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Death Wish Meets GPS: iPhone Theft Victims Confronting Perps
theodp (442580) writes "Thankfully, no one's gone full-Charles-Bronson yet, but the NY Times reports that victims of smartphone theft are using GPS to take the law into their own hands, paying visits to thieves' homes and demanding the return of their stolen phones. "The emergence of this kind of do-it-yourself justice," writes Ian Lovett, "has stirred worries among law enforcement officials that people are putting themselves in danger, taking disproportionate risks for the sake of an easily replaced item." And while hitting "Find My iPhone" can take you to a thief's doorstep, LAPD Cmdr. Andrew Smith urges resisting the impulse to do so. "It's just a phone," he said. "it's not worth losing your life over. Let police officers take care of it. We have backup, guns, radio, jackets — all that stuff civilians don't have.""
Yes, police have all that stuff. On the other hand, they don't give a shit about your iphone being stolen, and will likely never investigate.
because as he said, it's just a phone. Not that confronting the perpetrator is a great idea, but don't expect the full CSI treatment when you report the theft.
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
They forgot to list apathy.
"Even for Slashdot, that was a very obscure reference!" - Anonymous Coward
The reason people are taking this action is because law enforcement deprioritizes this kind of theft. Even thought you know exactly where the criminal is, law enforcement simply won't do anything because it's such a petty crime. Besides, they are busy busting actual criminals like drug addicts and speeders. However, the victims don't see it as a petty crime and since law enforcement won't do their jobs they do the job themselves. LAPD Cmdr. Smith, you say "Let police officers take care of it." I say, "Fine then, do your job since it's half done for you."
A friend of mine was recently mugged, on the doorstep of her home. While the police were in her house asking questions she pulled up the current location of her phone on her laptop. The police did not care. Did. Not. Care. For an hour her phone drifted around a park that was a known after-hours teenager hangout, while the officer asked inane questions. She fumed for weeks. Getting mugged was bad enough, but feeling like the police didn't really care, that all they wanted to do was get the report filled out, made her feel truly helpless.
If the police are unwilling to react to these thefts because they are low priority for them, they have to expect that citizens will have to take it into their own hands. People don't like someone else telling them their problems are trivial. People don't like feeling helpless. They need to believe that there is always something they can do.
-- This sig is only a test. If this were a real sig it would say something witty. --
Perhaps the victims didn't try the police first. But my experience with the police and small property thefts is that they don't feel it is worth their time.
When My vehicle was broken into a few years ago- fingerprints visible all over the window that had been pried open - they didn't even bother to take fingerprints. Clearly minor crimes are not on their priority list.
What should happen is you tell the police you have this program; show them some proof you own the phone; and they go retrieve the phone with the attitude that it is *probably* your phone but not definitely your phone until they hear the side of the people with the phone or see how those people react.
We also need to update our felony amounts. Stealing a phone really only warrants jail time- not prison time. The felony amounts are set too low and make a lot of crimes felonies that would not have been 50 years ago.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
Police cannot do anything.
They need a warrant to enter a home and they cannot get one.
oldhack: "Security is a waste of money until shit hits the fan. 5 minutes later, it becomes waste of money again. "
Didn't anybody forget that all subscription service devices need their subscription fee paid in order for the thing to work? iPhone's "teardown parts price" is not that high... what they're really making money on is the subsidy from the carriers, and the service agreements. Stolen iPhone will 1. Not work for the thieves, and 2. Work against them.
From apathy on the side of the police, that is.
If the police at least tried to get my possessions back, would I bother going myself? Hell no. As the article said, why risk it? That's the police's job, they not only have the training and equipment, they also have the backing of the law.
Vigilantes only emerge when the police drops the ball. Only when there is no other way to get justice, people will take justice into their own hands. That's why a state has to be careful to keep its laws and its law enforcement in sync with what their population considers just. People will only take the law into their own hands if you, as a government, fail.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
The police have said that it's completely acceptable, as they do nothing to stop it even when they have the exact, real-time location of the thief. Should we reinforce that by preventing citizens from cowering to law enforcement's threat of violence?
Donuts. Tell them the perps stole your donuts.
Have gnu, will travel.
We have backup, guns, radio, jackets — all that stuff civilians don't have.
