Slashdot Mirror
Off-Duty Police Officer Steals iPad From TSA Checkpoint
SpaceCadetTrav writes "A recent arrest report shows that an off-duty police officer from Fullerton, CA was arrested on felony grand theft charges for stealing an iPad at a TSA checkpoint in the Miami International Airport. The theft was captured on video surveillance last month and the officer was tracked down just before boarding her plane."
Looks like she thought she was employed by the TSA.
I read the arresting officer's police report via the link. In case you don't intend to (it's kind of boring), I think the highlight is the statement that upon seeing the IPad in the TSA bin, that she placed her bag of chicken over it. Aside from that, I guess any story with the word "IPad" and a photo of Steve Jobs is sure to be interesting to someone. So off-duty-police crime + IPad and Steve Jobs + Bag of Chicken is the combination that makes this story "interesting".
Gently reply
If the item in question the officer allegedly stole was anything other than an iPad, would this story have been posted to slashdot?
Come on, it was a police officer stealing something at an airline checkpoint. Yes of course that would have been on Slashdot, lots of people here have a fundamental distrust of law enforcement and an (admittedly earned) burning hatred of airport security lines designed to separate you from your belongings.
My real question is why the hell anyone making $86k/year would risk throwing everything away to steal something she could have easily bought? She has problems I think beyond just one theft.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
No surprise. Cops are people too, with all the usual failings.
At least this bad cop was arrested instead of "protecting their own", but let's see how he is prosecuted.
The fact that they are actually applying the law equally and not regarding the cop as above the law is the surprise.
If only they'd prosecute police brutality, corruption, and intimidation (particularly of anyone with a camera) with such fervency. Then they might stop looking so much like the thugs they're supposed to protect us from.
If that sounds too categorical, that's for a well-founded reason. The cops who don't abuse power themselves but keep silent when their co-workers do the same are equally guilty. They sometimes call it "the blue wall of silence". I call it the blue wall of cowardice. It is most unbecoming of such otherwise brave people.
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
You'd have to be mentally defective to steal at an airport. They're the most tightly secured and monitored civilian areas.
No, you just have to think you're above the law. That the cop was wrong about this is the exception and not the rule.
The norm is that cops who break the law, including those who engage in unprovoked violence against innocent civilians, receive a paid vacation known as admistrative suspension.
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
Well, Slashdotters generally do not like the TSA and are interested in Ipads. So this is really a two for one story for the nerd community
Is this one of those places where we can expect to see the airport prosecuted for filming a police officer?
Quidnam Latine loqui modo coepi?
Most of the thieves who work for the TSA are actually a lot more sophisticated than this idiot. My co-worker had a macbook pro stolen from him at the airport. He put one into his checked baggage and when he got it back inside he found the love letter from the TSA saying they had inspected the bag and no laptop. What we did find upon closer inspection was a small, but certainly noticeable incision on the top left corner of the bag. We hypothesize, though obviously cannot prove, that this was essentially a signal to the person who took the bag from the inspection point(where there are tons of cameras) to the loading dock for the plane. The area in between is bound to have significantly fewer cameras and is most likely where the theft took place. He complained to the TSA but got the standard note that they take things like this very seriously and how theft is very rare etc. Basically they said "sucks to be you" and he never heard from them again.
Monstar L
It's a cop from California who got caught doing the crime in Florida. That's why.
The cover-their-own stuff happens in other cases because they broke the rules in their own district, thus it's their own department, staffed by their own co-workers, that has the authority to go after them. Yeah, it sounds like a massive ethics violation to me, too. IMO, when a cop is accused of something, it should be the next higher layer up in charge of the investigation (local cop? state investigation. state cop? federal investigation. federal cop? federal investigation from a different part of the country.) There's a reason people ask "who watches the watchers?".
While checking through at the airport a few months back I was going through the standard scans. After placing my items in the bins (o so many bins, damn you electronic devices) I'm left to stand while they take a peek at my penis (to determine if it's worthy of flight).
The agent nearby asks me to keep an eye on my items as they pass through. I suppose if I'm busy watching my things they are free to do other things (like giggle at my pictures). I thought it was kinda odd because who in the right mind would dare defy the TSA under their noses. Still, nearly 20 seconds after the agent mentions me watching my belongings some chick snatches my ipad out of the bin and proceeds to start to walk off. Unfortunately, I can't leave my position of shame and I keep raising my voice while repeatedly saying, "HEY LADY, THAT IS MY IPAD." Eventually, when about 3 or 4 people are staring her down she sets in back in the bin and states she thought it was hers. Ignoring the fact that it was crammed between three other bins that had my possessions and I don't recall her actually picking up an ipad from her newly radioactive items.
In the end, I kept my things and the TSA laughed at my penis some more. Still, it's quite frightening how easy it really is to both nab someones things and then write off what you were attempting.
"You should always go to other people's funerals; otherwise, they won't come to yours." -- Yogi Berra
Show me a /.er that likes TSA, and I'll show you someone who doesn't belong here.
