Ridiculous crime.

It's a production of iHeartRadio.

Elizabeth Dutton's Saren Burnette.

I got a question for you, my friend.

Yeah, go ahead.

Oh man, this is such a wild one.

Do you know what's ridiculous?

Oh my gosh, yeah, I do know what's ridiculous.

I thought you might.

I have a question for you, though part of it right back around.

Huh yeah, reverse, sir.

How much of your beans?

My beans?

How much are your beans?

That's a question you're going to be asking this spring.

And you out of the store.

Yeah, and you see something in the jelly bean You like jelly beans?

Not so much?

I mean, I'll eat some of them.

I grew up near a jelly belly country, so like, yeah.

No, they have lots of crazy flavors.

So that's what I like, is the crazy jelly beans.

I don't like the traditional like, oh, Lime, do you like crazy jelly beans?

Oh no?

Did I step in it.

To quote you?

Buckle up, buttercup.

This is one hundred percent real.

One of the press releases said in twenty twenty six, so there's time this time, I'm ahead of it.

Wow, And we got this from a lot of different people there.

KFC is releasing jelly beers, and it's coming in three flavors, fried chicken naturally, sweetcorn, sure, and gravy so fried chicken jelly beans.

I guess if you eat them all together, you get like a meal.

You throw up, throw up.

The gravy ones though.

Ew, You're like, I'm on a special diet, gravy jelly beans.

I'm going to have people over for dinner and just have three bowls.

Would you like more sweet corn gravy?

A little bit of gravy on that?

Thank you so much.

Anyway, Yeah, you know, it's really hot out today, Jesus.

If it's hot outside, it's hotter inside.

You're at headquarters and I'm feeling just woozy, and I'm looking at this and I'm like, did I invent this?

Is it real?

Anyway, it's going to happen before April.

I'm guessing for Easter twenty twenty six.

Oh, there you go for the kids.

He has risen, Yeah, to get some KFC jelly brae with.

Some gravy jelly beans.

So there you go.

It's ridiculous.

Well you got a second.

I got one for you.

But they don't here's the thing they don't say how much they're going to be.

That's why I was asking.

They probably haven't decided because of tariffs, sir, It's true, I don't know.

Yeah, they'll be like it's five dollars a bag, and then you show up and it's like it's twenty seven dollars a bag.

So how much are your beans?

Interesting?

This story may or may not have beans in it that I was about to tell.

You beans, but you have to say it like that.

I don't know how to say it like beans beans.

See, I can't do it only you, Elizabeth Special.

Imagine, for whatever reason do you become a fugitive from the law.

I can see that happening, right, And so you're living on the lamb, Yeah, for years, living on his prayer.

You're good at it.

But the whole time you're still using the name your mama gave you, just walking around chilling you in the same name you've always used, living on the line.

Thus, as we would say, that would be ridiculous.

And that's the story I want to tell you today.

Nice.

This is Ridiculous Crime a podcast about absurd and outrageous capers, heist and cons.

It's always ninety nine percent murder free.

And one hundred percent ridiculous.

Hooray, Elizabeth.

I got to say I really like this guy what I'm about to tell you about, because, for one, he didn't hurt anyone, which I know is important to you.

Also, he means well when it comes to his motivation for doing crimes, which is important to both of us.

My man's name is Patrick.

Critton or Crichton, Patrick Crichton.

Yeah, we'll say crittin and get this.

Patrick Critton was the first person ever in the history of Canada to successfully hijack that an aircraft.

Oh yeah, congratulations.

Not only that, Elizabeth, my man Patrick did this while being black.

Congratulations.

Do you know what the odds are of you being a black man in Canada?

The odds are low, Elizabeth, for me especially, trust me, it's low.

It's nil, very nil for you.

And if you're not in Toronto with all them West Indian brothers, it's even much lower.

And in nineteen seventy, when this story takes place, the population of black folks in Canada was estimated to be between seventy five thousand and one hundred thousand.

In all of Canada, all of Canada.

While the whole population in Canada at that time was estimated to be twenty one million.

Now, if you go at the larger number one hundred thousand, that works out to be about zero point zero zero four percent of the population, or four thousands of one percent.

Wow, I know there's a a big Jamaican community.

In Yeah, yes, a bunch of from a bunch of the islands, actually not just Jamaica.

But basically, what I'm saying is the odds were stacked against my man Patrick Critton to be the first person to successfully hijack an airplane in Canada while also being black.

Yeah.

However, that said, he did have one advantage.

He was not Canadian.

Oh yeah, okay, he imported himself to commit this crime.

To really blend in exactly.

Now, just because he was the first person to successfully hijack a plane in Canadian history doesn't mean he had to be Canadian in this case.

So he wasn't.

He was an American, Elizabeth.

Do you know what else my man Patrick Critton was.

Stop guessing.

I'll tell you, crime exporter.

He was a revolutionary.

He was a radical.

He was a courageous warrior for social justice.

You see, my man Patrick Critton was a black panther and back in the early seventies.

This is the era when criminals and revolutionaries hijacked plane.

It's true.

So who was this cat?

Patrick cru who was this cat?

Fantastic question A listen on it.

Bring in your a game today.

Patrick was born in Harlem, New York.

He was raised in the city.

He was in that New York that we only know of from mid century movies and books.

Really we have no experience of it, you and I.

But he saw our rougher side of that concrete jungle era of New York.

He was that Stevie Wonder living for the city exactly.

You can.

You can relate it through song.

One hundred percent.

And I know everything now.

Yeah, because if he was a kid running in the streets of nineteen fifties Harlem, he was born in forty seven, then that makes him a teen in the early sixties when he was living in the Bronx.

That's where he went to high school in the Bronx, at DeWitt Clinton High School, where he was an honor student.

Go Tigers totally.

Patrick saw firsthand the world changed.

Is America desegregated, which we typically think of this happening in the South, where schools and drugstore counters and restaurants are being desegregated.

But that was also happening in the Northeast, where black folks and Puerto Ricans were suddenly in places they weren't before, doing things they weren't before.

Yeah, a great example of Boston, exactly.

There you go.

And this is all thanks to the strides made by the civil rights heroes and workers, those everyday folks who got out and protested for change demanded it.