Except the will to actually use it. Recovering I-Phones don't get great media coverage or the adrenaline high that a drug-bust (or maybe an eviction notice).
Lets call it like it is, people don't trust police to take of these problems. After working with police officers a few times, too many of them are jerks. Not all of them, but enough.
We all know that the police generally don't put a high priority on retrieving lost smart phones. So, if someone ever absconds with my smart phone and I use the app that I have on it to track it down, I will simply call the local sheriff's office and tell them that I have located my phone, give them the address, and tell them that in 10 minutes I will be going in locked and loaded to retrieve it. That should give them sufficient time to prevent a more serious crime from taking place.
Lessee:
... Backup, Check ... Guns, Check ... Radio, Check ... Jacket, Check
Google drive
Wiki Weapon + 3D Printer
Pure Evoke
Superdry
Let police officers take care of it. We have backup, guns, radio, jackets — all that stuff civilians don't have.
But obviously civilians have one thing the police officers don't - the WILL to take action.
If the police have been taking these thefts seriously and had sent officers to thief's home instead, then no one would be foolish enough to do it himself.
Yes, it is foolish to confront the thief at his home. What do you think would happen? "Ha ha, you got me, here's your phone."? More likely is the thief would know giving you the phone just proved he stolen your stuff, and now you know where to lead the police to him, thief would be thinking how is he going to silence you?
Maybe after the first few fools got killed, the police will finally take a visit to the locations of stolen phones?
Oliver.
I am SO SICK of the police telling citizens they shouldn't conduct their business. Yes it can be unwise, but the constant drumbeat of 'leave it to the cops' pisses me off.
Good-bye
law abiding citizens in NYC dont have guns, there are a shit ton of guns in NYC however
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
In the rest of the world a stolen smartphone will get bricked, but carriers are working against that in the US. I guess because stolen phones mean people will have to buy replacements and they'll get the kickbacks from Apple and Samsung for that. As long as stolen phones keep working in the US, they'll continue to be stolen.
of course the cops are saying don't do anything. if people realized that they are capable of taking care of themselves the "proper authorities" will have a harder time forcing people to buy a product they may or may not need, or take their weapons, or surveil their every move.
lose != loose
The stolen phone reporting its location in said home should be probable cause.
They say let the cops handle it, yet the cops WON'T go arrest these guys even if you give them the same GPS info. This happens out of frustration from the uselessness of the police to act in these scenarios, not because they think it's the best course of action.
Dead on. The police could do their jobs and get the phone and even take a crook of the streets at the same time. Instead if a location of a stolen phone is reported they just brush it off and tell you that your $500+ item is "easily replaceable" and that you should forget about all of the personal stuff on it. They can't be bothered. I wonder why people respect police less and less every day. I'm surprised that they don't point out that while the police have guns and all that other stuff, and the bad guys likely have guns, in many states the victims don't have guns because the laws prevent it. And prevent you from even having bullet proof vests too!
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
> because they are low priority for them
If they are such a low priority for them, why bother taking the statements and filing the report?
Things you think are in the Constitution, but are not.
"The emergence of this kind of do-it-yourself justice," writes Ian Lovett, "has stirred worries among law enforcement officials that people are putting themselves in danger, taking disproportionate risks for the sake of an easily replaced item."
If the police care, they can go get the phones themselves. People only take it into their own hands when the police ignore them.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
"If anyone should shoot a thief dead over your iPhone it should be us. We're armed to the fucking teeth, thus we are better qualified."
When exactly did we decide to turn our local police departments into paramilitary units? And at what point did they become so proud of that fact that they brag about their kills and their weapons?
We're fighting for freedom all over the world, except the one place we actually need it now...AT HOME.
law abiding citizens in NYC dont have guns, there are a shit ton of guns in NYC however
Granted Wikipedia is not authoritative, but it looks to me like law abiding NYC citizens may own handguns or long guns.
you know I see a market here. Phone bounty hunters.
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
While the smartphone itself may be trivial to replace, all the information on one may not be, and there is the whole deal of some apps that let you save your password...
Unless you were targeted for some specific espionage (you weren't), the phone thief doesn't care about the data on your phone. If they can unlock it, they might take a quick look through your pictures for naked pics of your wife, but they aren't going to use a compute cluster to try to brute force your passcode -- they are just going to wipe it and resell it.
