Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (UK/US Und.) one who throws fake epileptic fits, either to fool medical assessors, or, when in public, to allow confederates to pick the pockets of a crowd who gathers round the supposed sufferer.

1880		Medical & Surgical Journal 650: McCarty was what is known among criminals as a ‘dummy chucker,’ that is, a person who feigns fits in public places, while his companions pick pockets among the crowd which gathers about him.
1891		Sun (N.Y.) 27 Dec. 10/4: I Was a Dummy Chucker. The curious story of a rogue epileptic and thief [...] Clegg said he chucked a beautiful dummy [in court] right before the Judge.
1894		R.A. Witthaus Medical Jurisprudence 710: The professional impostors of England known as ‘tumblers,’ or ‘dummy chuckers,’ who simulate epilepsy, have frequently been successful in deceiving medical men.
1895		L.C. Gray Treatise on Nervous and Mental Diseases 407: Among the English thieves there is a class known as ‘dummy chuckers,’ whose business it is to simulate a convulsion in a crowded place and thus permit their confederates to rifle the pockets of the sympathetic bystanders.
1906		S.F. Call 7 Oct. 7/1: James Clegg [...] was the king of ‘dummy chuckers’ on two continents [...] the man who had fooled some of the cleverest physicians in England and America.
1911		Hampton’s Mag. Oct. 432/1: Heavy-fumed drinking-places where pocket-slashers and till-tappers and dummy-chuckers and dips forgot their more arduous hours .
1922–24		O.O. McIntyre White Light Nights 17: ‘Dummy Chuckers’ are no longer throwing their fake fits in front of Beefsteak John’s.
1924		O.O. McIntyre ‘New York Day by Day’ 4 Dec. [synd. col.] Karney the ‘Dummy Chucker’ has been sent to Sing Sing for four years. He specialized in fake fits on prominent Broadway corners.
1939		R. Chandler ‘Trouble Is My Business’ in Spanish Blood (1946) 198: Used to be a dummy-chucker, then found out he could bug his way outa raps.
1995		R. Polito Savage Art 461: A tense settlement hearing eventually exposes Mrs. Pettigrew as a ‘dummy chucker,’ a professional accident faker.

2. in fig. use, an attention-grabber.

2003

posting at www.dummies-for-destruction.co.uk 🌐 At best, Chris Evans is a brat, and a dummy-chucker extraordinaire, and for once it’s good to see him getting what he deserves.