But even in New York, the pace of change wasn't happening fast enough.

And that was due to one huge factor, Elizabeth, of course, I'm talking about the NYPD.

New York City cups.

Yes, the same way they oppressed black jazz musicians in the forties and fifties, they did the same thing pretty much everyone else.

It was brown and black in mid century America.

So to Patrick Critten's young eyes and his experiences of life in mid Central America as a young black man, the NYPD were the pigs who worked for the man.

As far as he could tell.

They've done a lot to rehab their image, their image, and you know, yeah, but they were back then the pigs for young brothers right there to keep the black man down.

That's why Patrick joined a militant group called the Republic of New Africa.

He was in his early twenties at this point, and it just seemed like the place to put his energies and his hopes were better and more equid.

But who or what rather is the Republic of New Africa?

Great question?

Like, I don't know about you, but I certainly don't remember ever seeing that country on the world map, the Republic of New Africa.

I mean, they ain't part of the United Nations.

He didn't have cool maps.

Well, if like me, you're unfamiliar with the Republic of New Africa.

As I learned, it was not a nation.

It was a radical group that was a spur, an offshoot, a splinter group from the Black Panthers.

Now I know that you know about the Black Panther Party being raised in Oakland, You grew up where they came up.

You were raised right here in Black Panther Country.

Were people still talking about the Black Panthers when you were a kid.

When you're growing up, you have like people like, you know what, my sister was in the Panthers.

My friends in high school, their parents, okay, and same with my brothers friends.

Their parents were Black Panthers.

My grandma donated the snick.

Oh yeah, a student Non Violent Coordinating Committee.

Nice.

So do me a solid and pretend like you don't know about the Panthers so I can tell you more them.

I don't know anything.

I've seen the film Black Panther and Black Panther Two, not that story.

So as the Panthers might say, let me let this wrap on you, sista.

Yes.

The Black Panther Party for Self Defense was a black power group started by two Oakland locals, Huey P.

Newton and Bobby Seal.

They met at where Merrit Coule, There you go, and they started talking about what they could do to push forward the civil rights movement.

By the time the Panthers got started, Malcolm X had already been assassinated in Harlem, which changes their perspective on how they can get their people free.

And they definitely weren't down for mlka's spiritually informed, nonviolent approach.

In fact, quite the opposite.

Huey Newton and Bobby Seele believed liberation started at the end of a gun, and so in nineteen sixty six, these two young black men start.

The Panthers as a militant group meant to provide protection and safety to black communities these days.

Are known for a few things.

One predominantly is their look, because the Panthers look cool.

That's why Beyonce had her dancers dress up like them for the Super Bowl performing because it's iconic, right.

They wore as you know, black leather jackets.

They wore their hair natural, and they topped that off their afros with the black berets.

Now, the Panthers were also known for another thing that everybody remembers.

Guns, Yeah, namely shotguns.

You see, the Panthers took advantage of America's Second Amendment and they openly carried guns and shotguns and they drove around Oakland at night, following the police as the cops patrolled black neighborhoods.

They called this cop watching.

Now, they were meant to stop violence by the police.

They weren't trying to start none.

They just want didn't want there to be none.

So this was the opposite of what MLK was doing.

Right.

Yeah, of course that immediately got the attention of the police when they got a bunch of brothers following them around with shotguns sticking out the windows.

And also the powers that be also took notice because black men with shotguns will catch attention in America.

Oh.

Now, what the Panthers are less well known for, but what was really the most radical thing they did was feed and care for people.

Like they opened free health clinics.

The Panthers were very much focused on health.

Specifically, they opened up these spots where they gave out free food to folks in the hood, namely their free Breakfast for Children program.

They made sure that school children didn't go to school with hungry bellies, because you know, hungry belly is a hard at belly to educate well.

And you look at these neighborhoods, like in West Oakland in particular, where they were kind.

Of most active.

It's active.

It's what we call today a food desert.

So you don't have the supermarkets, you have like a corner store, and they don't have the nutritious food exactly that people need.

And you know, there's so much research proofs that children need the breakfast.

And you have to feed your brain in order to have even curb behavioral issues as well.

You can focus yea, not act out.

Yeah, And so if the schools aren't going to provide the breakfast because you know, parents can't, then it's up to the community.

And that's a lot of what Sneak did.

Yeah.

And then also when you're talking about the guns, the Panthers in essence created the strict gun laws we have here in Californa.

Yes.

In fact, all of the federal gun laws come from California first did it, And then the federal laws were because of like, oh, we can't have these brothers out there open carrying guns.

Yeah.

So yeah, gun writer, I guess gun control begins as a response to the Panthers.

Yeah.

Now, you know who absolutely hated their free breakfast for children program.

Now, since I know you know the answer, and since you do phenomenal celebrity impressions, would you mind phrasing your answer as an impression of the man the head of the FBI who despised the free breakfast for children program.

I can do this.

I haven't.

I'm rusty.

I know, I know, but I mean I've said that before and then it comes out it's like perfect.

You're a natural, I know.

So have a bottle smith Jack Goova.

I'll like to watch you go pant on the top.

Spot all.

I mean, did you feel like he was in the room.

It was scary good.

It was like Jaye Groover was right here in the studio.

Wow, okay, well watch you go peep on the toilet.

I don't know what's up with him.

Well, he likes to watch.

Yeah.

So in nineteen sixty nine, the most powerful law man in the land, the head of the FBI, mister jig Or Hoover, once said that the Black Panthers free breakfast for children program made the Panthers the quote greatest threat to the internal security of the country.

Yeah, he was terrified of brothers giving out free food to children.

You know, we have a problem with that today.

People don't want to give out free meals to kids, breakfast or lunch.

And it absolutely drives me nuts because I've worked with kids and it's not just a color line thing.

E definitely, but I've worked with kids who are, you know, struggling in poverty and in like programs, and they if you're eating a bag of chips and sodas for breakfast, and even if your parents have means, you know, these kids aren't doing it.

And they get to school and it's like, as our responsibility as a society to deliver good citizens.

And that's how you do it, you know, you feed them and you educate them, feed.

The mind, feed the body.

Yeah, well, as you work very well.

Know.

