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]
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Most are not that smart.
This needs to be advertised tho, so criminals know they are at a higher risk of getting caught.
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nah.. you're not thinking inside the bottle.
explosive diarrhea pills labeled as "super fun time"..
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Dye packets in the bottles, like they use in Bank robberies would be interesting as well.
I think you fail to understand how cash and pills work, particularly in how they are packaged.
Money, you see, is mostly validated using visual means. A vendor tells me that something costs $15, and I hand over two bills...one that is worth $10 and one that is worth $5. He/she then looks at said bills, seeing that they are indeed money and also in the right denominations, and the transaction is concluded. If I hand over two $1 bills, the transaction will fail, or if I hand over pieces of paper that feel l
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Why? Because COPS SAID SO.
Bullshit.
Re:ANOTHER DEAD BODY! SWEET JUSTICE! (Score:5, Insightful)
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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."
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Just to clarify, I think the war on drugs is stupid and the guy should never have had monetary incentives to steal painkillers. I think it's sad that our police state initiative for funding criminals caused yet another death.
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True. People have no responsibility for their actions. I should be able to steal peoples shit and use guns to commit violent crimes, because it's all someone elses fault. The government should be giving this guy tax-payer funded heroin!
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In the end it's cheaper to give drugs away than deal with the crime that street drugs cause. People who want to do drugs will do whatever it takes to do drugs. This includes robbery and murder. Maybe it would be better to provide them free.
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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.
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I agree with you in principle, but this case looks to be pretty clearcut
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.
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When this happens in Finland they shoot to incapacate(in the leg etc.)...
If a person was leveling a gun at me, and known to be in possession of pain killers, I probably wouldn't shoot him in the leg.
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.
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http://yle.fi/uutiset/poliisi_... [yle.fi]
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You only shoot someone if your life is in danger. If you purposely only shoot them in the leg, obviously, your life wasn't in danger.
This is a problem. When you legitimize shooting a person for reasons other then stopping them from seriously harming or killing you or someone else, you end up with bullets flying around unnecessarily that can stray and kill and unintended victim.
You don't aim for the leg, you aim to stop the threat and only do it when the threat is to the life or serious bodily harm that coul
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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:ANOTHER DEAD BODY! SWEET JUSTICE! (Score:4, Informative)
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: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]
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You could get statistics by scrapping this page list of British police officers killed in the line of duty [wikipedia.org]. I think it is roughly 71/248 or about 30%. I would not be surprised if the GP was correct and the percentage of British police officers killed by guns is greater than the percentage of US police officers. This could be due to the fact that British police don't have guns [bbc.com].
But the percentages are terribly misleading if you don't look at the absolute numbers or per capita numbers. In the US, 500 [thefreetho...roject.com]
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.
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:3)
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: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)
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.
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Nope. Probably because we don't discriminate against them.
Ya know, people are more willing to accept your rules if they feel you accept them, too. It's kinda a mutual thing.
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It rarely happens. A beat officer is unlikely to ever find themselves facing a suspect armed with a firearm in the UK. Most gun crime in the UK is gang-on-gang, they seldom use guns against the police. Which isn't to say that it never happens, but when it does it's noteworthy simply because of its rarity. The other times you get armed suspect will be hostage type situations, at which point armed officers automatically get deployed anyway.
The only place you'll find routinely armed police officers in the
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They're SO-15, they're a specialist armed unit (formed when they combined SO-13 with Special Branch). They only get deployed when they explicitly need armed officers.
Also we don't have "metro police", that would British Transport Police, who are responsible for policing railways nationally, railway property, London Underground, and various other things. They're not routinely armed.
Re:ANOTHER DEAD BODY! SWEET JUSTICE! (Score:5, Informative)
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)
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]
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Only if you ignore the fact that most of those are self-inflicted deaths, and most of the rest are criminal-on-criminal.
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.
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Yes, that's pretty much how it works. As others have noted, it works because guns are the exception rather than the rule. But another advantage: when a gun is in the picture, the beat cops back off and call the professional shooting-people cops, who're actually trained in the art of shooting people, as opposed to the American beat cops who will shoot kids with water pistols [latimes.com], black men reaching for their wallets [wikipedia.org], miss [foxnews.com]
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I think you need to have your satire module re-calibrated, Unit AC.
Re:ANOTHER DEAD BODY! SWEET JUSTICE! (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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There are no withdrawal symptoms from GPS devices.
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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.
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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.
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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).
And yet get ready for the chorus of people who will say we should have just had a hunter-killer drone in the sky to take this guy out rather than endanger the lives of officers.
A chorus of voters.
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If a criminal points a gun at an officer they are pretty much waving their rights to a trial, hell they are waving their rights to live at that point. Police officers deal will dangerous people everyday and every year police officers die in the line of duty. If I was a cop I wouldn't think twice at shooting someone pointing a gun at me. At that point is it really worth risking the chance that the other person is just bluffing?
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: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.
Interesting concept (Score:4, Interesting)
The usual story burglary victims hear is that they'll likely never get their stuff back. I can install a GPS transmitter inside one of my computers or my guitar. As a ham radio operator, I can use APRS which is trackable almost anywhere. Very interesting.
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And they've already got it [thetileapp.com].
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And they've already got it.
No, that's an ad for "Tile". Range 50 to 150 feet to nearest iPhone with the Tile app. Lifespan of one year.
