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."
Didn't deserve to die... (Score:5, Insightful)
OK let's get this out of the way...
He didn't deserve to die for stealing the pills... ... but soon as he chose to put the life of an officer in danger instead of surrendering, then he did.
What a crap of title... (Score:5, Insightful)
The thief was killed because he raised a gun to an officer, not because he was tracked down by GPS.
Can we mod a submission as "-1 TROLL"?
A lot of screwed up stuff in this story ... (Score:4, Insightful)
People are becoming addicted to prescription painkillers. They cannot just buy these products. Therefore they (or others) have to rob them. Men worry about "erectile disfunction" because of advertising. Robbers steal the same products that are advertised for this. Guns are widely available in the US. Guns are used to commit these robberies. Police shoot the suspect because he's carrying a gun.
The decoy pill bottle is just a symptom in all this.
Now there's... (Score:2, Insightful)
... a use GPS devices I can support.
Re:ANOTHER DEAD BODY! SWEET JUSTICE! (Score:5, Insightful)
Another casualty of the War on Drugs (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:ANOTHER DEAD BODY! SWEET JUSTICE! (Score:2, Insightful)
In Britain, the regular patrolmen are not tracking GPS devices in pill bottles. That would be the special police forces, who do carry weapons.
Re:Didn't deserve to die... (Score:2, Insightful)
Not exactly. If he had succeeded in killing the cop, and was later arrested, he would probably have been sentenced to life in prison.
The officer killed him in self defense. Although the officer's actions were justified, self defense is not the normal justice system. If he had gone through a normal trial, for commiting a single murder, his punishment would have been different.
Re:Another casualty of the War on Drugs (Score:5, Insightful)
Completely aside from the most basic human right of all - dominion over your own body - you would think anyone with a functioning brain would have learned from Prohibition, but scum-sucking power freaks and those who countenance and support them will never get it.
Re:Didn't deserve to die... (Score:3, Insightful)
He didn't deserve to die for stealing the pills... ... but soon as he chose to put the life of an officer in danger instead of surrendering, then he did.
No, he didn't deserve to die for that, either.
What he would've deserved for that is a fair and impartial trial, with a verdict handed down in accordance with the law, and, if found guilty, a fair sentence (which, depending on your opinion on such matters, might include the death penalty).
The officer who killed him, meanwhile, acted in self-defense. And that's nothing one could blame him for, but to say that the robber deserved to die is a very, very different thing.
Re:ANOTHER DEAD BODY! SWEET JUSTICE! (Score:4, Insightful)
Maybe it's an outlandish concept to some, but in most civilized countries police doesn't deem it necessary to carry guns to protect themselves from the rest of society. They tend to expect society to work WITH them, not AGAINST them.
Of course, it's usually different in dictatorships.
Re:What a crap of title... (Score:2, Insightful)
The thief was killed because he raised a gun to an officer, not because he was tracked down by GPS.
Can we mod a submission as "-1 TROLL"?
After the police kill someone, they will always say the suspect raised a gun at an officer or tried to use some other deadly force.
The point is that the police knew where he was and he didn't know that the police knew. Instead of dealing with the situation where nobody gets hurt, the police decided to just kill the guy. Maybe he was in traffic driving and the police didn't want to risk a deadly chase.
What if in the future, a robber takes the GPS and then throws it in some other person's car. What if the police then kill the other person by mistake? The police have nothing but a GPS location and will kill at even the slightest gesture that they perceive to be a threat.
Re:Didn't deserve to die... (Score:5, Insightful)
"police officials said"
And police never gun down unthreatening people, and never lie about it afterward. Just sayin': you can't have anywhere close to 100% confidence about these cases.
If I was on a jury I'd need video corroboration before believing anything asserted by police.
Re:Another casualty of the War on Drugs (Score:5, Insightful)
you would think anyone with a functioning brain would have learned from Prohibition
Oh, they learned it well. They learned about how many cops they could hire, how big of a buracracy they need, how many prisons are built and staffed, how the power balance turns against the "citizens" (and, amazingly, they even get other "citizens" to cheer them on) and how much easier it is to go after people for other prosecutions once you nail them for a vice.
The brain malfunction is among the people who don't see this as a War on the People.
Re:Didn't deserve to die... (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, in the US anyways, we have this concept called "innocent until proven guilty*" and that cuts both ways. Believe me, I'm no fan of the direction of modern "law enforcement" with its increasingly paramilitary outlook, and I don't trust the police** much at all. But on a jury? If there's no evidence they're lying, you shouldn't convict because they might be lying.
