Crime

Dumb Criminal of the Week: The Naked Guy Who Really, Really Loved Cocaine

Cocaine
Cocaine

Photo by ERNESTO BENAVIDES/AFP/Getty Images

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Name: Unidentified naked coke-fiend.

Crime: Resisting an officer without violence.

Fatal mistake: Being overly enthusiastic about cocaine.

The circumstances: Did you ever see that movie Super Troopers? Remember the part at the end where the tripping kid yells “I love acid!” in front of a couple undercover cops? Well, sometimes real life is dumber than the dumbest movie. The Northwest Florida Daily News reports on a 21-year-old Florida man (of course) who, in late February, made a nuisance of himself by yelling and running naked through the halls of the Bel-Aire Apartments. When the police arrived, a weird situation got even weirder:

When lawmen arrived the man, now wearing pajama pants, leaped onto the hood of the patrol car and wouldn’t get down until ordered. He lay down on the grass nearby, where he made several comments about loving cocaine and needing more cocaine.

The man then led the police on a comical Keystone Kops-style foot chase, involving an attempted slide tackle, multiple Tasings, and the inevitable shedding of those bothersome pajama pants. He was eventually subdued, but, even then, his enthusiasm didn’t wane:

“Statements from the defendant were not possible as he would only state he loved cocaine and needed more cocaine,” the officer wrote in the arrest report.

I guess it’s true what they say about cocaine being a hell of a drug.

How he could have been a lot smarter: Like the rest of us who love cocaine, he could have loved it in private, confining his enthusiasm to an endless series of teeth-grinding grins and rapid, enthusiastic head nods.

How he could have been a little smarter: The “loving cocaine” part isn’t as problematic as the “needing more cocaine” part.

How he could have been a little dumber: Taking off your pants in front of a cop is dumb. Trying to take off the cop’s pants would have been worse.

How he could have been a lot dumber: “I love dealing cocaine! Woo!” (Takes off pants, hundreds of little baggies fall to the ground.)

Ultimate Dumbness Ranking (UDR): Well, there wasn’t much of an actual crime here, and I’m torn on how to assess the subject’s stupidity. On the one hand, I don’t know how fair it is to blame someone for something he did while not in his right mind. On the other hand, if you know or suspect that drugs will turn you into a naked, babbling lunatic, don’t take drugs. Ultimately, we’re all responsible for our own bad decisions, even when those decisions lead us to mount the hood of a police car like some dissolute junkie Baryshnikov. 4 out of 10 for the unidentified naked coke-fiend.

Previous Dumb Criminals of the Week: The Guy Who Tried to Outrun the Cops on a Very, Very Slow-Moving Moped, The Drunk Driver Who Boasted About It on Facebook, The Guy Who Brought 32 Bags of Weed into a CourtroomThe Drug Smuggler Whose Fake Breasts Were Made of CocaineThe Guy Who Gave the Cops an Absolutely Terrible Fake NameThe Job Candidate Who Told the FBI about His Child Porn Stash