It's another one of those "preorder" scams - pay now, get delivery someday, maybe. "With your help, 49,586 backers preordered Tiles totaling $2,681,297." They're vague about how many were actually delivered.
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I alreay use a product called Stick'n'Find. It's like Tile except it has a user-replacable battery and is available now. It also supports Android. It also provides a SDK and will sense temperature.
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The usual story burglary victims hear is that they'll likely never get their stuff back. I can install a GPS transmitter inside one of my computers or my guitar.
You still won't get it back. The police will file a report and put the report in storage.
Unless you have a lawyer write a letter to the police. Then they will act quickly to find it.
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But none of that stuff counts as "drug war", so it's still not a priority and the cops still won't get it back for you. This has been demonstrated many times already with phone and laptop tracking apps.
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Even today a GPS tracker is not trivial tech though, the sort of thing a consumer might want to buy. It needs a good battery, probably lithium. It needs a modem so it connect to the cell network and transmit its position periodically. To save the battery it might do that once a day, and the battery might last six months if it is a nice big D cell. Unfortunately lithium D cells have a lot of restrictions on them (e.g. for transportation. It needs a server to receive the location data too.
So really a GPS trac
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"?
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And here I thought it was saying GPS has a "kill all humans" function.
Or perhaps, much like radioactive exposure, the act of tracking someone with GPS, kills THEM!
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And here I thought it was saying GPS has a "kill all humans" function.
It does - but your phone has to be jailbroken before you can access it.
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.
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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"?
I look forward to next week's headline "Robbery Suspect Noticed Wearing Hawaiian Shirt and Killed"
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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
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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.
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Re:What a crap of title... (Score:4, Informative)
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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.
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Yeah, meanwhile I'm sitting here on a bunch of broken bones, carefully rationing my painkillers because if I ask for more I'll be put on the DEA drug-seekers list and be dispensed nothing stronger than acetaminophen for the rest of my life. (NSAIDs are contraindicated for broken bones, BTW
Drug laws suck. Still doesn't mean armed robbers ought to be excused, particularly armed robbers dumb enough to pull a gun on the cops.
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Yes. Absolute zip to do with the Darwin award for drawing down on a cop, but prohibition is just as stupid today as it was in 1920-33. Stupid as in none of anybody's fucking business what someone puts in their own body - liquor, funny kind of smoke, or drugs. THe ones who deserve to be kicked and stoned to death are the oh-so-superior thug assholes who champion prohibition.
Now there's... (Score:2, Insightful)
... a use GPS devices I can support.
welcome to the next boom (Score:3)
The pill bottle is an example of the coming Internet or things.
Much like drones and big data, there's lots of policy to abuse, and much ethics to be discussed... Much like the last boom with wireless and content (rights management).
Another casualty of the War on Drugs (Score:4, Insightful)
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: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.
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And who are you to keep him from eliminating himself from the gene pool in the way he chooses works best for him?
Fuck, let people snort, sniff, shoot and smoke themselves to grave and back, for all I care, give them MORE of the stuff! If this planet has more than it can take of one thing, it's humans!
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
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Yeah and those laws didn't work. So we continue to do the same thing... definition of crazy.
Some people are fuck ups and it is their right to be an example to others. Let them do what they want; however, since a big part of the problem is the inability to UNDO a 1 or 2 time mistake you tax it and put out plenty of warnings and treatment programs.
Alcohol does more harm than anything. STILL. The Police State probably does most the rest.
Me, I would have government provide everything for free. People like to sa
Only works if (Score:2)
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the criminals are not aware of what is being done. Good job NYT for letting the cat out of the bag.
True. This is a technology that gets less useful the more it is used. Even if you're an idiot crook, you don't have to be a genius to understand when your crook buddy says, "Hey, I got popped for taking the drugs that are on the special holder. Don't take those."
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Of course you realize it was an unauthorized NYPD official who let the cat out of the bag, and not the NYT, right?
How Old School! (Score:2)
Good. (Score:2)
Nothing more to add than that.
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the police tracked him down with no search warrant
No they didn't. They tracked the pill bottle. Same way I would use Find My iPhone if somebody took my phone, then go kick in his door.
Yes they did (Score:2)
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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.
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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.
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I doubt many people committing petty theft consider it a career. More like an act of desperation because they don't have a career, or because they need money to feed their addictions (drugs, gambling, whatever).
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Now take a wild guess what's going to happen next. Thieves are not dumb and word gets around.
That's a bit like the trojan horse. A great idea that worked. Once. Never has since. This actually MIGHT work a few times, but eventually thieves will either find a way to disable the decoys or avoid them.
In general, I expect the development of that tracking toy to cost more than it will eventually prevent in crimes. That's going to work a few times, the dumber thieves will bite it, and in the end you'll soon end up
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That requires the robbers to take time to inspect the bottles, or develop some quick method of identifying them (which is probably very difficult). Either way, it makes committing a robbery more difficult, which is the real point. You can't stop crime, not without truly draconian measures. You can, however, make it difficult enough for it to not be an enticing prospect for criminals or potential criminals.
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No money in it for the manufacturers to sell replacements.
Re:PC leftist crowd, ignore not; (Score:5, Interesting)
Not all of us on the left have a problem with this.
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.
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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.
Sigh. We'd end up with less crime, less harm to society and lesser insurance premiums; people might even begin to feel safe again.
"Yes, yes, but how will these policies further enrich the 1%? What, It won't? Oh. Forget it then."