We’re all human, and everyone falls victim to a silly mistake every now and again.
If you’re lucky, the camera isn’t rolling to immortalize your embarrassing lapse in judgment.
However, it’s 2022 and cameras are everywhere, ready to catch people at the height of their
most idiotic choices.
Today, we’ll be looking at seven of the dumbest moments to ever be recorded.
A Firework Fiasco
Fireworks can be dangerous and destructive and are best left to professionals.
Yet, every year, a new story crops up starring someone who managed to cause harm while having
a bit of fun with fireworks.
In America, some states allow amateurs to fire off pyrotechnics with abandon, but in
New York City, where our story takes place, fireworks are technically illegal.
On the night of June 24, 2020, Damien Bend and his two friends were taking a risk by
releasing fireworks in the driveway of Bend’s Brooklyn home, but they never imagined it
would go so epically wrong.
One of the fireworks manages to shoot, undetected, through an open window on the first floor
of his own property.
Incredibly, they don’t see the bright explosions that follow or the fire that ignites soon
after, and somehow the homeowner doesn’t even realize his house is on fire when he
goes back inside to get even more rockets.
This guy clearly needs a bigger sign.
By the time the burning room is noticed by anyone in the group, it has become a destructive
fire with flames bursting out of the window.
A feeble attempt is made to fight the fire with a garden hose, but it is too far out of control.
Eventually, firefighters arrived on the scene, needing twelve units and sixty people to finally
extinguish the blaze.
Bend has since been arrested and charged with arson in the fourth degree for his role in
destroying his own dwelling.
You have to be pretty dumb to shoot a firework into your own property, but you’ve got to
be really dumb to not even notice, as it turns into an inferno right next to you.
Forgetting Something?
Most people assume that once the cops have you in custody, it’s really difficult to escape.
Images of concrete walls, steel bars, and locked handcuffs readily spring to mind.
Sometimes though, if the people are dumb enough, the simplest escape plan works out.
In October 2018, then, 17-year-old Quantrell Schwartzlow from Wisconsin was arrested on
suspicion of assault.
After refusing to be interviewed, the teen changed his mind as he was being led to jail
and is shown into an interview room.
‘’Can I take these off, or not?’’
‘’Just give me a minute’’
The officer is smart enough to lock the door when he leaves,
but he must have been absent the day they taught locking windows at cop school.
His handcuffed suspect quickly assesses the room, finds the unlocked window, and within seconds,
he dives out headfirst.
Since he was on the second floor, it’s estimated that he fell some twelve to sixteen feet to
the ground below, before the outside security cameras captured him sprinting away at top speed.
The careless cop returns 14 minutes later and curses as a perfectly timed gust of wind
alerts him to his shockingly dumb mistake.
Police found the escapee later that day still in Janesville, three miles from the Sheriff’s
Department, and took him back into custody.
In 2019, Schwartzlow pleaded guilty to felony assault and felony escape and was sentenced
to four years in prison and four years of extended supervision.
If you’re a cop and you’re going to leave someone you’ve just arrested unattended,
making sure they can’t escape really should be second nature, and if you’re a criminal
planning an escape, at least try to hide out in the next town.
Since this not-so-great escape, Rock County Sheriff’s Office has fitted metal grates
to the windows, so this dumb mistake can’t be made again.
Extreme Gardening
An infestation of cockroaches will make most people want to reach for something to obliterate them,
but most of us engage our brains before we do anything drastic.
Not 48-year-old Cesar Schmitz.
In October 2019, his wife was begging him to do something about the roaches that had
taken over their yard.
Cesar had already tried to exterminate them with a poisonous spray, but it only made them
retreat further down into an underground nest.
Home security footage from the couple's home in the southern Brazilian city of Enéas Marques
shows his second plan go disastrously wrong.
If you’re wondering what made his garden erupt so dramatically, it was because Cesar
had first poured gasoline into the hole.
He cautiously throws the first match into the hole and steps back.
Nothing happens, so he throws a second match and misses.
Finally, his third match goes in, and suddenly…
the lawn explodes.
Caesar jumps back as soil and grass flies in every direction.
Cesar and his dogs were fortunate to escape unharmed, but unluckily for his wife, the
cockroaches reportedly also survived.
Instant Karma
It’s disappointing when you order something online, wait for it to arrive, and then find
there’s something wrong with it, but not even getting the chance to unbox your goods
is infuriating.
In 2020, 43% of Americans reported being victims of package theft, and a quarter of Americans
now use home security devices to protect their deliveries.
