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Fugitive Arrested After Using 'Wanted' Poster As His Facebook Profile Pic (ibtimes.co.uk) 89

An anonymous Slashdot reader writes: "A fugitive in Florida has been arrested by police after he used a wanted poster adorned with his mug shot for his Facebook profile picture," writes the International Business Times. After investigating reports of a disturbance, police discovered the 41-year-old's Facebook profile, which revealed the man was already wanted for six months for violating his parole after two counts of battery.

"Police say that as they arrested Yearwood a bag of marijuana fell out of his pocket. They charged him with possession of cannabis under 20 grams and are continuing to investigate the battery complaint."

One Twitter user jokingly suggested that the suspect should also be charged with copyright infringement -- for using the police department's photo without their permission.
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Fugitive Arrested After Using 'Wanted' Poster As His Facebook Profile Pic

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  • Pockets (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward

    You have to wonder why they always become so terribly unreliable at containing their contents whenever police are near. Is it time to go back to the drawing board on their design?

    • by Anonymous Coward

      More likely, the police dropped it as they arrested him and claimed it fell out of his pocket. It's particularly common for this to happen to black suspects.

      • by Desler ( 1608317 )

        Thanks Captain Obvious for explaing the GP's sarcastic joke. It was definitely funnier after you explained it.

        • by HiThere ( 15173 )

          His explanation did clarify things more me. I had assumed that the police were just going through his pockets in an illegal manner, but the explanation makes more sense.

          • by Desler ( 1608317 )

            Do you suffer from a lack of a sense of humor?

          • But why would the cops check his facebook page before, say, checking the police database for warrants for the person?

            • by HiThere ( 15173 )

              That *is* weird. And when thinking a bit more it makes their story seem probably a "total" lie.[*] But I didn't originally pay that much attention.

              *Well, not a total lie. Obviously, e.g., he was where they grabbed him. And it may well have been in the place they claimed. Etc.

          • So, what you are saying is that it would be illegal for the police to check his pockets after arresting him? I think you might be a bit wrong here.

      • Wow.

        More likely, the police dropped it as they arrested him and claimed it fell out of his pocket.

        Why? He already had warrants out for his arrest?

        It's particularly common for this to happen to black suspects

        Except, you know, he's white, he had a warrant or two out for his arrest, including one for drug possession.

        I guess it was just important to you to inject you political views into the discussion, no matter how irrelevant they are...

    • by AvitarX ( 172628 )

      He was under arrest, his pocket contents were no longer private anyway.

      The real concern I have is the fact that 20g is a crime at all.

      • by Desler ( 1608317 )

        Hear that whooshing sound...?

      • My son and a friend of his got arrested for getting into a minor fight with a third party.
        He had a half ounce on him at the time.
        They gave it back to him after they booked and released him.

        I love living in Washington....
  • by sribe ( 304414 ) on Sunday September 04, 2016 @02:41PM (#52825561)

    enough said...

    • by hawk ( 1151 )

      Hawkins' Second Law: There is no lower bound to human inteligence.

  • by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 04, 2016 @02:55PM (#52825593)

    My step father passed away several years ago and someone had pulled pictures of him off the internet for some leaflets at the memorial service. The primary one happened to be a mug shot that was released after he bailed on court ordered rehab. For some reason he was smiling widely. I never found out who did the leaflet but knowing his siblings its 50/50 between it being the best joke ever and beautiful ignorance.

  • by joelsherrill ( 132624 ) on Sunday September 04, 2016 @02:56PM (#52825595) Homepage

    Guess who has two thumbs and refuses to read stories on sites that want me to disable an ad blocker or answer a poll question.

    Here's another site hosting the same article which doesn't mind ad blockers.

    http://www.upi.com/Odd_News/20... [upi.com]

    Cue old man rant on ads being vectors.

    • by DanielRavenNest ( 107550 ) on Sunday September 04, 2016 @03:04PM (#52825633)

      I use No Script + Ublock Origin, and can see the content just fine. Some sites I have to tweak which scripts I allow. If it requires too much fiddling to strike a balance between seeing what I want and getting too many ads, I just move on to the next site. Advertisers don't seem to get this. In the days of paper newspapers and magazines, you got nothing without someone paying for it. Sometimes you got lucky and the previous reader left it behind for you to read, but usually you had to pay for it yourself. With the Internet, there is *always* another website to look at, and you pay a flat monthly fee to your service provider to deliver all of it.

      • by Anonymous Coward

        I hear there's a friendly fellow on slashdot who can help you do away with ads through some hosts file shenanigans.

    • I'm using an adblocker -- AdBlock Plus -- and the page loads fine for me.
      • Re:No it doesn't (Score:4, Informative)

        by Kvasio ( 127200 ) on Sunday September 04, 2016 @04:08PM (#52825891)

        if you like ABP, give a try for "ublock origin" (not "ublock"). Much less maintenance, just works better.