If you have data on your phone that you can't replace, you were bound to lose it eventually anyway - phones die for lots of reasons unrelated to theft. Make regular backups (local or cloud based).
thats true, I was speaking of handguns which are generally used in crimes more than long guns. I should have been more clear
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
Rapid justice, and punishment, for small crimes help prevent the perp moving onto bigger stuff next time. So a minor mugging that's satisfactorily solved could possibly stop the mugger committing further, more serious, offences
I think the reason people are pursuing stolen phones on their own is that the police is going to do absolutely zero about the situation after filling out the incident report, unless the phone happens to show up in some huge haul of stolen goods. The police are not going to raid a house to recover your stolen iphone. It's just not that important to them. (But important enough, apparently, that some law enforcement are lobbying for a manufacturer's kill switch but that's a different discussion.)
If you need an incident number for your insurance, the police will provide that. If you need them to go to that jerk's house and get your phone back, they are not going to do that. It really is that simple.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
They can't deprioritize the job until you have given your statement.
You're an immobile computer, remember?
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
...the good ones are out busting real criminals.
No they aren't. They're writing parking tickets and directing traffic.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
And if you want to gripe about the cops not being willing to do anything about it, that's a man power issue.
Maybe they can catch real thieves instead of spending their time trying to stop people from doing U-turns on 25th street. Which hasn't caused an accident in a decade at least. It's just an easy way to collect money (since the no u-turn signs are partially obscured by trees).
Another thing: police defend their ability to 'stop and frisk' as a way to stop crime. NY is serious about stopping small crimes because it theoretically reduces big crimes. Well, here is something easy they can do.
If the police aren't going to catch criminals, there's not much reason to have them.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Unfortunately that sign on their car door "To serve and protect", they serve and protect the state. Getting back your iPhone does little to serve and protect the state.
Did you know 80 to 90% of the moderators on slashdot wouldn't recognize a troll even if one dragged them under a bridge.
My sister's friend had her phone stolen recently and when she called the LAPD about it, they also refused to do anything about it and pretty much told her that it was not their policy to go chasing after stolen phones. She later attempted to confront the fence that stole her phone and ultimately was unsuccessful in recovering her phone.
Fuck Beta
And if you want to gripe about the cops not being willing to do anything about it, that's a manpower issue
Not when the cops are unwilling to follow up on easy leads while they are instead literally sitting in their cars all day long waiting for speeders because speeding tickets earn their department revenue (and catching muggers doesn't). There's plenty of manpower. The cops just don't want to risk their lives for "just a phone" because they know these are potentially violent criminals that are taking the phones. It's cowardice and avarice, not lack of manpower.
If they are such a low priority for them, why bother taking the statements and filing the report?
Welcome to the wonders of bureaucracy. Suggest reading Kafka to learn more.
Aside: Hey, I finally remembered how to spell bureaucracy without spell check correcting me! Only took years....
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
"and risk the life of an officer." That was the answer from the San Diego police department when my friend's sone lost his iPhone in a major hotel out of the dining room.
My friend is an attorney involved in major San Diego port affairs. Made no diff. "We don't go into that barrio without a SWAT team."
A phone isn't just a cool toy any more. We're pretty dependent on them. It's our way of communicating with people; it contains a lot of data. We spend a lot of time tinkering with it and configuring it to make it just so.
Even if you have backed it up, it's still a; lot of work getting the data back onto the phone. And you'll probably lose something.
Plus it takes time to replace. We are without an essential tool that we assume we'll have, and are no longer able to function well until it's replaced.
Police often wont take care of it...because as he said, it's just a phone.
Today it's a phone, tomorrow it's a laptop and by next week it's an armed robbery of an electronics store. I can understand that the police do not have the resources to track down every petty criminal but when confronted with clear evidence where the criminal is they have a duty to act. It is not only a fantastic public relations opportunity ("I went to the police and they caught the criminal one hour later") it also looks good for the crime statistics and it helps to reduce future crime since many phone thefts are probably opportunistic criminals who, if not caught, will carry on with their experiment to see how many phones/laptops/etc. they can steal before it crosses the police action threshold.
