Robbery Suspect Tracked By GPS and Killed 450
New submitter Lew Lorton notes a NY Times story about a thief in New York City who was tracked and located using a GPS device inside a decoy pill bottle he had stolen (along with other pill bottles) from a pharmacy. When police confronted the thief, he raised a gun to shoot at an officer, and was killed
"The decoy bottles were introduced last year by the police commissioner at the time, Raymond W. Kelly, who announced that the department would begin to stock pharmacy shelves with decoy bottles of painkillers containing GPS devices. The initiative was in response to a sharp increase of armed and often deadly pharmacy robberies across the state, frequently by people addicted to painkillers. ... The bottles are designed to be weighted and to rattle when shaken, so a thief does not initially realize they do not contain pills. Each of the decoy bottles sits atop a special base, and when the bottle is lifted from the base, it begins to emit a tracking signal."
use a foil-lined bag. (Score:5, Informative)
[n/t]
or not commit robberies and burglaries (Score:5, Informative)
One could do that. Another common method of avoiding decoys is to avoid committing robbery and burglary. Felony crime as a career path doesn't tend to attract the brightest and most careful practitioners.
Re:What a crap of title... (Score:4, Informative)
It's the headline the NYT used... As is normal, the "story submission" is straight cut-and-paste.
Re:ANOTHER DEAD BODY! SWEET JUSTICE! (Score:4, Informative)
Re:ANOTHER DEAD BODY! SWEET JUSTICE! (Score:2, Informative)
You're a complete moron, in no country will the police not shoot someone who has raised a gun at them. What do you want the police to do, let the dude shoot them?
There is no video showing that the guy raised his gun. Note that he didn't actually fire, just raised his gun.
Police will shoot and kill first and then say yeah, he raised his gun. Then, people like you will say, umm, its justified and be happy.
Re:What a crap of title... (Score:2, Informative)
Police do a necessary and often thankless job at high risk to themselves. If a policeman needs to arrest you, it's best not to make them feel unsafe.
Re:What a crap of title... (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Another casualty of the War on Drugs (Score:5, Informative)
a permanent reduction of grey matter due to marijuana abuse.
clearly you know nothing about marijuana based on that statement. Marijuana does not reduce grey matter and in fact http://www.sciencedaily.com/re... [sciencedaily.com]
maybe you should do some research before you go out calling other people names and make yourself look like a fool
Re:ANOTHER DEAD BODY! SWEET JUSTICE! (Score:5, Informative)
The difference comes from the fact that when this happens in the USA the cops shoot to kill. When this happens in Finland they shoot to incapacate(in the leg etc.)..or they don't shoot at all and instead take cover and negotiate the guy into dropping the gun.
Re:ANOTHER DEAD BODY! SWEET JUSTICE! (Score:5, Informative)
Re:ANOTHER DEAD BODY! SWEET JUSTICE! (Score:5, Informative)
traffic = other people = witnesses
"The police official said the GPS device helped lead the police to the man, who was confronted as his 2007 Jeep was stuck in traffic on a service road beneath the Franklin D. Roosevelt Drive at East 96th Street. "
"He served about 16 years in prison during two stints between 1990 and 2008 for sexual abuse and robbery convictions, according to state records."
Re:ANOTHER DEAD BODY! SWEET JUSTICE! (Score:5, Informative)
Seriously, the patrolmen don't have guns? What if someone shoots at them?
Due to strict gun control in the UK, very few criminals have guns, so police officers almost never have the risk of confronting an armed perpetrator. The criminals in the UK who *do* have guns are not petty thieves who are robbing pharmacies for narcotics.
Re:ANOTHER DEAD BODY! SWEET JUSTICE! (Score:5, Informative)
The strange concept is that you would bring up gun control when the statistics don't back you up. Over the last decade, the percentage of officers killed on duty, by guns vs other causes, in Britain is slightly HIGHER than it was in the United States. The US is far more violent than Britain, but guns do not contribute to that nearly as much as you would have others believe.
Do you have a source for that? According to the site linked below (which includes citations), "In the US – population 311.5 million – there were an estimated 13,756 murders in 2009, a rate of about 5.0 per 100,000. Of these 9,203 were carried out with a firearm. In the UK – population 56.1 million – there were an estimated 550 murders in 2011-12, a rate of about 1.4 per 100,000. Of these 39 were carried out with a firearm." I couldn't find similar statistics for police officers, but you're obviously pretty sure of your facts so I thought I'd ask. http://fleshisgrass.wordpress.com/2012/07/24/us-and-uk-murder-rate-and-weapon-updated/ [wordpress.com]
Re:ANOTHER DEAD BODY! SWEET JUSTICE! (Score:0, Informative)
The UK only counts a murder if there is a conviction. The numbers are all lies.
Re:ANOTHER DEAD BODY! SWEET JUSTICE! (Score:5, Informative)
Strict gun laws in the UK didn't prevent that one guy from going on a rampage for half a day and killing and injuring a whole bunch of people, including police.
Of course there will always be edge cases, but the facts speak for themselves -
USA Gun Deaths per 100,000 (2011): 10.3
UK Gun Deaths per 100,000 (2011): 0.25
Source:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L... [wikipedia.org]
Re:ANOTHER DEAD BODY! SWEET JUSTICE! (Score:4, Informative)
That is definitely not true. However, the conviction rate is well above 90%, so it would not make a whole lot of difference if it was true.
I do not deny that it occasionally takes 30 years to find the offender, but mostly its less than a year.