Distrust of government is associated with competence, technical or otherwise. And most of the folks on /. are people who are competent. Competent and or self-reliant people do not feel the need for government to protect them from themselves or imaginary threats. The competent person is capable of feeding and housing himself. He is capable of defending himself as well, when given the opportunity (not disarmed).
TSA is obviously abusing the 4th Amendment, morality, and good plain sense. TSA (and DoHS) is bad government. TSA needs to be eliminated and its duties returned to the airports. DoHS needs to be eliminated and its duties returned to the Treasury Department.
Hoist Number One and Number Six.
This is really the only argument that ever need to be voiced when arguing against laws that make it illegal to record police in public:
Who are Police? They are people. Some people do wrong things sometimes. Thus, some police break the law. Making it illegal for others to record the police only makes illegal behavior by corrupt police easier.
In this instance the officer was not on duty, but it shows that just because you are employed as a Police officer or Government agent doesn't mean your morals are always intact.
And most of the folks on /. are people who are competent. Competent and or self-reliant people do not feel the need for government to protect them from themselves or imaginary threats.
Imaginary threats, yes, but competence and self-reliance alone won't get you to realize that foreign terrorism is an imaginary threat. Most competent people I know don't care too much about it, it's an inconvenience when they want to fly somewhere, and if they're not busy thinking of other things, they might realize the line they're in to go through security is more vulnerable and has more bodies in it than the plane would. Even many of the incompetents I know laugh about fingernail clippers being banned. Still, that doesn't automatically translate into a realization that "TSA is just wasting time and taxes."
And if you don't get to the realization that it's an imaginary threat, there's nothing illogical about wanting the government to deal with it.
Fuck that. I like fried chicken too. It's damned good... well some of it is. I've had not-so-good fried chicken... you gotta know what you're doing and do it right. Just this talk about fried chicken makes me want some. And Watermelon is good shit too. For that matter, I have even developed an appreciation for collard greens. If you want to bash on black people, go after something else. I like the food a lot.
In Miami, Grand Theft is >$300
Fullerton Police Patrol Officer Kelly Mejia used the well-known stealing technique of placing a bag (in this case, a bag of chicken) http://www.fullertonsfuture.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/Mejia-Arrest.pdf over the item and then removing both. People steal cell phones using this method all the time. It happened to me on a bus in Kansas City, MO.
Kelly Mejia makes 86K$US/year and has been an patrol officer for 6 years. When confronted about the pad, she said she was going to keep it.
I have found that most people on the internet assume police are honest, and people are going to say this officer was just the unusual bad apple. The opposite is true. If a person is a cop, the person is a lier and a thief. This officer was so used to stealing she assumed she was going to get away with it (because she was a cop) and was indignant when confronted.
What's actually amazing about this story is that the fellow officers chose to arrest her. She must have done or said something to anger them.
I'm taking bets. I say she doesn't do a day in jail.
(||) Nehmo (||)
http://travelunderground.org/index.php?threads/list-of-tsa-crime-stories-since-december-2010-part-1.127/
http://travelunderground.org/index.php?threads/list-of-tsa-crime-stories-since-december-2010-part-2.128/
Granted this one wasn't actually committed by a TSO but as was mentioned above, airport security checkpoints are prime locations for theft because many seem (or are) deliberately designed to separate you from your belongings.
Tip: You are NOT required to use a TSA-friendly lock to lock your carry-on bag. Keep your valuables inside your bag as it goes through the X-ray and lock it with a secure, TSA-unfriendly lock. If you want to take your laptop out as they insist you have to (many have said they've left the laptop in the bag and the TSA troglodytes haven't said anything about it), lock it to your bag handle with a Kensington locking cable. These steps will help ensure that you're there to watch them if they claim to need to look through your belongings. It also helps prevent them from trying to force you into a private room for a gropedown by picking your bags up and walking off with them.
And yeah, this is a shameless plug, but the site in my sig is a good resource for tracking TSA civil-rights abuses and coordinating political action to fight back against them. There's good advice to be had for putting TSOs in their place at the checkpoint too.
Help protect civil rights from abuse by the TSA - visit TSA News Blog.
http://www.tsanewsblog.com
It speaks about how even low IQ people crave for the single most innovative and powerful device thats bound to rewrite the complete history of computational devices. Obama farts? It's news if he have an iPad in his hand in the moment. Nuclear power plant flooding, is not news because nuclear power plants don't make/use iPads. Get with the program.
It also matters for anybody who travels with electronic devices. The TSA requires you to take your laptop (and tablet) out of your bag and put it on a little tray, out in the open and all by itself, to go through XRAY. Then you have to go through the scanner, so you're separated from your goods for a bit. I'm all for poo-poo'ing an obvious appeal to fanboism for link-bait, but you don't really think that's something important to know?
Okay, here's how it matters for iPad owners:
- You'll lose sight of it.
- Activate the 'find' feature.
- Don't go to airplane mode until you're on the flight.
And for non iPad owners, but owners of other tablets or laptops...
- You'll lose sight of your gadget.
- Encrypt your device.
- You should see if there's a built in GPS that can phone home.