Or the poor unsuspecting guy that bought it off craigslist..
---- Booth was a patriot ----
You're joking, right? Just try to get a pistol permit in NYC. While technically, it's possible, it is neither cheap nor easy. Long guns are only slightly easier (permit still required). Meanwhile, anyone who is cheeky enough to steal and then use your phone is probably not going to be disinclined to buy any of the easily available illegal firearms that can be purchased from a local street thug for a song.
That is because most actually dont have those.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
"We have backup, guns, radio, jackets — all that stuff civilians don't have." What? I have all that stuff.
In the rest of the world a stolen smartphone will get bricked, but carriers are working against that in the US.
The USA has had a stolen phone blacklist for quite some time now. You can check if a phone is blacklisted here. Carriers will also ban a phone from their own network if the owner defaults on their service contract or handset finance agreement.
Phones are still stolen because:
1. Some phones can have their IMEI altered (illegal, but we're talking about criminals in the first place).
2. They can be sold overseas.
3. They can be sold to fools right here in the USA who don't know there's an IMEI blacklist and that they're buying a useless "brick".
4. They have value as parts.
5. Not everything criminal steals needs a logical reason. Some of these low-lives are so trashed on drugs they aren't thinking much beyond "take everything I can grab, sell, buy more drugs."
---
DRM is like antifreeze, to the MPAA/RIAA it's sweet, to the consumers it's poison.
Then why do they have guys with guns guarding banks and jewelry stores?
Then take care of it, you worthless fucks.
Except that the guy who "only stole an iPhone" probably did a lot more. When cops do investigat such things, they also tend to find further crime such as:
* troves of stolen goods
* stolen/duplicated credit cards
* drugs
* links to other criminals and/or organized crime
"look, johnny, there is no such thing as 'phone cops'."
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
Me: I'd like to report my phone was stolen
Police: Go away, all our officers are currently assigned to DUI checkpoints, handing out speeding tickets and looking to roust drivers who might be carrying a lot of cash so we can seize it.
tbh those aren't crimes; a crime by definition is something that is against the law (don't confuse that with right or wrong). The bankers have lawyers who carefully help them stay within the letter of the law. So most of what they do is strictly legal.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
I promise to bring my guns, radios and backup. The only things the cops have that I don't is a jacket (assuming they mean bullet proof vests). Then again, I'll actually show up.
FTA: LAPD Cmdr. Andrew Smith urges resisting the impulse to do so. "It's just a phone," he said. "it's not worth losing your life over. Let police officers take care of it. We have backup, guns, radio, jackets — all that stuff civilians don't have.""
Yeah, but in my experience, LAPD, SMPD, and so on won't bother responding to your call.
They should be telling that to the thieves.
I see flash-mob-posses as being a bad thing for society.
And while hitting "Find My iPhone" can take you to a thief's doorstep, LAPD Cmdr. Andrew Smith urges resisting the impulse to do so. "It's just a phone," he said.
Citizens urge police to do their fucking jobs so we don't have to do it ourselves.
Yes, police have all that stuff. On the other hand, they don't give a shit about your iphone being stolen, and will likely never investigate.
Look at the numbers.
It's a growing crime in the Bay Area and across the country; more than 3 million people nationwide were victims of cell phone theft last year.
An estimated 60 percent of all robberies in Oakland involved a mobile device last year. According to the San Francisco District Attorney's office, 67 percent of robberies in that city involved a stolen mobile device.
Now try working with the police instead of falling back on your favorite Slashdot meme.
Vanna Bong knows first-hand how effective tracking software can be. She's helped customers at the Quick Communications store in Alameda use it to find lost phones and tablets, and even used it herself a few months ago when burglars ransacked her home and stole her personal electronics, worth more than $6,000 dollars.
Bong used tracking software to pinpoint the location of her stolen devices and tracked the thieves and her stolen items down.
''It was 10 minutes away. They took it to McDonalds where they were using free wifi,'' Bong said. ''I was really surprised, I didn't know that it was going to pinpoint the exact address''
Tracking software was one of the tools Oakland police used to find and arrest two suspected cell phone robbers on Thursday. The robbers stole a smart phone from a woman walking down the 600 block of Grand Avenue around 10 p.m. that evening. Moments before, the same robbers were believed to have stolen a cell phone from another victim on the 3000 block of Broadway in Oakland.
