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Teen Allegedly Broke Into a Couple's Home To Ask For Their WiFi Password, Police Say (washingtonpost.com)
A 17-year-old has been accused of breaking into a couple's home in Northern California and asking for their WiFi password, hours after he had asked nearby neighbors for theirs, authorities said. From a report: Police in Palo Alto said the teen, whose name has not been released, went to a home in Silicon Valley late Saturday and asked to use the residents' WiFi network "because he was out of data," before stealing their bicycle. Then just after midnight Sunday, police said, he broke into a nearby home, woke up a sleeping couple and asked them for their password. The male resident "pushed him down the hallway and out the front door of the house before calling police," police said in a statement. Palo Alto Police Sgt. Dan Pojanamat told The Washington Post on Friday that it's unclear whether the juvenile suspect was really seeking WiFi access or whether it was simply an excuse, saying that "the real issue is the fact that he entered a house that was occupied."
Everyone knows the password is written on the router.
"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it." - K
So you're saying that it would have been a better outcome if this teenager had been killed for this non-violent offense?
Oh, and by the way, someone should tell Californians that they "can't really own a gun anymore", because we are the state with the second-most gun owners in the entire country.
You are welcome on my lawn.
So you're saying that it would have been a better outcome if this teenager had been killed for this non-violent offense?
What is it with Slashdot and these science deniers who do not believe in evolution?
Yes, stupid enough actions should get you killed. That's how evolution, and the world, works.
P.S. How do you know it was a non-violent offense? Usually people inside of other people's homes late are night are not non-violent. You just don't know when the violence will start; this person happened to be shot before he could turn violent. Standing over someones bed as they sleep is already an inherently threatening action to start with.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
You're obviously not familiar with castle doctrine. In a castle doctrine state (which surprisingly, California is), the mere presence of an intruder in your residence is considered a threat to your life, and you can immediately respond with deadly force. It doesn't matter if they're unarmed or not.
This comes with a couple limitations:
1. You generally cannot "bait" someone into the property and then shoot them. IE, you can't leave your front door open with a stack if cash sitting in the living room while you wait in the corner with a gun.
2. Though they are immediately considered a threat, if they obviously become a threat no longer, then you cannot then use deadly force. IE, you can't tie someone up and then shoot them, or as in one case that I'm aware of, a home owner shot a teen intruder in his home, she was still alive and he walked up and shot her point blank in the head to "finish her off". The initial shot would have likely been fine - the "finishing" shot got him convicted.
Other than that though, if you're in a castle doctrine state, if you - as a genuine surprise - find any intruder in your home or dwelling you're clear to shoot immediately.
"People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
Don't forget the psychological trauma on the guy that shot him; killing another person, especially when you find out later that he was unarmed and no actual threat, is NOT something you just shrug off because the law says it was okay to do so.
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Not at all, very obviously.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Oh, and by the way, someone should tell Californians that they "can't really own a gun anymore", because we are the state with the second-most gun owners in the entire country.
Well, in all fairness you're one out of fifty states but contain over 12% of the country's population. With that chunk of the population size even with a lower RATE of firearms ownership you still can end up with a pretty high total number.
As to the situation - in hindsight, it's better that the teen is not dead. As dumb as his trespass was he didn't deserve to die for it. That being said, I certainly wouldn't have faulted the home owners if he HAD been shot. If you enter a residence the people there have no idea why you're there (and I'm pretty sure "asking for a WIFI password" is pretty far down on their list of guesses). They can respond as needed to protect themselves.
"People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
Somehow, this reminds me of the joke about the hunter calling 911.
Operator: 911. What's your emergency?
Hunter: I think I just killed my hunting partner.
Operator: Okay, first I need you to check to make sure he's dead.
[Sound of a gunshot]
Hunter: Okay. Now what?
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
It wasn't murder, though it was the result of stupid actions on both sides.
1. Party A should not have parked in the handicapped spot.
2. Party B should not have said anything about it.
3. Party A should not have escalated the situation to violence by coming out and shoving the man to the ground and then continuing towards him.
Although both parties made mistakes, the reality is that when the guy came out of the store and shoved him to the ground that was a physical attack. Whether he poked his nose where it didn't belong or not, he's not legally obligated to be beat (potentially to death) over it.
Basically everyone try to play nice, but above all keep your hands to yourself. If you take a confrontation from verbal to physical it can have consequences.
"People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
Depends on the jursidiction. In some states, forcible entry into an occupied dwelling alone is considered enough to create a reasonable belief that deadly force is immediately necessary for the occupants. In Pennsylvania for example:
In Maine, this would meet the criteria for the justification of use of deadly force.
In most of California that's how it would have gone down too. Just not a lot of gun owners in the coastal affluent parts. It's important to remember that California is not a homogeneous region, but a very large state with very different parts.
If a young man entered a home in the Central Valley or Sierra Nevadas, it's like 3-to-1 odds the homeowner would point a gun at him.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
The police said the real problem was breaking into an *occupied* house (emphasis mine). Isn't the real problem the fact that the individual broke into a house that wasn't his? The fact that the house was or was not occupied shouldn't be a mitigating circumstance.