He saw this as a threat because it makes no sense until you realize you wanted to maintain the poverty, because hungry bellies also maintained the powers that be.

Sure, So that's why the FBI went full on scorched earth against the panthers.

Their free food was giving hope to the next generation, and that would upset the American capitalist system.

Well, and if you hobble a populace, you have a malleable populace, you have an ignorant.

Populace, scared populist.

Yeah.

So it's like you don't want strong strong men coming up stronger, yeah.

And questioning the way that the world is working.

So, now, if you're the most powerful law man and you decide you can't have all these this free food being handed out to children, the FBI decides to launch a program to stop it.

They launched co Intel Pro.

We've talked about that program before in previous episode about activists who broke into an FBI office and they discovered the files that then laid out the bureau's secret nefarious plans.

Anyway, thanks to informants and undercover FBI agents who joined the Panthers, by nineteen seventy one, this organization was mostly in disarray, right, Like, there's all sorts of problems that people who had lost hope and then the Panthers just the had gotten waylaid by FBI informants.

And however, there were still young revolutionaries who wanted to shake up the world, so they formed splinter groups like the Republic of New Africa.

So this group gets formed in nineteen sixty eight, the same year MLK was assassinated and the civil rights movement found itself also in somewhat disarray.

It gets formed in that long hot summer sixty eight when America cities were regularly burning with race riots.

The dream of the Republic of New Africa was very simple.

They were separatists.

They wanted a state for black people.

They wanted to take some land from America and establish this black state, the Eyed Land in Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, Louisiana, basically the area we call the Black Belt.

Yeah, and it's because historically there have been a large black population of enslaved people living well.

And because of also the rich soil, so you can track it.

It's like the Piedmont region and that's why they had so many of the agricultural efforts in that region.

Yes, because of the black soil, yeah, black belt.

Between those two factors it gets the So I don't think I need to tell you what Jagger Hoover thought about giving up land to create a black state in America.

He said he hated it.

You'd be right, you'd be today's big winner.

Now.

Interestingly, Betty Shabbaz, the widow of Malcolm X, was the second vice president of this new organization.

Oh really, I didn't know that she got involved with this because the group had support from Malcolm X's operation after his passing.

So this group was a legit organization, and just like the Panthers, the Republic of New Africa becomes an obvious target for Jaeggar Hoover's right.

They weren't like black Star line, like back to Africa.

No, they were like here, we.

Had been here, established, we want our.

Own state here.

Interesting, Yeah, you know the Mormons have Utah.

We want a state.

So this obviously leads to violent confrontations with law enforcement, which obviously we're going to skate past the shootouts and the law enforcement officers who were killed in those shootouts, since that would violate our one percent rule for murder.

Right.

Instead, we'll focus on the crimes that were far more ridiculous and far more fun.

I like that as a black man hijacking a Canadian airplane insisting they fly him to the destination of his choice, which is what I came to hear to tell you about today.

But first, let's take a little break and when we get back, we'll get to the skyjacket.

Yes, we're back, Elizabeth.

You ready to get to some skyjacket?

Yes?

Please.

So after Jaeger Hoover and the FBI put the full force of the secret co Intel program to work to kill off the Black Panthers for daring to give school children free food, and the movement splinters, and as I said, one of these splinter groups becomes this black separatist movement, the Republic of New Africa.

This is what my man Patrick Critten joined.

So he's involved in all of this radical craziness.

In nineteen seventy, he was a twenty three years old revolutionary, which means he got involved in the kinds of things that twenty three year old revolutionaries do, thinking he's invincible and nothing's going to happen to him.

For instance, he became an amateur bomb maker.

It's always at the bomb right, and it doesn't ever pan out.

Well, no, they're cheap to make, well, I know, but.

We the anarchist movement to us that, like, it doesn't really get you that far.

And it's hard to win fans to bomb makers.

Yeah, yeah, teddy k Ted Kaczynski.

Oh yeah, exactly.

I mean you can, you can get headlines, but you're not gonna get a lot of public support, right, and it doesn't Giving school children free food is a much better pass.

Without using federal dollars.

That's the thing too, Like you're giving out food and it's like nobody's business.

Yeah.

Anyway, So anyway, we have Patrick Criton, amateur bombmaker, twenty three years old, and he's working in New York with other young radicals working in secret bomb making labs, like on the Lower East Side of New York.

Now, can you imagine being an amateur bomb maker in.

The Lower East Side of New York at that point.

You're working with recipes from the Anarchist Cookbook, which has been proven to be an incomplete recipe book to say the least.

By the way, I think I should do an episode about the Anarchist Cookbook.

That whole story is wild.

Yeah, but long story short about his amateur bomb making career.

One day, he and his compatriots accidentally blew up their bomb making lab.

Oh surprise.

One of the young radicals unfortunately died in this accident, but my man Patrick Critton emerged unharmed.

However, NYPD cops they found black panther pamphlets and booklets in the debris which told them who was responsible for the explosion.

They also found enough to pin him to the explosion.

So now, when Patrick isn't making amateur bombs in the basements of the Lower East Side, he got busy doing the other thing that young revolutionaries were doing in the early seventies, which was robbing banks.

Oh yeah, because a revolution needs money exactly, and what better way to get money than rob a bank's where they keep it.

Now, personally, if I were a young radical i went and rob banks, I don't know who I would rob.

Who would you rob?

Pimpson drug dealers.

Oh yeah, well they're not going to go to the cops.

They can't.

I lost my money from my profits that I earned illegally from.

They deserve to be wrong, yes for sure.

But like the drug dealers will come for you, Well, they.

Got to find you.

You ambush them, I mean, trust me, these are like obviously.

You're already in artel You're already.

Exactly, you're in a violent world, you know, as a young revolutionary.

Do this in the early seventies, yes, exactly today.

Today with the next cartels.

No, no, no, no no, because if you rob the pimps and the drug dealers, the community would have your back.

You'd be like Robinhood figures.

The community would they be grateful for you dealing a blow to the sorts of crimes that destroyed the community.

If you wore like a cape in the costume while you did it, oh my god, Saren.

You'd be a hero to the kids there.

It is so obviously they chose not to do this because you know, they were at war with the society and they wanted to make a bigger stance, so they wanted to take money from the man.