In January of 2018, a home security system captured one porch pirate get her just deserts.
A UPS delivery man leaves three packages on the porch in Bothell, Washington.
Soon after, a black car creeps around the corner, slowly passes the house, and then
returns and stops in front of the lawn.
A woman gets out the passenger side, runs to the porch and snatches the boxes.
She attempts to make a quick getaway but is taken out by the wet grass.
We don’t know if she believes in karma, but it sure believes in her.
It's not clear why the fallen porch pirate doesn’t get up until another camera shows
her raise her leg; her ankle is so severely injured that her foot dangles off her leg
and points the wrong way.
Her partner in crime soon comes running to her rescue.
The Seattle Seahawks fan pulls her off the ground, scoops his arm under her leg, and
carries her awkwardly back to the car.
But this hero isn't done yet.
He goes back to grab the dropped packages.
When the homeowner arrived home and found her mail missing, she reported the theft.
One of the stolen packages was a box containing $5,000 worth of medication that her insurance
only partly covered.
Police quickly identified the thieves as 37-year-old Alicia Treat and 39-year-old Brian Devere.
After a weekend as wanted criminals, the dumb duo was found and arrested at a nearby motel.
The packages were recovered along with another $350 worth of mail they had taken from another
house the same day.
Using a wheelchair, Alicia appeared in court on January 31 and pleaded guilty to the thefts.
But her fall didn’t steer her away from crime.
In June, a warrant was put out for her arrest, after she failed to show up in court to face the charges.
She was then captured again and ordered to pay restitution and spend 58 days in jail.
The homeowner posted the video on Facebook with the title "Crime and Karma," and it soon went viral.
Even though Treat and Devere did leave the residence with the packages that day, we think
we can all agree it was far from a clean getaway.
Caught Red-Handed
Sometimes in life, the timing is just perfect.
Law enforcement in Seattle, Washington got to experience this beautiful serendipity in
the spring of 2018 when they were able to easily apprehend a pair of thieves fleeing
the SoDo Costco.
Luckily for our viewing pleasure, they got it all on their body cameras.
''We’ll just wait for them to come out’’
He’s just gonna run out with his laptop.
You guys setting up a little theft scheme, huh?
Costco employees recognized the criminals from previous shoplifting events and quickly
called the cops to tip them off.
Since the pattern of these particular thieves had been to rush out the fire escape with
the stolen goods in the past, officers made their way to the emergency exit.
Boxing in a black Toyota that appeared to be the getaway car, the cops first seized
the eighteen-year-old driver and began to interview her.
Other officers surrounded the emergency exit doors and simply waited for her accomplices
to emerge.
‘’Do you have any ID on you?’’
Come on baby!
He’s coming this way, right here.
Hey Buddy!
Wow, that worked out great!
Do not move, OK?
Didn’t work this time.
Sure enough, as an internal alarm blared, a thirty-year-old man and a twenty-one-year-old
woman, burst through the emergency exit with boxes full of merchandise worth about $2,200.
The main items pilfered were computers and vacuum cleaners.
The man was arrested and booked in for robbery due to also being in possession of a concealed
blade, while the two women were charged with theft.
Sometimes all you need is to be in the right place at the right time.
Oh, and it helps to have adversaries who aren’t too clever.
Hey Buddy!
Not-So Smooth Criminal
To cap off our list, we have a video that highlights how one mistake can lead to another.
We’re sure you’ve all had those days, where you miss your alarm, burn your tongue,
and hit every red light.
Well, this is one of those days for a would-be criminal.
Though he seems to have everything he needs to make the crime happen, this man fails to
pull off his robbery thanks to his own stupidity.
After ensuring that the single female employee he can see is the only person inside, the
man goes in.
Dressed in a Denver Broncos sweatshirt, baggy pants, dark sunglasses, and a baseball cap,
he strides confidently towards the counter, and the store clerk moves forward to greet him.
Then, it all goes embarrassingly wrong.
As he approaches the clerk, he attempts to pull his gun out of his pocket, but fumbles
the weapon, sending it over the counter top.
While he feebly attempts to hop the counter to retrieve his firearm, the store clerk beats him to it.
Thwarted, the man flees the shop in a panic without his gun and his pants fall down.
Aurora police reported that the weapon retrieved from the scene of the would-be crime was a BB gun.
Despite a $2,000 reward, it appears this bumbling bandit is still at large.
There were some truly brainless people on this list and we hope you liked our picks.
Which one of these clips was your favorite?
Let us know in a comment below and don’t forget to subscribe and click the bell to
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Thanks for watching!