* - I know. I've been on enough juries to know this is laughable in the real world. If I'm ever accused of a crime, I will waive my right to jury trial unless I'm going for the hail mary of jury nullification.
** - but I don't trust organizations of any kind. YMMV. I trust in individuals, and there are a couple cops out there who have earned it from me.
Re:PC leftist crowd, ignore not; (Score:5, Insightful)
Hmm. You left out the 16-year prison sentence the guy already had behind him for "sexual abuse and robbery convictions", which seems odd for someone genuinely defending the police here. You also jump to the rather ridiculous conclusion that there's a "PC leftist crowd" ready to condemn the police for shooting an armed nutcase who pulled a gun on them. Are you simply a troll hoping to initiate a left-right tribal battle over what seems a pretty clear case of a violent career criminal making his final mistake?
That said, we could once again blame the War on Drugs, which makes it profitable to rob damn painkillers at gunpoint. If people who want high could get high legally, and people who want to get completely messed up could do so in licensed places with medical and security staff, we wouldn't have to deal with this kind of shit. Nor would places like Mexico need to deal with their derived problems.
Re:ANOTHER DEAD BODY! SWEET JUSTICE! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: ANOTHER DEAD BODY! SWEET JUSTICE! (Score:3, Insightful)
There is the problem.
Not enough guns.
If you had more guns then you would need more guns.
Because more guns is the answer to all gun related issues.
Re:or not commit robberies and burglaries (Score:3, Insightful)
The smart ones go into law and politics.... ...or even retrospectively make it legal.
Where you can buy, bamboozle or masonic handshake your way out of your crimes.
Re:ANOTHER DEAD BODY! SWEET JUSTICE! (Score:2, Insightful)
Sounds like suicide by cop. Maybe the idiot didn't want to go to jail.
Re:ANOTHER DEAD BODY! SWEET JUSTICE! (Score:5, Insightful)
but in most civilized countries police doesn't deem it necessary to carry guns to protect themselves from the rest of society.
Only if you define 'civilized' as 'most police don't carry guns'. Most police in Europe carry guns. Most police around the world carry guns. The UK [answers.com] and Norway [wikipedia.org] don't get to dominate the stats.
I'm not saying that we don't have problems, I'd LOVE to reform our police and justice systems here in the USA, but routine carrying of arms isn't one of them. My view is if they can't be trusted with a weapon, they can't be trusted to be an officer.
Re:ANOTHER DEAD BODY! SWEET JUSTICE! (Score:5, Insightful)
Do you happen to have a source on Finnish officers shooting 'to incapacitate'? Much less in the leg? Because my self-defense and military training is that a leg shot is both potentially fatal(big arteries there, fast bleedout) and not likely to be incapacitating(if you don't hit the artery they can still fight).
By my training 'Center of Mass' shots, IE to the chest, is both an easier shot to hit with, is more likely to actually incapacitate, and given prompt medical attention not actually all that more likely to be fatal.
I shoot to 'stop', not to 'wound' or 'kill'.
That being said, I'm all for officers using negotiation instead of gunfire were possible. But if that trigger has to be pulled, it needs to be pulled in the most effective manner possible.
Re:ANOTHER DEAD BODY! SWEET JUSTICE! (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not that they don't trust the officers with a gun, it's that everybody knows that patrolmen don't have guns. Why spend money to get a gun when you know that you're not at risk of being shot at to start? And then why shoot at an officer who you know won't shoot at you?
The idea is that it lowers the stakes all around.
Re:ANOTHER DEAD BODY! SWEET JUSTICE! (Score:4, Insightful)
Well the US is fairly unique as the rights and privileges of sovereignty are granted to the Government by the Governed, where in European Countries the opposite is true, soveignty is granted by God, throught the Church to the King and the people were chattle. The Monarchs didn't have to say "you're not allowed to have guns" because the default is all rights and privileges are deigned unless specifically allowed by the Sovereign; which in Europe is the Government, and in the US is the people.
Re:ANOTHER DEAD BODY! SWEET JUSTICE! (Score:5, Insightful)
The USA has said this is fine and this is the society they want to live in, but to the rest of us it is batshit crazy and we want no part of it. Handguns do not belong in a civilized society. Full stop.