Original subtitles

What you're about to see may be dangerous, illegal, unethical, petty,

immoral, and most definitely stupid.

But it's also all true.

Sort of.

My name is Charles McDowell, a .k .a. Dan Widenick.

So how did I get famous?

Well,

that's a crazy ass story.

I was out one late night, and there wasn't no one out for my arrest.

I ended up taking them on a chase, and I never stopped.

My car ended up running hot, so I had to, like, pull over into this yard, and

ran to the woods.

This one, that little man person's just coming out. I had to do a fending pack.

I had it loaded.

I got a whole bunch of dope on me.

Lord, like, that's the worst case you can get.

I have run a trapping and ice trapping case, so I hate all this.

Howdy.

I got you on gunpoint. Don't move.

Don't move, but I'm waiting.

Why you moving?

I'm out my mind.

Why you moving?

This is a lot of touching, man. This qualifies as moving.

I was spinning. I was spinning.

Give me the doctor or something.

That's how it all started.

But she got way crazy.

High speed chases, do you think you've been in?

I have been in a lot of them.

Over 14, 15.

A Florida man arrested for taking police on, you won't believe this, his 20th

high speed chase.

That's how the whole thing started.

One, two.

That's when they took my mud shot and my whole life changed.

Do you know what a Florida man is?

I mean, I'm from Florida. Like, I don't know, like, Florida man. Like, is it

like dude that breaks laws all the time or just constantly getting in trouble?

That's what they call Florida man?

Yeah, and kind of like crazy headlines.

Crazy headlines. That's what it is.

Florida man can be mean.

24 -year -old man, this man right here, accused of throwing an alligator through

a drive -thru window. I think for those of us who have spent our lives here,

there was always a sense that this was a different place.

at times a very peculiar place.

I'm Carl Hyasson, and I'm an author, a long -time journalist with Miami Herald,

and born and raised in Florida.

I've been writing about Florida men for my whole career. This one was banned in

a Texas prison system.

I was incredibly proud of that.

I've written between 20 and 30 novels, including novels for kids.

Most of the sickest stuff in my books is based on something real that happened

in Florida. It's the right mix for this incredible vortex of weirdness that the

whole country seems interested in now. I mean, it's almost a brand.

I don't think we're ever going to escape this. There's absolutely no chance of

Florida becoming a normal place to live.

People from fucking New York, California, wherever in the U .S., they

it's this crazy gator -riding place, but like, you look outside, it's pretty

fucking chill, you know?

I like Florida because we're free.

She's out there doing her shit.

It's like Wild West, right? We don't gotta wear helmets.

If you want to catch an alligator and drag it across the road and show it to

your friends, that's cool.

That's Florida for you.

I mean, when I hear Florida man, I think I'm a Florida man.

Woo, Florida man!

I'm going to ask you what the Sunshine Law is.

The Sunshine Law in the state of Florida has basically made it such that if you

come into contact with the justice system, within 24 to 48 hours, anyone

the public...

from anywhere in the world can basically pull up a mugshot of you and see any

and every allegation against you.

The Sunshine Law made public records available to the actual public. All of

was something that I had the benefit of as a journalist for all those years, and

certainly a strong argument, constitutional argument, can be made

every right to see everything.

These public records, arrest records, really perpetuate that Florida man

stereotype.

That is the danger, is you can take a very small news story and put somebody's

mugshot on the Internet. I mean, that was a whole way to gain readers.

Every single day you go in a gas station to get gas and get a little drink or

something to go to work, and you see the actual mugshots of every single person

that got arrested the night before.

So everyone knows you get arrested, you're on the cover of that newspaper

next day right in the gas station.

Guilty or innocent, you know, you're right on there.

It's entertaining at some level, but it also can be very, very destructive to

somebody's life.

Hello everyone, I'm Sheriff Wayne Ivey of the Brevard County Sheriff's Office.

I'm excited. You know why I'm excited? Because it's Tuesday night, 8 o 'clock,

it's time for Wheel of Fugitive. You know how it works. Ten fugitives. I'm

to spin this wheel. One of them is going to be our Fugitive of the Week. Let's

see who it is.

Wheel of Fugitive, right?

They just went too far with it.

Wheel of Fugitive is Sheriff Wayne Ivey making a joke or a mockery out of public

safety. and justice.

We got a bunch of fugitives out there. I want to get them all off the streets.

Let's go fishing for fugitives. Just stick to regular public service

announcements. You know, don't try to be a comedian.