The woman from the Grand Ave. robbery called police, and using tracking software, told police dispatchers the location of her phone and the robbers.
Police found the phone, arrested two suspected robbers and are going through several other stolen items the robbers had when arrested.
Think.
Your eyewitness account will most likely lead nowhere.
The GPS fix is pure gold.
Most people lock their phones these days. Why is there not a function that I can find the owner's info (whatever they want to put there) and an ICE (In Case of Emergency) number.
Or more so, if I come upon an injured person, it would be nice to let someone know (besides 911) that they are injured.
If I find a phone, what can I do with it if I want to return it? This has happened a few time in cabs. Now days I just give it to the driver and it is now his windfall/problem.
[April 28]
Let police officers take care of it. We have backup, guns, radio, jackets — all that stuff civilians don't have.
I'm not a cop, but it strikes me as odd that appropriate training didn't make it to his list of the four most important things police officers have which civilians don't.
Really? My phone is over $700, so it is not an "easily replaced item", however I am too smart to go to the "perp" and demand it back without backup.
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
No. Its just a criminal who takes peoples property, sometimes by force. And who will become emboldened if they realize that the cops won't do sqaut to stop them. Screw the phone. Its insured. Get the punks who think they can knock people down and grab their phones.
Have gnu, will travel.
Perhaps people wouldn't HAVE to confront the scumbag that stole the phone if the police actually did shit about it. They don't even have to do any detective work, as the victim has already done it by using 'Find my iPhone' or Android Device Manager. All they need to do is get a search warrant from based on the victim's evidence, arrest the perp, collect the phone. Everybody wins except for the thieving scumbag.
The Amarri pray for god, the Caldari pray for profit. the Gallente pray for peace, but the Minmatar pray their ships hol
explain things to an officer (show the FMi screen "LIVE" to them) and hint that you might be heading "that way" to "chat" with the person. good chances the officer will A lead you to the person B have another officer meet you there.
Any person using FTFY or editing my postings agrees to a US$50.00 charge
If you really want to freak out, take a look at how much money municipalities pay for police pensions. It's not the administrators that are munching the budget, it's the retirees.
Why the fuck are police getting financed by speeding tickets? That's one of the big problems, underfunding forcing the cops to spend their time making sure there is enough funding to pay them. Same problem with the other ways police are forced to get funding such as civil forfeiture.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
It's not that the phone has the sole copy of a piece of information. It's that the phone is a very easy method to get at said information.
The Amarri pray for god, the Caldari pray for profit. the Gallente pray for peace, but the Minmatar pray their ships hol
it really comes down to funding. Cops have limited resources, especially after 30 years of budget cuts in the name of "Reduced Bureaucracy" and tax cuts for the rich. Remember when you voted down that 1% sales tax increase? Guess where that money was earmarked for?
So Cops ignore non-violent offenders and focus on the violent ones. Seems when it's Pot heads everyone's OK with that. Yeah, yeah, pot heads don't hurt anyone. Except there's already guys in this thread banging on about how when you investigate one crime you find another....
Want better law enforcement? Raise taxes. Corporate profits and the cash held by the top 1% are both at levels not seen since the 1920s, lets have them pay some of that.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
You kidding? Departments have had to put 'no pursuit' policies in place to keep the hothead cops from killing bystanders while chasing stolen wrecks.
Have gnu, will travel.
and maybe back up if we call enough friends and neighbors. We also have something else...an expectation that the law will be carried out by the people hired to do so. Andrew Smith should be embarrassed that civilians have to do his and his coworkers jobs for them. If they can't do their job then maybe it's time they found someone who can.
Just ask Wayne Dobson
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...
I'm waiting for the victim to confront the thief, have it turn violent and the thief gets killed.
If those stories start becoming popular in the news it might help lower theft.
I don't argue that it's possible... but is there actually any precedent of anyone being killed who confronted an alleged phone thief?
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
The unpopular truth is that "We The People" don't want to vote for the actual funding required for police departments, because that would require us to admit how much crime runs among us and take a more seriously look at certain egalitarian illusions.
