at an apartment house.
He asked me if I would come out and talk to him about the burglary. Now listen, he says.
You know, he says, I had $1,000 cash that was stolen. It was on top of a wooden-- of my dresser, in a wooden box.
And we were playing poker the night before, and I had a few friends over. And this one particular guy who lives in the apartment complex,
he kept looking up at that box. And I think maybe he might know what happened to it,
or maybe he's the guy that took it. So I do a little homework. And I run and find out that he had a recent misdemeanor
theft-- arrest in Logan City. So I check the file, and I found, if you will, the fingerprint card for the gentlemen, similar to this one.
I went and I took the fingerprint card. And I went over and placed it on a Xerox machine,
and ran off a copy. Then I took the copy, and I cut out a hole of the center of one
of the fingerprints. Took that and put it on the back of a 3x5 card, and therefore having a copy of a fingerprint.
So I call the gentleman up and ask him if he would come in. And he says, well sure, yes, I'd heard about that.
It was a terrible thing. So he comes into the station. I need to talk to you about this burglary here.
I said basically, I said, just to cut to the chase, I need to get the guy's money back.
And I understand you're probably the one responsible for it. And he goes, no, I don't know anything about the case.
And I said, well, you-- unfortunately you probably do have an involvement. And he says, well, what do you mean?
I said, well, I said, you know that fingerprints don't lie, right? And he goes, that's right.
I said, well I want to show you something. And I took the card, and I said, this is the fingerprint
that I lifted from the scene. Pulled up the card, and I said, and this is a fingerprint card
from when you were arrested for your shoplift a while ago. Now, I'm going to show you something.
I put them down on the table, and I pulled out the magnifying glass, and I said, I want you to see this point.
And I designated point A to point B-- the scar, the mark, the ridges. And I said, yes, but that's not my finger.
I said, I can swear to God that is your fingerprint. I said, can you bring the money in?
And he says, well I've only got $700 left. I said, well go get it and bring it back.
And he says, I don't understand this. I wore gloves. But uh, he never knew how we basically pulled it off.
-Ah, me. Well, you've heard the expression, it's a small world. I know you have, Debbie.
But in this case, it's a small pizza, with pepperoni and mushrooms, I think. -Confused?
Well, take a look and see how delivering the goods puts a pizza guy on the doorstep of destiny.
-It's a thick and chewy example of "We're not making this up." -I received a call that a local pizza delivery man delivered
a pizza to one of our apartment complexes, and the people who he delivered the pizza
to paid for the pizza with his own personal checks that were stolen a couple weeks prior to this call.
He showed me the check that they gave him. They signed his name. It was his own, personal checks that were stolen.
I mean, once in a lifetime opportunity that that ever happens. He had the address from where he delivered the pizza.
So me and my partner went back up there. They didn't, in fact, steal the checks,
but they got it from somebody else, knowing that they weren't good checks. It was funny, because the guy's name was Tom,
and a woman signed the check. I locked them up, and they got convicted for passing bad checks.
To top it all off, they included a tip on his own bad check. -The tip, the tip, the tip, that was it.
Well that's all from us for now. -If you've got a lead on a story, or you just can't wait till next week for more state-of-the-art
stupidity, visit our website at www.dumbcrimes.com. -We want to thank you for joining us,
and extend our gratitude to the law enforcement officers who make the 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. -But if you haven't, we just might see you next week
on "America's Dumbest Criminals." -Goodbye. [music playing]

In this episode of “America’s Dumbest Criminals,” we’ll witness what it takes to steal a car from a police lock-up, a washed-up run-away cyclist who hit the spin-cycle and a bail bondsman who dresses up to catch his man.

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 motorcycle crash and a bail bondsman in drag.

Key points

America's Dumbest Criminals. A showcase of outrageous criminal antics that defy logic and common sense.
Fast Food Fiasco. A robber tries to hold up a fast food restaurant but gets a surprise instead.
Pizza Delivery Gone Wrong. A pizza delivery man unwittingly delivers to thieves using his own stolen checks.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

It sure isn't brains.

NARRATOR introduces the theme of the show.

0:11WatchMar 10, 2022

Tension

40/ 100Low tension

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