Adam, you can do the right thing and turn yourself in, son. Don't make us

chase you. It's like this weird, yeah, we want to see people get in trouble

of thing. Talking about people that genuinely live in your community. They

here, they pay the taxes here. Well, maybe they don't all pay the taxes,

Let's see who this week's Fugitive of the Week is.

Many employers in this conservative county watch the sheriff's shows for

entertainment. And if they see an employee on that show, many of the

in Brevard County and business owners will fire a person who has not been

convicted of a crime just because they appeared on that show. When we talk

people being basically denied their constitutional rights to be treated as

innocent until proven guilty and you taking that to the next level by then

making a public mockery of those people.

It's a dangerous thing. When they spin that wheel and your face on there or

whatever, they're going to come get you. Right here from your Escambia County

Sheriff's Office, we present you with... Wheel of Fugitives!

Well, you heard them. It's one of Wednesday here at the Escambia County

Sheriff's Office. That means one thing.

Let's spin the wheel. Yes.

Looks like this week's winner is Charles McDowell.

They spin that wheel, and so what happened, it stopped on me. Ooh,

fleeing and eluding. You can run, but you can't hide, Charles.

People were calling in trying to get a reward or whatever, putting the police

me.

So they had the whole Scanlon County looking for me.

That's when I fled to another county or whatever.

So after eating a whole bunch of drugs or whatever, my body just went to, like,

reeling on me.

I didn't know what was going on. I passed out.

I was on ice puff for, like, three days.

I had died that night for three days.

True story.

I woke up, like, on my third day, and I'm strapping to the bed.

Like, my arms and stuff, like, stuck to the bed. I got this big -ass pipe in my

throat. Got all these IVs. I don't know what's going on.

First thing I said, I got to go. I got to get up out of here.

No police was around.

I took off again.

I have four boys.

Charles was, he's my special.

The doctor was amazed to see him. It was different. He was surprised, too.

He'd never seen nothing like it.

A little boy with a wide neck.

Charles was amazing.

Charles, like, gets up in the middle. If it's a hole that he can put his body

in, he's going to get in it. Any way Charles can get away, Charles is going

get away.

I was on my way to Atlanta.

About like 15, 20 minutes into the drive, I see Christmas lights.

I'm on another high -speed train. I can't make this stop. I'm on another

-speed train.

I'm running the drawers out of the car.

I think at the gas point, you know, the light will come on when it's like the

tire pressure going up.

That was happening. I'm like, what the fuck going on? Damn, how'd the tires

blow?

Feeling better?

They spiked the car.

I spiked your car.

And when you threw the drugs out of the window, it hit my windshield.

Get the ass out of the car.

They pulled me out.

Put me in handcuffs, threw me inside the backseat of her car, and took me

straight to the nearest counter.

The next day, the whole staff at the jailhouse, they was coming to see me.

And they was like, yeah, that's him, that's him, that's him.

The officer turned the computer to me. He was like, I'm going to show you

something. And he Googled me. He turned it around. He was like, look at this.

was featured on the Wheel of Fugitives from Escambia County.

It has a giant's neck. I mean, seriously, look at this guy's neck. My

called me and said, he's on TV. We turned the TV on.

He's not on one channel.

The whole TV, they talking about you. So far, his mugshot has gotten about 250

,000 comments. My mugshot that went viral wasn't nothing about my charges,

cases, or what I was going through like this. It was like, oh, he got a big -ass

neck. Oh, little neck, man. Oh, he look like he swallowed a plate.

Just crazy comments, and it just kept going and going and going and going.

I bet when you was little, you liked to run around naked, eating neck bones,

watching Nickelodeon until it got dark, and then you'd watch Nick at night.

Roasting the fuck out of me. Like, they cooked me.

So after he showed me, then I go back into the pod, and then this black lady

come to the door, and she was like, Your bill has been posted.

The whole time, I ain't never used the phone.

So I'm like, who made my bun?

Your lawyer.

All right.

A lawyer.

I come out.

I don't see nobody that's two white men and all their kids.

There he is.

Me, I'm like, what's going on?

That's your bail bondsman. I'm Jim, your bail bondsman. And your lawyer. You're

going to be a star.

My neck's going to make you famous. I'm going right to the tip top. It was like,

you don't owe me nothing.

Would it be too much trouble if we got a couple photos with you? I just want you

to take pictures with my family.

You like some pulled pork?

The bridesmaids eat often pulled pork sandwiches.

You're missing out. So moist.

So stringy.

It ain't messy.

It ain't good.

You didn't want some of this? I don't like no something good. I just need some

cigarettes. You go get yourself a pack of cigarettes.

Buy it all.

It's on me.

Give me $20 to go to the store.