Yeah, exactly, you're sticking it to the institutionem hmm.

Now a man Patrick Critton is revolutionary homies.

Obviously they go the other way.

They rob banks, and as you might imagine, being amateurs at that as well, it did not go well.

So I mean, sure they did get away with some bank robberies.

They one hundred percent did that up on the Upper East Side in New York where the rich swells lived.

But eventually things went sour one day and the police came into play.

On July twenty ninth, nineteen seventy one, Patrick was the lookout for a bank robbery at Broadway in ninety fourth Street in Manhattan.

It spiraled out of control.

Hostages ended up getting taken.

Police arrive in time to stop them.

There's a shootout with the NYPD.

Two people get hit by gunfire, another man gets killed.

It was bad.

And now I've definitely used up our one percent guarantee with this story.

I'm looking at the at the dial on the wall, the needle.

It's a hard one percent.

Yeah, I don't have anywhere glass to go.

You keep it up.

I'm gonna just cut your mic.

Luckily, this is it.

This is all I got for you anyway.

Again, Patrick Critton manages to escape unharmed after he and his fellow young fearless revolutionaries used the hostages as human shields to cover their attempt to flee.

Now he's officially a wanted man.

See that's the thing is that you say, I'm doing this like for the people to stick it to the man.

No you're not.

You're you're traumatizing regular people.

This is why you got to rob Himpson drug dealers.

Him talking about you need to do a Ted talk.

I really should.

So.

At this point, Patrick is twenty four years old, He's facing serious charges.

So what does he do?

Well, just like Rick James fleeing from the Vietnam Draft, he takes off and crosses the border to Canada.

Nice.

It's so nice there, Oh you better believe it, eh.

Unlike Rick James, though, he doesn't move in with a young Neil Young and start a band I know.

Instead, he starts planning for his next revolutionary action.

He's an armed wanted man kicking around Canada and at some point, now, at some point though, he gets his hands on a grenade, like you know, like one of those like pineapple grenades.

Yeah, and that just happens upon one Well.

I think he knew some revolutionaries.

You're like, man, you need to get some protection.

There.

Here's a grenade they're retiring and they like, will it you know what, take box of stuff, like you already have a copy of The Anarchistic Cook.

Okay, fine, Oh but this grenade.

Oh, pineapple grenade, that will be handy.

Thank you so much.

He also gets a thirty eight pistol, because you know, it's a small pistol, something you can secret on your person.

Yeah.

So with that, he decides, I am now armed enough to put my new plan into action.

Yeah.

It's the day after Christmas nineteen seventy one, Boxing day exactly in Canada, the day it's a holiday boxing day, and that's the day he decides will be the date of his next revolutionary action.

So he heads out to the airport at thunder Bay, Ontario, which, if you're unfamiliar Canadian geography, it's in northwestern Ontario.

It's a it's a city located on the banks of Lake Superior.

Yeah, and that's where this young radical boards in air Canada flight to Toronto.

He has with him his little snub nose thirty eight and the aforementioned grenade.

One grenade please one.

And back then there weren't all the metal detectors, so he is easily able to sneak his gun and his grenade onto the flight.

The flight takes off, it's airborne.

Once the seat belt light goes off, the flight tendants begin drink service.

Patrick Critton orders and as he's like, you know, up there enjoying the flight, he bides his time and then he decides like, Okay, I'm gonna go for it.

But rather than me tell you about him going forward, Elizabeth, I'd like you to close your eyes as a close and I'd like you to picture it.

Elizabeth, you are happily situated in a jump seat on an Air Canada flight from thunder Bay headed to Toronto.

The takeoff was uneventful, the flight starts out quite smoothly.

You pass up through the clouds and then you're there in the wild blue yonder, high above the Earth, looking down on the green expanses far below.

That's your signal to get up, because you are a flight attendant working this flight, which means it's time for you to offer the passengers a refreshment, perhaps a snack of peanuts.

At one row, you greet an older lady and her seat mate, a young black man with a resplendent and wellcroif daffro.

He looks up at you, and the lady is busy reading from a copy of Life magazine.

You ask if either of them would care for drinks or snacks.

They both say yes to the drinks, no to the snacks.

The lady asks for an orange juice on ice, the young man asked for ginger ale in the can.

You pour the drinks and then hand them over to the passenger.

Both begin to enjoy their tasty cold beverages while you attend to other rows.

The young man pulls out a pen and he scribbles a note on the napkin he received with his can of ginger ale.

Half hour or so later, when you come back around to collect the empty glasses, the young black man hands back his empty can of ginger ale.

He also hands you his handwritten note.

Curious, you take the note.

It's not the first time someone has slipped you a note.

You read it, and then you gasp.

Turns out the handwritten note is not a love note.

Instead, it reads think we have fragmentation grenades and a thirty eight caliber revolver take me to the captain, we are going to Havana.

This is no joke.

That's how the skyjacking begins.

You think, man, he looked like such a nice young man.

I would have never suspected he was a political terrorist.

You've heard this happens, but you've never expected it to happen to you.

As instructed, you take the terrorists to meet the captain.

Meanwhile, the young man from seat seventeen A with the grenade and handgun is a most considerate terrorist because even though he hijacks the plane, he tells the pilot that the plane is allowed to continue on to Toronto, And so when the plane touches down in Toronto, the young man allows everyone else who's not part of the flight crew to leave the plane.

Then, once the plane is evacuated, he calmly orders the pilot to take off again.

For the next few hours, you nervously watch the ground far below as the plane diverts south across the United States.

First you see the farmlands of the Midwest, the rivers and patchworks of fields that gives way to the mountains of Appalachia, which then once again turns back to the patchwork quilled of farmland of southern Georgia and northern Florida.

That eventually becomes the swampy expanses of the Everglades, which finally gives way to the Miami area, soon followed by the string of aisles of the Florida Keys connected by a ribbon of low Bridge Roads.

What's strange is that the whole time the terrorist who hijack your flight isn't being mean and scary, quite the opposite.

He keeps making jokes.

He's showing you pictures of his family and children.

You even find yourself laughing often.

You never expect a terrorist to have a lively sense of humor.