Again, I'm annoyed with Slashdot's use of Apple stories to serve ads, but I just flew recently and I think there's definitely a lot of 'it matters' here to discuss. I'm lucky in that my iPad didn't walk away from me during the security screening. I wasn't too worried about it because it's the cellular version and I have the 'find me' option activated on it. I didn't realize this until this article came about, but I put the iPad on Airplane Mode before we went through security. That was dumb Dumb DUMB of me! The 'find me' option wouldn't work!
This thread could easily be salvaged.
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
You'd have to be mentally defective to steal at an airport. They're the most tightly secured and monitored civilian areas.
Secure? Maybe. Maybe not. But if you're referring to secure from theft, then definitely not.
Example. I'm attempting to clear security in Houston. I'm selected for extra-secure security searching. So my stuff is extra security-secure, right?
If you said, "yes," you'd be wrong.
Actually, all my stuff is at the end of a conveyor 30 feet away. I'd like to keep an eye on it, but I've either got to look away for half a minute while being irradiated, or be distracted for even longer by some guy touching my junk. Do they give a shit that my stuff is just sitting there? Is it "tightly secured"? Why, no, it is not. When I'm done with my extra secure-security, I go to find my stuff and it's gone. All of it.
Good thing I was travelling with my wife. She'd grabbed all my things and was waiting at a bench. But of course someone made sure that she had a right to take my stuff, no? Glad you asked. No. No, she was not hassled as she schlepped away two travelers' worth of carry-ons, outerwear and shoes.
Seriously, if someone can walk away with two pairs of shoes, one pair of which is not for their size or gender, then boosting an iPad is a piece of pie. Easy as cake.
P.S. Wife's colleague only managed to hang on to her passport through outbound checkpoint in Chicago due to helpful stranger seeing unaccompanied passport and looking for matching traveler.
P.P.S. Enhanced pat-down did not detect full tube of Carmex in my jeans pocket. I can't see how a full tube of Carmex poses any threat to air travel, but if you're gonna put your hands in my pants and still don't notice the stuff in my pockets, you may just be there for show. Just sayin',
Now, perhaps you'd say that you need to keep better track of your belongings. Fine. But I'm responding to the parent, so why no go ahead and read that first, um-kay? Especially the "tightly secured" part. I'd also suggest you give that a try and let us know how it works out.
I am not a crackpot.
No doubt you're right, but I'm not confident the people they hire to run those checkpoints are fully up to speed.
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
You apparently do not pay attention to what you read, "off-duty Fullerton police officer" was arrested by "Miami police", so emphatically not one of their own, not even the same state.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
I worked for TSA. I took time around my programming job to do it just for kicks for a couple months. I don't like TSA and I wanted to see why they do it. They work hard to bring in a paramilitary atmosphere. They're very open about it. They like to hire ex-military, security guards and people who have that security fetish.
Most aren't thieves but it happens. Laptops go through without being stolen. It's amazing how many people just toss them in with their clothes all the time. No case, no trying to keep it from moving around. I'd watch TSA employees go through laptops and cameras out of boredom. Playing guitars, waving dildos every single time they came through. Flipping through porn and purposely breaking things in bags. If it said "fragile" that would be taken as "Throw it into the air until you hear things break". They'd catch and fire people stealing drugs, jewelry and the caddy cash in golf bags. Not all of course, but some.
It's a bunch of high school grads gone wild. It has a very high turnover rate. Lots of injuries and if you work for the Feds they won't pay unemployment or medical injury bills unless you're very lucky. I'd watch TSA employees with bad backs and shoulders struggling to pick bags up. People also left for police jobs or rejoined the military.
...Cops are people too, with all the usual failings.
I disagree. Quality officers are supposed to be beyond the *usual* failings. It is quite clear than an officer who absconds with something feels differently about it than a civilian. The difference flows from their duty to honor. Low level officers who cannot maintain their duty are indeed people, sometimes nearing the limits of their capacity.
Copyright Video 1
I don't give a damn whether or not they snicker. They are still violating my personal sovereignty for no damn good reason.
But your personal sovereignty is sooo small !!!
Democracy is a sheep and two wolves deciding what to have for lunch. Freedom is a well armed sheep contesting the issue
I don't think it's a matter of self-reliance, more of a matter of being intelligent enough to realize that the TSA is completely useless, a waste of tax dollars, and (as you said) rapes your constitutional rights.
However, I think most slashdotters are intelligent enough to realize that government is necessary. Nobody is or can be completely self-reliant. Good luck getting from California to New York without roads and bridges or airplanes, for example.
Most intelligent people realize that regulation is necessary. I see the occasional railing against the EPA, but these people are obviously too young to remember a US without the EPA. You young people can't imagine how dirty the air and public waterways were before the EPA. The air around a Monsanto plant was so toxic you literally could not breathe driving past one with your windows down (and few had AC in their cars back in those primitive times). Rivers and streams literally caught fire!
Government is necessary (but don't trust it). The TSA isn't.
The competent person is capable of feeding and housing himself
Not without help. You need land and tools to grow food, tools, labor, and materials to build a house on that land. You need society, and societies need governments. Anarchy results in monarchy.
Free Martian Whores!