Police Use Lyft As 'Trojan Horse' To Capture Suspect In Murder of Tech CEO (myajc.com)

McGruber writes: On Friday, June 23, 2017, three men broke into the home of Albert Eugene DeMagnus, the CEO of Computer Management Services. The men stabbed DeMangus, who was pronounced dead after he had been taken to a hospital. Police officers chased two of the suspects as they fled in DeMangus' gray Lexus. The Lexus crashed and the two men ran away into the woods. Police then set up a perimeter with road checkpoints. Soon, a Lyft driver approached a checkpoint and told police she was picking up a passenger nearby. "This may be one of our suspects trying to leave the scene," Fayette County, Georgia Sheriff Barry Babb thought of the person being picked up. So Babb and three officers got into his car, which happened to be identical to the Lyft driver's. They got the location of the suspect from the Lyft driver and simply drove to the suspect, posing as his ride. "The subject walked all the way up, was about to open the door and get in our vehicle, when we exited and identified ourself," said Sheriff Babb. The suspect fled and got about 100 yards into the woods before being taken into custody. "That was something that was unique for us," Babb said, "a first time for us."

Comments

Re: How much was the Lyft driver compensated?

[Anonymous Coward]

Idiot, if you bothered to RTFA they didn't take the lift drivers car. One of the cops had an identical car and they used that.

Re:How much was the Lyft driver compensated?

[x_t0ken_407]

So Babb and three officers got into his car, which happened to be identical to the Lyft driver's.

The officer drove his own car -- according to TFS

Now that is a funny ride for a murderer

[SuperKendall]

"Hey we need to get out of here without being seen"

"I know, let's summon a car with a giant pink mustache!".

Maybe they were just upset at Ubers recent scandals. It's nice that todays murderers are so socially aware.

Re:Now that is a funny ride for a murderer

[blindseer]

Lyft lets you specify that the car have a giant pink mustache?

I've heard Lyft advertise for drivers but I'm not doing that if I have to put a stupid mustache on my car. What would that do to my gas mileage?

Re:Now that is a funny ride for a murderer

[Kjella]

"I know, let's summon a car with a giant pink mustache!".

If you're a Lyft driver, fine. I'd be slightly more concerned about the other guy...

So [Georgia Sheriff Barry Babb] and three officers got into his car, which happened to be identical to the Lyft driver's

Re:Now that is a funny ride for a murderer

[__aaclcg7560]

That's funny. All the Lyft cars I've seen had a pink placard on the right side of the windshield.

Re: Now that is a funny ride for a murderer

[Nidi62]

Obviously these guys don't watch tv or they would have seen the commercial with the bank robbers trying to rideshare their getaway car. Didn't work out too well in both cases

Re:Now that is a funny ride for a murderer

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

Your biggest concern is gas mileage and not picking up a stranger deep in the middle of the night along the edge of a remote woods?

Holy Rotten APPles Batman!

[Zurkeyon3733]

Lyfted his ass right into a patrol car! LOL! Oh my god, PLEASE, show this shit on cops! :-P

Wrong headline

[gnasher719]

Clearly the car wasn't used as a trojan horse, but as a mouse trap.

Re:Wrong headline

[houghi]

And it was not even the Lyft car, but one that looked like it.

Boycott Lyft!

[mi]

The (female) driver did the most responsible thing both for herself and the society, but there will be idiots — not sure, whether the Anonymous above is one of them, or is sarcastic — who will call for boycotting Lyft for such cooperation with law-enforcement.

Because police are bad and we'd be better off without them, or something...

unique for them?

[rogoshen1]

Running 100 yards is quite an achievement, good work boys.

Re: unique for them?

[Maxwell'sSilverLART]

As I recall, the officer was disciplined--perhaps even fired, I'm not certain--for failing to follow procedure.

this sounds so PreCrime

[WillAffleckUW]

when will we have to present our papers while traveling within our own country?

or has that already happened with the Stasi ..?

Re:this sounds so PreCrime

[Nethead]

Every time we get on a plane, Will, every time.

I call BS on this

[sit1963nz]

This can't be true.

Where was the backdoor to encryption installed and used ?
We all know criminals can't possibly be caught without being able to browse through someones phone.

There were how many houses in the area ?, how many of their computers were hacked into, how many web cams were compromised ?

See, the true facts are missing, I call this BS.
Maybe 20-30 years ago cops could have done this, but they did not have access to modern technology or techniques...sloppy...just sloppy

Re:I call BS on this

[thegarbz]

I'm sure they only figured out that he was calling Lyft because they hacked his iPhone via the Stingray backdoor in Whatsapp.

Idiot

[CanadianMacFan]

First calling a car sharing service was bad enough but then when the car arrives with three extra people in it the last thing you do is go and walk up to it.

Re:Idiot

[Joviex]

First calling a car sharing service was bad enough

Actually, it WAS a brilliant idea, they just executed it like hamsters.

A) Call Lyft for ride
B) Assume, cause you are not stupid, the cops will "follow that car"
C) Escape area while dipshit cops are distracted
D) Optionally escape the area and INTO ANOTHER LYFT CAR outside the zone

You believe the official story?

[Anonymous Coward]

You notice that there were no details on the Lyft driver or what type of car the Lyft driver and the officer were using? It's just a cover story for using a Stingray to intercept the suspects Lyft request, which was then acknowledged using the NSA's UnterDrop ride sharing exploit.
 
/my submission captcha is drunkard... now I'm really getting spooked.

Not the Trojan Horse

[drinkypoo]

They got their own horse.

smart yet dumb

[slashmydots]

Might I take the opportunity to point out that you can be reeeeeally smart and still not smart enough to own a gun "just in case." You know, just in case someone breaks in and stabs you.

data

[james.cooper4122]

so, are the police asking Google for before, during and after data to prove the case?

Whoopdedoo

[Harold Halloway]

Not exactly Continuum, is it?

Holy crap, that's where I work!

[sabbede]

Not the company that lost their CEO, Fayette County. I used to live there until I bought a house in a neighboring county.

Southern Sheriffs earn their reputation for being corrupt thugs, but I don't know if Babb is one of those or not.