Then you see the bright blue of the Caribbean waters and finally your new destination, the port city of Havana, Cuba.

You wonder if you're going to have to become a pawn in his political intrigue.

You didn't bring clothes for the climate in Cuba.

However, once the plane lands, the young man with the grenade and handgun thanks you and the rest of the flight crew for being so cooperative.

He then says he's goodbyes, wishes you luck on your flight home, and he happily deep planes.

He seems he just needed a ride to Cuba.

After he steps off the plane, you see he is met by Cuban military personnel.

Meanwhile, the pilots do not wait around.

They tax you down the runway and head for the safety of the sky.

As the plane climbed back up into the clouds, you think to yourself, Wow, what a strange day.

But now you have one hell of a story for your next blind data at a Toronto singles bar.

So there you go.

My man Patrick's done it.

He got himself to Havana.

If I'm a lady who orders the orange juice, I'd be like I would have wanted to go to Havana, Like, give.

Me a chance.

I've always wanted to go to Do they still have the casinos?

NOA okay.

So, unlike his amateur bomb making career, his work as a lookout for bank robberies, this time his career as a radical criminal goes off without a hitch.

Well, and he's lucky that.

I mean, he was on a short haul flight and they had enough fuel to get right to Havana and then hop up.

I mean, they're obviously going to go right.

To Miami Atlanta.

But wow, I know I was struck by that as well.

I'm guessing he probably got some fuel in Toronto, like topp her off.

I don't know, Oh yeah, I could see that maybe.

Yeah, yeah, it wasn't in the news stories.

They didn't have all the particulars of like and then he had the gas.

Sharts come out logistics.

Yeah.

So now, my man Patrick Critten, he's in Havana, Cuba, which, as you probably know, means he's safe from both American and Canadian law enforcement since Cuba didn't have any sort of extradition treaty with either country, which means even though he showed up with a stolen airplane, Cuba wasn't going to send him back to face justice.

But being a young revolutionary who looked up to what Fidel Castro and che Guavara had done in Cuba with their successful revolution, he expected he'd be received and welcomed as a fellow revolutionary.

What he didn't expect was that he'd have to face justice in Cuba.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, because Fidel don't play.

He gets arrested in Cuba, he's not welcomed as a fellow revolutionary.

Instead, he's handing an eight month long prison sentence.

Well, I mean think about it.

You did the episode about trying to kill.

Him, right, Yeah, six hundred and thirty eight ways to try to kill you.

So he's gonna think like, is this one of the ways, whether it's spot off you know this like Trojan Horse of this guy who's in the like the regalia, he looks like like the revolutionary costume totally and he's going to come in and somehow he got a ride on a Canadian jet and they just dumped him and left.

And he brings no people with him, No, just him by himself.

All he's got is his gun and his grenade.

He one of his family.

I'd be like, yes, son, like this is I don't trust this?

Yeah, exactly.

What better way for the CIA to sneak some guy in than just sent one guy hello.

Assault jaired hoover in front of him and if he's like wait what oh no, never mind, Oh we caught him slipped up.

You messed up there, dude.

So he gets sent to a special prison that Fidel has arranged.

Four skyjackers.

Wait, there were so many hijackers coming into Cuba with diverted flights.

They had a place called Casa de Transitos, which translates to mean house of hijackers.

It was a prison just for hijackers.

That's the other thing.

He's probably like, how do I get it through their skulls?

We don't want you guys here.

Yeah, there were sixty of them in the house.

Date transitos sixty hijackers at the Yes.

So because he couldn't have your legit or not, so you had to, like, you know, suss you out in prison.

Yeah, And like most Cuban prisons, it was not somewhere you wanted to be.

It was not a minimum security facility with pleasant amenities.

No, it was a tropical prison.

Each hijacker had to sell.

That was four feet by four feet, your kids sixteen square feet.

Oh yeah, not enough to lie down.

You're sitting there in the fetal position if you want to sleep.

It was a rough eight month prison stay.

Yeah, so much for the revolutionary solidarity.

So after serving his eight month sentence, the young revolutionary gets released.

Now was he embraced by Cuba and treated as a fellow revolutionary.

They put him on a raft.

No, But if you guessed hell no, you would be right there.

Because instead he was forced to work in the backbreaking sugarcane fields, and if you know anything about the history of Cuba, that's where the slaves used to work.

He's now doing the slave labor of early colonialism and he's stuck working at these slave labor conditions for two years, basically another form of outdoor prison.

Oh man, I guess he didn't see that coming when he was dreaming about going to Cuba.

You know, it's we had.

There's the dream of the revolution and then the reality we see that played out over and over.

It completely because who would ever steal a plane in order to become a slave in Cuba?

You know, like that chits is not in the cars.

Yeah.

Eventually he gets free of the sugarcane fields after two years and he leaves Cuba.

At this point he's like, I have enough of Cuba, so long feed out right?

Yeah?

You know?

Is it viacn dios my Brosa.

So since he's an international fugitive now he's limited to where he can relocate, so he picks Tanzania.

He goes over to Africa and that's where he becomes a school teacher.

Now finally his life begins to improve.

At this point, he's like twenty seven years old.

Wow, he's had a rough couple years now.

Naturally, even though he's an international fugitive, he still desires a normal life.

So that's what he does.

He builds himself a normal life in Tanzania.

He falls in love, he gets married, he has two boys.

He works as a history teacher.

Things must have been good for him or at least passable, because he stays in Tanzania for twenty years.

Wow.

Yeah, he becomes a prince productive, respective member of his community.

He volunteers at church.

I mean, he's doing the whole bit, school teacher.

But I guess he missed America because in nineteen ninety one he applied for a new US passport.

What and this is my favorite part of his story.

Sorry, he applies for his US passport using his actual name.

The man is a wanted international fugitive from justice.

Yeah, and he's like, is Patrick Critton?

I mean, I understand missing the US, but like, come on, you've got like you've built a.

Life, Yeah, exactly, might as well stay in Tanzania or if you're going to try to come back to America pick another name.

Brother went to Tanzania totally.

And also, by the way, they never stopped trying to bust international fugitives.

Oh yeah, it's like a big deal.

So he's apparently far more optimistic than I would be, because he's like, yes, I would like one US passport please.

