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iPhone X Purchase Leads To Police, Battering Ram, and Handcuffs (cbslocal.com)
An anonymous reader quotes CBS SFBayArea:
On one recent morning, Rick Garcia and his wife Shannon Knuth woke up to a posse of San Francisco police officers at their front door. "I peered through the peephole and I saw a police officer and a battering ram," Garcia said. "We heard 'SFPD' and 'warrant,' and I was like 'what's going on?'" Knuth remembers. It felt like a nightmare yet it was real. Garcia says that within seconds he was dragged into the hallway of his apartment complex, handcuffed, then whisked away to the Taraval Station.... Meanwhile Knuth, who had just got out of the shower, was ordered to sit on the couch... After rifling through the apartment Knuth says the officers finally told her what they were looking for: Her husband's iPhone X.
According to the warrant, it was stolen but Knuth showed them the receipt which proved her husband bought it. Once the officers realized their mistake they called the police station and a squad car brought Garcia home. "They gathered their pry bar and their battering ram and they left," he said. So how could a mistake like that happen? It's still unclear but it turns out Garcia and Knuth bought the iPhone at an Apple store at Stonestown Galleria just a few weeks after 300 iPhone Xs were stolen from a UPS truck in the mall parking lot.
One former police chief says the way it was handled "kind of boggles the mind...
"This was clearly an incident that should have just been a knock and talk, a couple detectives come to the door, knock on the door and they would have gathered the same info that they gathered after they put him in handcuffs and hauled him off to jail."
According to the warrant, it was stolen but Knuth showed them the receipt which proved her husband bought it. Once the officers realized their mistake they called the police station and a squad car brought Garcia home. "They gathered their pry bar and their battering ram and they left," he said. So how could a mistake like that happen? It's still unclear but it turns out Garcia and Knuth bought the iPhone at an Apple store at Stonestown Galleria just a few weeks after 300 iPhone Xs were stolen from a UPS truck in the mall parking lot.
One former police chief says the way it was handled "kind of boggles the mind...
"This was clearly an incident that should have just been a knock and talk, a couple detectives come to the door, knock on the door and they would have gathered the same info that they gathered after they put him in handcuffs and hauled him off to jail."
I wish the police would put this kind of effort in to recovering my stolen bike rather than a multi-billion dollar companies product.
But I guess that doesn't fit their mandate of protecting large corporations profits.
It is sad to see such mistakes, and defence lawyers should highlight them in court when police evidence is supposed to be taken seriously. There is a serious problem with the police; it requires a certain type of personality to spend one's life confronting bad guys, and the culture of many police departments is toxic. However in this case there is the added element of a warrant being issued: someone made a false statement to the judge who issued it, and that should also be investigated.
Any relation to Donald Knuth?
I've really learned a great deal from TAOCP. I've gotten to page 10 of book 1.
It will be interesting to see what the cops claimed in their application for a search warrant, such as their reason to suspect the phone was stolen. Somebody screwed up royally here.
Instead of being trained not to over-react in situations, it appears as if police are being trained to over-react in situations.
Wrongful arrest, and a laundry list of other complaints,
This is SO blatant, it will settle out of court, for a lot of money.
"Nobody's got beaten over an Android"
Table-ized A.I.
Guess he doesn't read the news then. Just a few weeks ago it made national news where a "swatting" incident happened and an innocent man was shot dead by police after they got a call claiming that the house where he lived had a hostage situation. Cops showed up in force under the assumption the call could only be true, made no attempt to determine if there was actually a hostage situation or not, and when the owner came out they shot him dead, claiming they thought he was armed. That wasn't the first time police showed up on a swatting call and made no attempt to determine the validity of it before taking action, but the previous ones usually don't end in death of a citizen. Cops routinely shoot unarmed civilians because the cop is "scared". So the only surprise to me is not that the cops went in like this but that the homeowner is still actually alive because I'd have expected a hair trigger hyped up cop to be ready to gun anybody down at a moment's notice.
The dog is lucky it was small & cute & didn't get shot. She was lucky they allowed her a towel when she was sitting on the couch while law enforcement officers were rummaging through their home. He's lucky he was able to keep his mouth shut & they didn't knock him around a bit before taking him in. They are all lucky to be alive to tell their tale.
SLOWER TRAFFIC KEEP RIGHT
No murder and kidnapping are not real. They are legal constructs. Killing someone is real, but murder is a legal construct.
Carrying someone off against their will is real, but kidnapping is a legal construct.
E.g., depending on the laws (and the lawyers), the exact same instance of carrying someone off against their will could be kidnapping, arresting, or protective custody.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
Or a marriage proposal.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Cops are not obligated to read you your rights until they begin an official interrogation. As such, it is in their interests to postpone that as long as possible so that you might incriminate yourself before you are Mirandized. Anything you say will be admissible as long as they were not 'questioning' you at the time. Yes, this does suck. No, you will not prevail on appeal.
Do not talk to cops in their official capacity. They are professionals at talking to you, you are an amateur at talking to them.
Further, if you are talking and it is not being actively recorded, cops can mis-remember what you said and how you said it. Nothing can stop the dishonest cop from lying, but silence will prevent the many honest cops from mis-remembering.
So, stop talking. Seriously.
Saying 'Whoops! My bad," would at least be a start. Admitting the error is important, and it isn't always a given.
The US would benefit greatly by having mandatory reporting of activity of this type at the national level. As it is, there is not even an authoritative number for police killings of civilians each year.
"What gets measured, gets managed."
Also, "here's some cash," seems like the least they could do.
How do you know you live in a police state?
When you fear the police more than you fear the people the police are supposed to be protecting you against.
I read at +2. If your post doesn't reach that level I will not see or respond to it.
Convicted felon, here.
I mostly agree with you.
I would just point out that as the judges get tougher, the stakes get higher. At some point you start to incentivize behavior that you really don't want. Not too bad at the lower levels. At the higher levels, though, perpetrators will start to rapidly escalate violence because they feel they have more to lose by getting caught. This is known in prison as holding court out in the street (apparently this is a movie reference?).
When I got caught coming out of the bank, I surrendered peacefully because I knew it would not be the end of my life. When you make a guy feel that it is the end he may decide differently.
At some point I think we need to be looking at outcomes.