Police in Elmwood, Ohio, said they arrested "America's dumbest criminal" for breaking into the chief's office inside of a police station.

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The Elmwood Place Police Department said John Prentis, an informant who has worked with police, was caught on surveillance video kicking chief William Peskin's office door open at about 4 p.m. Monday and taking $1,000 from an evidence room inside the office, WCPO-TV, Cincinnati, reported Thursday.

The video then shows Prentis shutting the door and wiping his fingerprints from the knob, police said.

"Everything together just points to how dumb he was. America's dumbest criminals ... He would make the number one on the Top Ten countdown," Peskin said.

He said Prentis entered the building through an open door.

"Actually that was a human error on our part. We did leave one back door unsecured. The one place that I would never go to steal from is the police department," the chief said.

Prentis was arrested and is scheduled to be arraigned on charges including breaking and entering Thursday.