        Writing to you from country with the highest usage of adblockers in the world.

    • I feel like this is turning into a blood feud. One side blocks the ads, one side circumvents the blockers. Some members of the first side realize that ads are needed for some sites to thrive, some members of the second side realize they've gotten too intrusive with the ads. But mostly, both sides are too entrenched to make progress.

      On a side note, I recently became aware of metered paywalls - after allowing so many visitors, they throw up a paywall. So, for example, someone submits an article to /. t
      • It's a classic "you can't compete if you're the only one who isn't evil" problem - historically nothing but regulation can solve that problem.

        Another example was smoking in shops. In the 1980s there was a big debate about whether this should be banned. Those opposed to the ban argued that it's a regulation you don't need since shops are free to do the ban themselves. Every single store owner opposed the ban in public - and every single one of them was praying for it in private.
        See no store owner WANTED smok

    • I don't mind websites that ask me to answer a poll. I always give them deliberately incorrect data- (I know a lot of people do, and I encourage everyone to answer incorrectly on them). The reason, if enough people screw-up their data then people will stop hiring them to do market research because the data will be known to be faulty.

  • One Twitter user jokingly suggested that the suspect should also be charged with copyright infringement -- for using the police department's photo without their permission.

    Well, life in prison WOULD ensure his drug-use and battery days are over... if you ignore the problems of prison violence and drugs being smuggled into prison.

  • One Twitter user jokingly suggested that the suspect should also be charged with copyright infringement -- for using the police department's photo without their permission.

    Copyright infringement - Jesus. Now the FBI's going to get involved and he'll probably get life or the chair -- because, that's an easy fish for the FBI to fry. (Hmm... is that where that expression came from?)

    • by Psion ( 2244 )
      I don't think it's possible for the government to claim copyright as the creative product is funded through taxes and is thus publicly-owned. It's still a good idea to cite your sources, of course.
      • by Xtifr ( 1323 )

        The Federal government can't claim copyright, for pretty much the reasons you suggest. But that's because the Feds decided to apply that logic to themselves. Individual states are not required to do the same, and many don't. Sadly.

    • ... the chair -- because, that's an easy fish for the FBI to fry. (Hmm... is that where that expression came from?)

      Not sure. Is he a Pisces?

  • From IMDB: Lt. Walters: [to Lt. Bender] This could very well be the stupidest person on the face of the earth. Perhaps we should shoot him.

  • Jesus Christ, that article's written in worse English than anything I've ever seen on Slashdot.

    They added that when investigators they tried to find out what they could about Yearwood, discovered the post and he was arrested the very next day.

    Okay, skipping the terrible English, if investigators were "trying to find out what they could," would this not include, y'know, checking for outstanding warrants the old-fashioned way? In other words, is it just remotely possible that his Facebook photo had nothing whatsoever to do with him getting found out?

  • He just wants to feel wanted.
  • Is there any way to read "fell out of his pocket" that isn't a euphemism? Unless the cops picked him up by the ankles and shook him I find it very difficult to believe that anything just "fell out" at the random moment that they just happened to be arresting him. Of course if it was ever really in his pocket to begin with then they would have found it when they booked him. But it seems more likely that it "fell" out of the arresting officer's pocket instead.

    • by Anonymous Coward

      Yes.

      Many years ago, I had to call 911 because a guy drugged out of his mind had crashed into several cars in the parking lot, as well as a tree. Some people eventually sacrificed their own cars to box him in and prevent him from killing anyone, including himself, by keeping him off the road.

      When the cops arrived and he fled from the car, he grabbed some bags of drugs out of his own pocket and threw them on the ground, intending to implicate the officers. Unfortunately for him, no one was remotely near him

    • by Tony Isaac ( 1301187 ) on Monday September 05, 2016 @02:01AM (#52827813) Homepage

      That's a very strange conclusion to come to. Who is more likely to have drugs in his possession: a felon who was stupid enough to use his wanted poster on his facebook page, or a police officer doing his job? Of course, there are some crooked police officers in this country. But the vast majority are out there laying their life on the line every day to keep us all safe.

    • Is there any way to read "fell out of his pocket" that isn't a euphemism? Unless the cops picked him up by the ankles and shook him I find it very difficult to believe that anything just "fell out" at the random moment that they just happened to be arresting him. Of course if it was ever really in his pocket to begin with then they would have found it when they booked him. But it seems more likely that it "fell" out of the arresting officer's pocket instead.

      You'd think police officers would have better pockets than that, considering they have to run after people, leap over car bonnets and so on.

  • Going after a pot smoker is like going after a person on anti-depressants or an alcoholic who doesn't drive. If they're not operating heavy machinery, just leave them to it.

  • One Twitter user jokingly suggested that the suspect should also be charged with copyright infringement -- for using the police department's photo without their permission.

    And you thought information wanted to be free!

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