My name is Patrick Crises.

Yeah, like nineteen ninety one.

I guess whoever was at the State Department received his application.

They didn't cross check the list of international fugitives and the FBI's most wanted list because his passport application gets approved.

Way, he gets a new US passport sent to him in Tanzania, and I assume one for his wife and a couple for his two boys.

Yeah, now, my man, he doesn't return to the US right away.

He like lets his cool off a little bit.

He waits a few years, and then in nineteen ninety four, he moves back to the United States.

He flies from Tanzandia into New York.

Wow.

There when he gets to customs, he presents his new US passport.

Elizabeth, what do you think happens when this wanted fugitive lands in America?

This brand new passage with only one stand.

It's one thing to get the passport, it's another to walk through customs.

Totally, So customs officials are all smiles, and they welcome him back to the US.

Oh really.

After his warm welcome, he sets up in New York and he goes to work as a school teacher and you know that that takes fingerprinting and background checks and it did back in nineteen ninety four.

Wait what yes, So keep in mind he's using the exact same name for back when he's a revolutionary robbing banks, building bombs, skyjacking planes, and he gets to become a school teacher.

He passes the background What background checks were they doing?

Oh?

Man?

Yeah?

Right, So he also passes multiple background checks because he also goes to work for the New York Board of Education as an SAT Prep class teacher his well, not just a substitute teacher, but like, oh okay, we really want to check you.

And then as his new but still same old self, he moves upstate to Mount Vernon, New York, and he gets another school teacher job and where he also works as the director of a youth shelter in Westchester County.

So instead another district that should be they tested.

Him again, so he somehow stays under the radar for years.

Wow, but you know how they say no good d goes unpunished.

This is a perfect example of how that.

Saying came to be deed goes unpunished either.

Yeah, definitely know those, but no good d.

Because back in Canada, there was this one detective who was part of a newly formed cold case unit.

Yeah, and by now it's two thousand and one and there's this new investigative tool called the Internet.

So one day, this one Canadian detective, Donald Jorgensen, who was part of the newly formed cold case unit, opts to use this wondrous new tool, the Internet, to help him solve the backlog of cold cases.

As his boss, Superintendent Edward Toy tells it, he wanted to know what was the oldest case we had and this was it.

Eh So, the first successful plane hijacking in Canada, dating back to nineteen seventy one.

So Detective Jorgenson starts to investigate.

He types the name Patrick Critton into the search bar and boom up pops the name of a humble schoolteacher working at Upstate New York.

You see, Patrick was featured in a news story about working at a youth shelter.

Patrick.

The newspaper story was from March of two thousand and one from the Journal News of Westchester County.

In the story, a local school teacher named Patrick Critton is cited for his work with disadvantage black youth at a local youth shelter.

It's a feel good story.

The story talks about how he's the director of the Community School Initiative in Mount Vernon and how he spends his days mentoring kids, doing all this good work in the community.

The Canadian cop reads this and he's like, I think that's our Skyjackery.

Oh no, and he thinks to him, stuff, we can get this, Holser, we know right where he is.

However, first to have to prove that this beloved school teacher and youth mentor is the same guy as the wanted international fugitive terrorist.

Yeah, just because they have the same name doesn't mean it's the same guy.

Elizabeth.

Okay, let's take another break and after some ads, we'll see how this tale of cops and robbers plays out.

Elizabeth seven, we're back, ready to hear how this one wraps up very much So yes, okay, So we have our Canadian cold case detective detective Jorgenson who's found a lead by using Google, but he's not certain it's the same man as the wanted international fugitive terrorist.

Yeah, Like, what are the odds?

And a wanted man would still be using the same name and working in the same state where he pulled off his crimes.

Yeah, Plus he would be highly embarrassing to be wrong and to harass an innocent school teacher.

So the detective knows he needs more confirmation before they can spring into action.

Yeah, So Detective Jorgenson reaches out to the NYPD and the FBI.

He contacts the Joint Terrorist Task Force because hijacking a plane is considered terrorism, and he tells them what he's found just by using Google in.

The FBI and the NYPD are like, wow, why didn't we think of that.

Two thousand and one, oh, early.

Two thousand and one, mar that's what you just typed his name into the search bar and you found him.

Oh, we got to start trying that anyway.

The FBI and the NYPD Joint Terrorist Task Force puts Patrick Critton under surveillance, and they also compare Patrick Critton of two thousand and one with what they know about the young revolutionary who skyjacked a plane back in nineteen seventy one.

Yeah.

The two men turn out to be the same height, about five foot four.

They check his old employment records and they find that Patrick Critton graduated from Hunter College back in nineteen sixty nine and he worked as a public school teacher briefly, which lines up with two thousand and one Patrick Critton, who works as a school teacher in the summer and he runs the youth shelter the rest of the year.

The NYPD detectives also find an old fingerprint card from nineteen ninety four, patrick Critten first returned to the US and started to work as a substitute teacher in the Brooklyn School District.

The detectives compared that to a fingerprint card dating back to nineteen sixty nine when he was a school teacher originally, and the two fingerprints seem to match.

Yeah.

In order to avoid any lawsuits or bad publicity, NYPD and FBI they want to get stronger evidence that this is the same Patrick Critten, as these are not two different men with very similar fingerprints, So they came up with a plot to trick him into giving them a more recent fingerprint, one that they can match to some evidence that was taken from the plane hijack.

Ye.

Now the FBI, they start staking his home.

They stake out his work, the school where he's teaching summer school, so they were familiar with the route he took to and from work.

And they dream up the perfect trap to snag a kind heart like Patrick, something he would fall for.

And they decide to use an imaginary missing kid.

Oh MANPD.

Yeah, So on August fifteenth, two thousand and one, the investigators, they post a bunch of flyers up the neighborhood around Patrick Critton's home, then asked for help to find this missing girl who's taken from the Bronx.

And they also have some detectives working as undercover on the route and they're working as like volunteers, and the same route that they know he walks each morning to work.

And they have had these detectives out there asking passerbys for help to find this missing child, just like they knew he would.

Patrick walks past them and one of the NYPD detectives stops Him's like, hey, mister, have you seen this little girl?

They hand him a photo of the missing girl.