I don't know what's going on.

I'm looking at the window. I just see like three, four people like running

the store.

Oh my God, it's him. It's him.

The parking lot crowded, so now we got to have the D County police. They're

like, they got to move in front of the store.

And the police actually trailed us as far as they can to keep people from,

following us.

We just blowed up everywhere, all over the TV. It was all over there. To me, it

was just crazy.

I got to say a huge congrats to you, man. I've never seen someone pulling

many Google hits. Thank you, man.

I ain't even understand social media. Like, I wasn't with the Internet,

No Facebook, no none of that. I wasn't even, like, Googling stuff.

You feel me? YouTube and all. I wasn't doing none of that.

Back in my hood, I was never called wide neck or none of that. When that mugshot

came out, it's like, damn, if you wide neck now, like.

Why, Nick? Why, Nick? They was, like, roasting the fuck out of me, like, damn.

And I called my guns, Nick. And he was like, there's nothing too much you can

about what they saying on the Internet because it's public records, whatever.

He was like, but however, I think you should call this guy.

Danny Longneck here.

And it's about to get lit like a fucking tinny.

And I'm looking at the picture. It's Longneck.

Longneck is David. I forget his last name, but his name is damn Longneck.

Or whatever.

The white kid with the long neck, the world know about it or whatever.

They was like, you need to try to get in touch with his manager.

I made that phone call, and they was like, look, we in Miami. We're going to

you out. We're going to cash you out. We just want you to do two or three skits

with a long neck, da -da, and we'll see you back home, da -da -da.

I went to Miami.

And my first time meeting that long neck, it was like, damn.

What the fuck I'm going to do with this kid? And that fucking wide neck.

But, frankly, I'm going to do it.

First time recording or whatever.

I'm doing it for the money at this time.

When

they

put it together and released it, it was crazy.

It just went crazy.

Wide Neck would amass over one million Instagram followers and achieve

notoriety.

Ah, Neck Madden. I think there's people with abnormally large necks all over the

country, but I think Florida is a place where you can exploit it and turn it

into a little career. And I say, go Wide Neck.

It was definitely a blessing. It was nothing but a blessing.

I never dreamed of being in Hollywood.

I'd never been on a plane at the time, you feel me? Never been to Miami.

It was like a lot of stuff that I never did. I was like in and out of prison, in

and out of jail, like most of my adult lifetime, you feel me? And I just made a

transition, like second chance at life.

I'm real proud of him. I am really happy for him.

He making better choices.

He doing better things. He got a positive attitude now. It's going to be

little tight, but we can work with it.

I consider myself a street dude or whatever, but at the end of the day, I'm

softer than a bear, you feel me? Like, I want to have a good life. I want to be

there with my kids.

I haven't sold no drugs since that day. I'm not who the mugshot is or I'm not

what they're trying to make me out of, you feel me?

Wayne Ivey has actually been sued.

for his use of will of fugitives. The Florida Today investigation has found

a large number of people featured on the segment weren't fugitives. And he

really doesn't seem to care. He's still pushing the shows, and it still

continues to move on. You can almost be certain that if you have a sheriff named

Wayne Ivey spinning a wheel for it, you can almost be certain that there's going

to be a screw -up.

It's an interesting business how YouTube works. You know, anybody can make a

channel. This cop started it with the Wheel of Fugitive.

Wide Neck wound up showing up on there. Wide Neck got a successful YouTube

channel. You know, it's a great economy that we got.

What you think, boss man? Look.

That's all right, bro.

They go anywhere.

They're going to be behind me like deathly. Go anywhere with that, bro. I'm

going to be the proper duck. They're going to be behind me like deathly.

Yeah.

Scanley County.

I already know they're trying to get me, but I gave them a shout out.

It got me out of the hood. It got me away from all that.

It's cool with me.

I'm good with it.

That's heartwarming. He's no longer dealing drugs, and he's found fame and

fortune from a mugshot.

That's pretty cool.

This is just the way the world works now.

A Florida man, the words by which many strange stories begin in the world.

Storytelling tradition in America, going back.

In folklore and in days of Mark Twain, Will Rogers, passing along stories that

get bigger and bigger and wilder and wilder and funnier and funnier, more

than not, they weren't true.

But in Florida, they're all true.

They were laughing at the mud side. I was checking out the drug house. In the

kitchen, there would be no pipe. Before they announced, they done rocked. They

were laughing at the mud side. I was checking out the drug house. In the

kitchen, there would be no pipe.

Before they announced, they done rocked. They were laughing at the mud side. In

the kitchen, there would be no pipe. Before they announced, they done rocked.