Instead, we've made police dependent on and drunken with money from traffic tickets and drug forfeitures, which is a dishonest way of doing things.
Given the choice between a complex truth and an easy lie, voters (as a group) always pick the lie.
Don't blame cops for what the voters did.
Futurist Traditionalism
Yeah, and going in with a SWAT team costs the tax payers $60,000 each time they have to make a simple house call that could be done with two Black & Whites. Wasn't Mayor Giuliani's policy of going after small stuff semi-successful at turning NYC around because they felt that knocking down the pattern's of small crime helped fleece the bigger crimes as well?
Wow cool! Now i will also have my own blog here! Welcome! http://slashdot.org/~cpiera
I'm faster, stronger, and better armed than fat and lazy police officers first of all. Second, I don't actually have to follow the laws like they do. What is the thief going to do, call the cops? And third, my friend had his iPhone stolen and the police refused to follow the find my iphone app to get it back. So he got me and some friends to go get it back. Simple as that. They cops are too busy/lazy/afraid of law suits to do a damn thing.
"We have backup, guns, radio, jackets — all that stuff civilians don't have."
Backup - yup - take some friends with you.
Guns - yup - ever heard of the 2nd amendment. I own MANY.
Radio - yup - anyone can buy radios with 5+ mile ranges on them - I have 4
Jackets - yup - you can buy those too - I have one
Ok so what do the police have we don't besides a worthless piece of tin on their shirt?
Since the cops don't a rats @$$ about your radio - you should go get it yourself. The job of the cops is to clean up the mess afterwords - they don't care about your stolen iPhone....
The Truth is a Virus!!!
I had a friend who was violently mugged here in the UK, and the police weren't even interested in taking a statement. They just told him to go to the hospital if he felt dizzy (the robbers hit him over the head).
When a UK journalist gets mugged though, he gets star treatment
And they will do absolutely nothing. Cops are worthless, utterly worthless, you do not call them for help. And they do not recover stolen property unless you have a cop right there and point at the bag of your stuff and say, "you going to get that?"
People need to take the law into their own hands, because the police will not do it.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Yet street criminals and gang members have no problem at all getting a gun.
gun laws are there to punish the honest citizen, they are not there to stop criminals.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Good points from both ACs, namely its a problem handling funds as much as anything and still needs fixing somehow
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
Maybe this helped at the margins, but Giuliani was riding a generation long decrease in crime rates that has been observed all across the country.
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
Fortunately not all cops are such crooks but the good ones are out busting real criminals.
What happens when they both call in sick at the same time?
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
Just tell them that you and your friends have guns for self-defense and will go retrieve your property. The cops can do it for you or not.
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
How is this not a thing with a reality TV show already?!?
Was the cop serious?
"Let police officers take care of it." Uh, yeah, we'll be right on that.
I can only dream of living in a city where the crime rate is low enough that cops will bother to talk to you about you stolen phone.
My backpack was stolen at Orlando airport while I was distracted. It contained my iPad, Macbook Air and a ton of other really good stuff. For various reasons I won't list here, we didn't discover it missing until we returned home. I used Find My iPhone and within ½ hour got a hit and the address when the thief turned on the iPad. Once I was sure he was not moving, I sent the commands to wipe everything. There is a story to tell about find the "right" police to report the crime to, which can be tough when the theft occurred at an airport, in one county, and the perp is in an adjacent county and you live in yet a third county. I made literally 24 calls to multiple police agencies and at multiple points was told, "do you know how many calls we get like this every single day?". Apparently, hundreds. As a rule, the police have bigger crooks to catch. I decided to make a huge fuss, invoking DHS, FBI and everything else I could think of. Finally, I hit on the right strategy. I had been telling the (multiple) police officers I talked with that I was going to get in my car and confront the guy, and they ALL thought that was a really bad idea. Maybe I felt like doing that but --- I'm NOT stupid, OK? -- but it was a good negotiating ploy. I told them I would be there in an hour and so they finally connected me with a deputy sheriff, in his patrol car and not too far from the perp's location. I guess he was convinced I was on my way and likely to get really really hurt, so I allowed him to talk me out of going to the house in exchange for a promise to visit it at dawn. He kept his word. An older woman answered the door. Here is the conversation: "Were you at the airport last night?" "No, my son went to pick up his girlfriend". "Is he here" "Yes, he's asleep" "Is that his car in the driveway?" "No, that's my car" "Mind if I have a look?" "Go right ahead." THE SHERIFF FOUND MY IPAD AND AIR! (But not the backpack). A few days later I had them back. After weeks of more wrangling and assuring the district attorney I would prosecute, the perp was arrested. Six months later, they have not tried him (yet). Bottom line: mixed results which I only gained by being both a pain in the ass to three law enforcement departments all night long, including convincing them I was going to get in a situation where something REALLY bad would happen and they would have to deal with it. I don't recommend this approach. The lesson: it is highly unlikely that the police will do anything. I was lucky. I recommend checking out a service called "Witness" at wittnessapp.com . They have some great ideas for security and will help you with all this (dealing with police) in the event your equipment is stolen. I hope never to have to use their service but now I'm better prepared.