His excuse "looking for a WiFi password" isn't a good reason to enter a home that didn't belong to him (trying to find a phone to call 911 for someone dying would be a good excuse in my opinion [if true]). Based on the other circumstances described in the article, I'm disinclined to believe that he was just looking for a WiFi password. Sounds more like a very troubled youth getting kicks acting out. Hopefully the police/justice system will give him the consequences he needs.
All of the discussion about whether or not he could have/should have been shot is moot. He wasn't (fortunately). But the event is certainly a signal that action is required to head off a future problem.
Well, they may well have had a gun in the house for all we know, but the cops certainly had guns, and they didn't shoot the kid -- so while he's a minor therefore they're not releasing his name or other details, we do know one thing for sure: he wasn't black, otherwise he'd be dead now.
The real issue is the fact that he entered a house that was occupied.
-Sgt. Dan Pojanamat
No, Dan. The issue is the fact that he broke into a house that wasn't his. The fact the it was occupied means you can't just ignore it this time.
Fix your fucking city.
He had a canned excuse ready just in case he ran into a resident while trying to burglarize the home.
From TFA:
Police said surveillance video showed that he had moved the bicycle from their backyard to their front yard before asking for their password. When the residents told him to leave, police said, he rode away on it.
Did he need to move the bike to the front yard before asking for a password? The cops likely know this, and it's only newsworthy because his prepared lie was so ridiculous.
Fun fact: The city of Palo Alto offers free WiFi to residents and visitors.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
Yeah, it's pretty nice here. Lots of people want to come. It's why there are more songs about people who really want to go to California than any other state. People dreaming about California, people wanting to go "way out west" to find their fortune, people who just want to come for the girls.
But still, you can't say that in a state with almost 400,000 gun owners that you can't really own a gun any more. As one of those gun owners, I can tell you that my rights here don't differ significantly than they did when I lived in Texas. The big difference is that here it's socially frowned-upon to take my gun into the street and act like an asshole with it. But since that has never been my intent, nor is it my intent to go unload my weapon into some wild animal minding it's own business, I feel pretty free to do as I please with my gun.
You are welcome on my lawn.
It sounds like he deliberately woke them up, which could mean actually shaking one of them awake. At that point you already ARE in close proximity, in a room that usually only has the one entry and exit, and the only course of action left is to get HIM away from YOU rather than the other way around,
No, it just takes reading a report or two to see that they woke up with the kid in his room. The 'asking for wifi' thing was just the only excuse this kid could come up with at the time. Evidently, he's used it before. He was there to steal stuff. But because some idiots in the press seemed to believe his excuse, the write the article that way. Now seems many here believed it at well.
He was there to steal stuff and got caught. I am laughing at the number of idiots who can't see that.
I don't know about colloquially, but breaking to an occupied house has historically been considered a crime of violence, since it inherently carries with it the very real potential for a confrontation between the criminal and the occupants. Contrast with breaking into an unoccupied home, which is just a property crime.
Also, no one believes it would be better if the guy was shot. Any time a gun is used in anger is already very not good, the idea is to do so only when you are absolutely convinced that it's the best of a bunch of not-good options.
As for the 'second-most-gun-owners' claim, you're going to want to express this per-capita :-P
WRONG !!!!!
"Between 2003 and 2007--
*A household member was home in 28% of the 3.7 million average
annual burglaries that occurred between 2003 and 2007 (table
1). "
I'll save you the trouble of doing the math :
Between 2003 and 2007, there were 1,036,000 home invasions.
From :
https://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/ascii/vdhb.txt
===
Seriously, if you are too lazy to back up your absurdly inaccurate claims with 15 seconds doing research, then you need to SHUT THE FUCK UP.
Police say a couple in their 60s woke up in their Palo Alto, California bedroom around midnight last Saturday to find someone looming above them wearing a mask, or possibly a black T-shirt covering their face. The intruder asked for their wifi password.
According to a city press release, one of the residents sprung to action, shoving the intruder down the hallway and out of the house. The couple then called the police, which found the suspect a block away from the house.
Police arrested the 17-year-old suspect for prowling, residential burglary, and providing false information about his identity. The police department did not reveal his name as he is a minor.
Police think the suspect entered the house from the side yard after cutting open a screen window-covering, but could not initially determine a motive. Officers say they did not find any weapons on the teen, but the resident told police that two kitchen knives had gone missing.
Officers believe this is not the only time the teen trespassed in an apparent search for wifi that evening. Someone else had called 911, reporting that around midnight last Saturday she saw a teenage male in the yard outside her bedroom window, trying to get her attention.
She and a male resident allegedly confronted the intruder, who told them he didn’t have any data left and wanted to use their wifi. They told him to leave. They didn’t call the police until the next day when the male resident noticed his bike was missing from the backyard. Security footage showed the teen had moved the bike to the front yard before going to the window to ask for wifi.
Police later found the bike near where they had arrested the suspect. Officers are recommending the District Attorney add a charge of petty theft.
https://gizmodo.com/teen-burgl...
being light on common sense doesn't necessarily mean you're not good for something else. There's no shortage of math experts who are also autistic you know. We shouldn't be so quick to kill something just because it's not immediately useful. We sent mother-f'ing physicists to die in the trenches of WWI before we figured out they could make bombs and rockets.
The stupid ones aren't the occasional dumb kid who does something for who knows what reason, but the folks who's response to any wrong doing is to call for blood. That kind of crap is what got the US in 8 pointless wars and counting post 9/11 (seriously, look it up).
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