Happy to help, Patrick takes a look at it and he nope, hands it back to the cops and he said he had not you know, had not seen the girl, and boom, here's your photo back, as Inspector Wells of the NYPD recalls, he touched the photo and handed it back and that's it.

We got prints on him.

Five days later they get the results back from forensics.

The prince on the photo match Prince taken from a can of ginger rail from the hijacked place.

See that's up until this point.

I was like, he could say that.

When I was in New York, there was a guy that I hung around with who was like a cuckoo revolutionary and he must used to use my identity, use my identity to do this, and that wasn't me.

You know.

He stole a bunch of my stuff and my passport was one thing.

Mm hmm.

Now he's tied directly to the hijacking thanks to a can of ginger ale.

Oh Patrick, Yeah, So the n YVD they call the cold case detective Detective Jorgenson up in Canada and they tell him to pop on down to the Stays because we found your man.

To detect him.

Jorgensen gets on the first available flight that does not get hijacked.

This is two thousand and one, and things are a little more kosher then for now.

Well, and it's it's August two thousand and one.

At this point, Elizabeth, it's September ninth.

Stop it Saturday.

International joint task forts of Canadian detectives, FBI agents and NYPD detectives knock on the door of Patrick Critten's first floor apartment in Mount Vernon.

When he opens the door and he sees all the law enforcement gathered from the international task force created specifically to bust him, Patrick doesn't start shooting, doesn't go for one grenade, He doesn't slam the door in their face and try to flee out the back.

Instead, he calmly says, what took you so long?

I've been waiting for that knock on the door for seven years direct quote.

Wow.

News of his arrest breaks a few days later, But the news of his arrest after his thirty year life on the LAMB as an international fugia dive from justice is totally overshadowed because there's a much bigger terrorist news that breaks on September eleventh, two thousand and one.

Wow.

Yes, that's why his story gets swept under history's right Yeah.

Turns out folks were far more focused on a different news story of that day, Elizabeth.

Yeah.

However, the New York Times still covered his arrest in the morning edition on nine to eleven.

No way, the New York Times news stary reported that quote, thirty years after a Black Power revolutionary hijacked a jetliner from Ontario to Cuba and disappeared, Canadian and federal authorities matched the fingerprints he left on a can of ginger ale in the airplane with those of a teacher in Westchester County and charged the teacher with the crime yesterday.

That's incredible.

Now, the cops admit that the had to admit rather that the statue of limitations for his bomb making and the bank robbing had expired, so he was not going to be charged for any of his crimes in the United States.

Okay, but there was still the skyjacking.

The terrorist charges did not have a statute of limitations.

Interesting because yeah, they just don't expire.

So he was taken into a Manhattan courtroom.

He's charged with armed robbery, kidnapping, an extortion from the skyjacking.

The arresting officers described the former revolutionaries being relieved that his life on the land was finally over, and they said his personal demeanor was quote polite, helpful, and accommodating.

Wow.

Yeah.

So when the news of his arrest breaks, the New York Times interviewed his current colleagues and co workers, like, for instance, Ronald Ross, the superintendent of the Mount Vernon City School District.

He told The New York Times the students were just devastated.

He was one of the most respected people in the school district.

You couldn't have asked for a more model citizen.

If Mother Teresa had done this or the Pope, I wouldn't have been more shocked.

Oh wow, he went all in.

On the Pope and Mother Teresa.

Yeah, he put it on their names.

Right.

So the principal where he taught summer school, doctor Judith Cronin, said, quote, we really loved this man because he was a real spark in the community and committed to our kids.

He was tops in our book.

A lot of kids cried when he left, but I told him that was his former life.

We can still honor him for the work he did in our building and not abandon all the trust and honor he brought here.

Oh that's really nice.

I thought so, I thought you liked that.

So he was so beloved that the principal had to hold a special assembly at the school to tell them to inform the students about the news of mister Critton being busted by the FBI.

And then hours later, maybe two hours, they held a second assembly to tell the students about nine to eleven plane crashing into the World Trade Center buildings.

Because these their parents are probably you know.

Commuters, well, and it's it's close, it's mount Verb's not that and even if they're not commuters, I mean, like all the all of their law enforcement's going to have to go down to supplement.

To devastating moment.

The whole thing is just so the principle is like, you know, she walks out of the first one, just drained.

That was a tough day for these kids.

Are going to have to have to take some adjustice time, and what a shock for these young kids.

Yay, I just I can't you know.

And then yeah, now it's like okay plus some yes, a million.

Then the scope changes entirely.

So at this point, Patrick Critton gets extradited to Canada to stand trial for his skyjacking, and when his case comes to trial in Canada.

It was a post nine to eleven world.

So this complicates the narrative because as a skyjacker, he typically would have been labeled as a terrorist.

But what Patrick did, having the pilots fly him to Cuba and allowing the plane to safely return to Canada after deplanning everybody in Toronto, and then also nobody gets harmed, and he's he's, you know, comparing him to the nine to eleven hijackers and what they did.

You've got this Canadian prosecutor who's like, he's like, okay, let's just focus on the revolutionary bomb maker and the bank robbing and the kidnapping and talk about that instead of because otherwise you're like, he wasn't really dangerous.

He was like joking with the people on the plane about that.

If it's like, it's pretty hard the statute of limit Canadian country.

Yeah, I don't know Canadian law.

Yeah, I don't know if they're allowed to introduce that information.

If it was law and order, I could tell you no.

But this is real.

I don't know.

So the prosecution doesn't have to.

They aren't so hamstrung by the comparisons to the much more heinous flight hijackers because Patrick Critton he pleads guilty to the charges of extortion and kidnapping, so that means the judge doesn't seek the standard ten to twelve year sentence and instead gives them a more lenient five year sentence.

To explain their choice of leniency, the judge for his case pointed out that he hadn't harmed anyone in the commission of his skyjacking, and that quote the crew said that he was joking with them and showing them pictures of his children.

Yeah.

So Patrick Critton was locked up in Canadian prison and then he gets released early in June two thousand and three for good behavior.

Upon his release, he's deported back to the US where he doesn't have to stand trial for the bank robbery and the bomb making revolutionary activity since, as I said, statute limitations have expired.