There's no sense in being precise when you don't even know what you're talking about. -- John von Neumann
you _are_ paying all you can. The Rich aren't.
And no, they're not mismanged. Gov't is a lot more efficient than you give it credit for. _Everything_ is mismanaged to a degree. Especially in a large organization. But large organizations are often the only way to get things done. Large scale cooperation is necessary to do anything major, like keep the piece in a city with over a million people...
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In Taiwan, I can go to the cops and say I lost my phone. They'll ask me to help them backtrack where I've been. Since most businesses and apartment buildings have security cameras, they can usually catch it on camera. Most phone thefts happen here because someone dropped their phone and someone else picked it up, then took out the SIM card. Also, people generally show security camera footage to cops without a warrant if they're looking for a lost phone. So they put the pieces together for me, pick the guy up, and get my phone back. Meanwhile, in the states, you hand them the location and they tell you to go fuck yourself. What the hell is wrong with your country?
So; as long as I have backup, flack jackets, radios and guns then its ok for me to go get my iphone back?
I'm pretty sure I can fulfill those requirements right now as a civilian.
Maybe I'll start my own iphone swat team business. Too bad I have an android with a broken volume up button that no one would want to steal.
doughnuts?
Nothing worthwhile ever happens before noon
A big problem in many departments seems to be they just don't understand new technology. They don't understand that these devices can be located easily, and that they can have companies do the locating and give them a result if they get a warrant. Also that it is often worth doing because they nail someone with a bunch of other stolen goods usually.
This kind of thing happened at the university I work at. One of our employees got his laptop stolen by what can only be described as extreme stupidity on his part. Laptop had Computrace so my boss called them and got the tracking going. They were able to locate it, it was still in the city and being used regularly. This was handed to the police... and nothing happened for a long time. There was back and forth with my boss, the university police, the city police, the general council, etc, etc. Finally they seemed to figure shit out, got a warrant, found the guy and busted him. They recovered a bunch of stolen goods.
Of course after that it took even longer to actually get the laptop back, since it had to sit in the evidence room while all that went on, but we did get it.
Really to me it seemed mostly like the police just didn't understand what was going on. They thought they were being asked to go on a wild goose chase or something and didn't understand that the case was being handed to them all wrapped with a bow.
Education isn't the whole pboelm, but I think it'd help a lot. If police forces understood:
1) What to do. As in what company do you call, what do you need (just a phone call, subpoena, warrant, etc), and what kind of information do you get.
2) That this kind of thing gives you all the probable cause you need.
3) That when you bust someone like this, you usually get to nail them for a bunch more stuff. They generally didn't just make one theft, so you get to recover a bunch more stolen goods, and often other crimes (drugs, etc) as well.
Then I think it might be more common. They get a call saying "My phone has been stolen," they open up their "Policel2recoverphones" guide and start asking the questions it says and then go from there.
For those civilians that carry weapons for self-defense, no one should have to remind you that the origin of your right to do so was originally one of selflessness, i.e. to protect your defenseless neighbors at risk to your own life or property, either from raiding parties, foreign enemies, crime, or the government.
The HELL it was.
It was to protect yourSELF,your FAMILY, and the property that keeps you and them alive and prospering, first and foremost. Protecting your friends, neighbors, fellow tribesmen/countrymen, defenseless widows and orphans, etc. is, and always has been, farther down the list, and often a side-effect of your higher-priority guard work. (For instance: Crooks avoid houses "that shoot", and to a lesser extent the neighborhoods that contain them, when there are enough of them or enough uncertainty about which is which.)
Altruism is a survival characteristic, but only when it's limited to its proper level. Putting most others above yourself in your priority scheme is a recipe for extinction (though very convenient for others who want to run your life for their own benefit). The law recognizes this, as does the bulk of the population who actually spend time thinking about and researching it. It's time you did, too.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Wouldn't be awesome if you could activate an ink dye that exploded all over the person who stole your phone?
Recovering a stolen phone is pretty much hopeless, but at least you would have the satisfaction that the perp looked like a smurf.
Of course the downside, hackers would think it would be funny as hell to set off the dye on people they didn't like.
Put a few grams of C-4 in those phones and really put the "kill" in "kill switch".
Had a similar situation.
Had my car vandalized. Know exactly who did it (I accidentally parked in their Condo parking spot, was visiting a friend, another friend who had been there before said it was fine to park there). Knew exactly where they lived (Condo #). It was a secure building, and had video surveillance of them actually keying my car (was not subtle, keyed every panel, including hood and trunk).
Police did nothing. Insurance did nothing, they just wrote it off and paid it out. I told them I was very willing to go to court for them (even if it meant missing time off work), as I was very angry (my car was literately like 2 weeks old).
About the only thing I could do was go after them civilly. However since the insurance paid out, I would only really be able to go after them for the insurance deductible which was 500$, and I would incur more than that myself taking the time off, travel, etc... to do it. So i ate my rage.
Last year I had someone break into my house while I was there. Police took a report. Never heard anything again.
Yet I was drunk and noisy one night and one of my neighbors called the cops on me and one showed up to tell me to turn it down. Which is fine, I was kind of being a jerk in hindsight. However it is very hard for me to think of things like home invasion and thousands of dollars worth of theft or vandalism, not being much of a "priority" but yet they have time to come and chastise me about listening to my music too loud on the weekend.
1. My truck was stolen in Los Angeles. I reported it within an hour. They called me about 40 days later when my truck wound up in a police impound yard. It had been parked in a no parking zone about ten miles from where it was stolen the same night it was stolen. It collected a parking ticket each day for a month, while it was parked in a red no parking zone. After it collected more than 30 parking tickets, they decided to tow it, and that was when they discovered it was stolen.
2. I was mugged and shot by a raving meth addict in Los Angeles. I had all the windows of my truck shot out, and got a wound from a bullet that fortunately only grazed my neck. I went to the police, to show them my wound, and my shattered windows and make a report. The LA County Sheriff took my report, but claimed it was probably not their jurisdiction. I knew it was, but they were unsure. Six months later they sent me an apology letter, the result of an internal investigation, saying that they now realized it was their jurisdiction. That was when they finally asked me to look at mugshots. They never found the guy.
3. I was mugged and beaten in Long Beach. The police were called and they insisted I go to the emergency room so they could document my wounds. I insisted I was ok and did not need medical help. The police said there was a California Victim of Violent Crimes fund that would cover the costs. For three years a collection agency called me at least once a week to harass me about the medical bills incurred by my "free" visit to the emergency room that night. I got no medical attention, just photos taken of my wounds for the police. They never caught anyone. I got mugged twice, once by the muggers and once by the police. It took me a lot longer to repair my credit after the police caused this problem than it did to recover from the beating.
Now, if I have a problem and can't solve it myself without police, I just let it go. It actually surprises me how many here seem to have a similar sentiment. Once in a while the police do something right, but I prefer just to do without their services.
Quote: "Cops got better things to do than get killed." --Wang from Big Trouble in Little China
The Commander's advice doesn't carry much weight.
Then again, he is making it clear what priority theft has to the LAPD.
Which is exactly why people confront the thieves themselves.
Better yet, tell them the perp had a small amount of drugs. They'll be busting down the door with the SWAT team and shooting dogs in no time.
If they don't want civilians do to their job, they should do their job.
What's hard to understand about that?
Mind, It's also disproportionate to fetch iphones with SWAT teams.
These things do not always point to the correct address.