So when the principal of the school where he taught summer school finds out that he's free, she's all excited.

Doctor Croner reportedly told the press the sixties were some crazy times.

People were passionate about things, and Patrick was committed to the panthers and to a cause.

Now he's committed to helping people here, and we're happy he'll be back in the community.

I love it.

So there you go, Elizabeth is basically the happy ish ending.

I think.

So the young revolutionary steels playing, flies to Cuba, becomes school teacher in Tanzania, and then, defying all logic for a man who's an international fuguitive, if he goes back to the US to return to being a school teacher.

It's incredible.

That is absolutely and I can't believe, like I'm thinking that the Canadian prison is a cake walk compared to the Cuban Jason.

I think we can safely say that, yeah, yeahah.

So perhaps it is like they used to tell me when I was a boy, honesty is the best policy, after all, It's true.

But if I'm ever to become an international fugitive from the law, I am not going by Zarren Burnett the third because I'm gonna have to change up my name.

Maybe I'll go by like Dizzy maguire.

Why don't you just you can use my passport?

There you go, Yeah, perfect, They'll buy it.

So what's a ridiculous digaway?

I think it's what's fascinating is the talking about revolutionaries and this notion of you know, this great grand vision you know that you have and I don't want to call it naive, but you know, you have this idea of how things can go and what you want to fight for.

And then there's the reality of it.

Like I said, we've seen this over and over and over again, and I think you have to temper your desires to meet reality in terms of change.

And I you know, I feel for him because he was in this situation that was for him growing up is basically untenable, you know, and living under a what was a police state, you know, and just fearing for his life and also wanting that, you know, that recognition of his own humanity, and that was denied, you know, growing up in those in that era, and then you know, still gets denied to some today.

Yeah, And so I feel for him, I really do.

And especially the kindness of like dropping everyone off where they had to go.

I know, you guys are like trying to get to a business meeting to see a family member.

You're gonna be just fine.

Yeah, but I'm going to take the plant.

They should have made him an honorary Canadian.

Ridiculous take Thank you for asking so thoughtful of you, I am so thoughtful.

My ridiculous takeaway, Well, it comes to me from the show that I really love Black Sales.

You often hear me watching it in the warm upset, Yeah, at headquarters.

You know the theme song to that show.

Well, there's a point late in this series where these are pirates trying to like basically fight the whole system of the world.

They're trying to get free of everything that's going on in the early seventeen hundreds, right before basically the founding of America.

And there are interesting parallels between them and the Founding Fathers.

But the point that somebody makes is, you know, one of the troubles is when you try to fight the whole world, is you're going up against the whole world.

Yeah, and there's so many more of them than there are of you.

It's a paraphrase, but that's essentially the argument, and I think revolutionaries forget that.

Is you've got to turn the world to your aims as opposed to trying to force change on the world.

Otherwise the world's going to fight back.

And because the world hates change, world hates change, major loves change, but the world of people.

Do not hate change, and people are defensive.

Fear it.

Yeah, and when when challenged, it's very rare that someone says, yeah, you know what, let me think about that or taken into consideration, I might be wrong.

Yeah, and if you do it violently, they definitely fear it.

Yeah.

So there you go.

Now you can move for a talkback to watch this all down.

Of course, I am produce a d Can you favor us with a delicious talk bag?

Oh my god, I love.

Cheat Hey's Sarin.

I wanted to let you know that there is another option other than in ball cremation and solving your body in half.

You can donate your body to the University of Tennessee Knoxville's Body Farm, which does exist, and it will allow forensic anthropologists students to steady your body and your family can can visit your bones after.

So there's another option for you.

Wow, in this place, I think a long time ago, I've.

Seen like a documentary about it.

Really it's incredible.

Like, so, you donate your body and they put your body into like a different they have different scenarios.

Sure to watch decomposition like outside or like shovey in a barrel.

Really.

Yeah, so I can really help forensics exactly so that they can track like you know, the like decomposition and and all these things.

Yeah, it's pretty cool.

Wow, that's so much better than like the Chinese, like they take off all your your scanning and they fill you up with wax and they pose you in a weird way like that Tour of the Bar.

I don't want to do that, and I definitely don't want to do the donor bodies because I don't trust an.

Organ do You're just gonna have some like snot nosed med students poking at your privates.

Yeah this, yeah, she's that's a good chip off there.

I'm so down.

That's so much better than might cut me in half and throw half in the woods.

I really like I like that.

Huh, thank you?

Yes, well, uh obviously we love your talkbacks.

These are great.

You guys are the best.

So please go download the iHeart app.

You can leave a talk back there.

We'll play it on there.

Maybe'll hear your voice here.

And also you can go to Ridiculous Crime on social media.

That's Instagram, Blue sky reach Out.

We always enjoy that as well.

You can go to uh our account.

We have our website Ridiculous Crime dot com, which, by the way, big news Elizabeth.

The website was just nominated for the best new Mongolian Beef and kim Chia Taco in the Bay Area.

You know, that's one of my favorite things.

I'm really hoping we win this one.

So since we're all about tacos here at HQ.

Yeah.

Also, you can go to Ridiculous Crime pod on YouTube.

Check it out, leave a comment like subscribe, you know, tell your friends do all that stuff, and there you go.

Oh, of course, Ridiculous Crime at gmail dot com.

You can send us an email.

We love to read those so and we love to get your crime recommendations.

We've been working on a few that we recently came in, the really good one.

So thank you for those.

And so there you go.

Thank you for listening, and we will catch you next crime.

Ridiculous Crime is hosted by Elizabeth Dutton and Zaren Burnett, produced and edited by the Captain of This Cuba bound plane, Captain Dave Kustin, and starring Anilie rutger As, who did research.

Is by the navigator for this seven forty seven of intrigue, Marissa Brown.

Our theme song is by our in flight house band mister Thomas Lee and Senior Travis Dutton.

The host wardrobe provided by Body five hundred, guest Harry macup by Sparkleshot and mister Andre.

Executive producers are former head of the FAA Ben Bolin and the former President of Bowling Noel Brown.

Ridicous Crime Say It One More Time Grediquious Crime.

Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio.

Four more podcasts from my heart Radio.

Visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.