Robbery Suspect Tracked by GPS and Killed

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/17/nyregion/robbery-suspect-tracked-by-gps-and-killed.html

29 21 12 years ago

brownbat• 12 years ago

US drug abuse patterns have suddenly shifted over the past decade.

Prescription painkiller overdoses used to hover around the number of overdoses from heroin. In a few short years, they increased sixfold.

http://journalistsresource.org/studies/society/public-health...

http://www.cdc.gov/vitalsigns/PainkillerOverdoses/index.html

http://www.drugabuse.gov/publications/topics-in-brief/prescr...

http://www.drugabuse.gov/about-nida/noras-blog/2013/07/presc...

"Lojack in everything" is really cool, could push us towards a theftless society. We still have a lot of work to help people escape drug dependency, though.

Planet Money had an episode on Suboxone, a pill used to treat addiction, that was a pretty alarming look inside the insanity of US drug policy: http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2012/07/31/157665908/episode-...

They see Suboxone as a sort of "miracle drug," a few people object to that description: http://www.thefix.com/content/trapped-suboxone

Either way, the podcast does a great job at illustrating just how complicated and intimately political pharmaceutical manufacturing has become.

rdl2• 12 years ago

I think consumer goods getting cheap relative to real property and other non-stealable things, and expensive things becoming online services with activation components, already is pushing the returns to theft down. Certainly, ATMs, credit cards, ACH payroll, etc. has pushed the returns to theft down (vs when people carried a lot more cash, or kept it in their homes...)

jgalt212• 12 years ago

yes, as per Piketty, r > g

girvo• 12 years ago

Suboxone helped me get clean. I was a heroin addict for 6 years, and have been clean for two now. It doesn't work for everyone, but it's allowed me to get back to work and get my life on track (whereas programming on Methadone is near impossible).

cottonseed2• 12 years ago

Last summer, a guy held up a pharmacy near where I was living in Somerville and dropped the (lojack'ed) containers in our garbage.

dredmorbius2• 12 years ago

And ... ?

What sort of response did this prompt?

cottonseed2• 12 years ago

A bunch of cops showed up. Oddly, they didn't seem particularly interested in talking to us. They immediately suspected a neighbor who had a history of trouble with the law. They even briefly had him in cuffs outside his house, but let him go when they caught they caught the real guy elsewhere.

negativity• 12 years ago

...as for the technology used, it's kind of like the 1970's-era transponder from the movie No Country For Old Men (except GPS instead).

ihsw• 12 years ago

How long until people start using portable RF detectors/sweepers?

How long until people use these devices to manipulate police officers into shooting who they want?

lmartel• 12 years ago

Hopefully someone innocent wouldn't aim a handgun at a police officer.

hga2• 12 years ago

Nothing hopeful about it. There's something like 8 million citizens who are licensed to carry concealed right now, plus no license is required in Alaska, Arizona, Wyoming, and Vermont (never was for the latter). I'm one of them, and we by definition don't routinely aim our handguns at police officers, else we'd at minimum lose our license.

dredmorbius2• 12 years ago

Or foil-lined bags, already used in shoplifting attempts due to use of tracking devices on merchandise.

Placing the trackers where you want to misdirect the po-po is another option, of course, but it seems it was pulling a weapon, not having the tracker, that prompted the shooting.

Not that being approached by uniformed or plainsclothed police under other circumstances might not elicit a similar response.

tgb• 12 years ago

"As officers closed in, the man pointed a handgun in the direction of at least one of the officers; one or more of the officers opened fire, killing the man, the police said."

Why "one or more"? Is this unknown to the police or do the police just not report such things to the press?

Argorak• 12 years ago

"one" implies that the officer who fired the deadly shot can be easily determined.

gojomo2• 12 years ago

Some have suggested all ammo sold should be traceable to the buyer. If that's a good idea, perhaps we could start with the much-smaller task tracking all ammo issued to law enforcement. (A chemical-tagging mechanism like SelectDNA could help identify kill-shots even when the bullet passes through the victim or is otherwise unrecoverable.)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SelectaDNA

DonGateley• 12 years ago

Pretty much because you need to claim that in order to murder a suspect with impunity.

scalene• 12 years ago

Is it worth keeping drugs off the non prescription market if it just leads to robberies and the killing of those robbers?

gojomo2• 12 years ago

Eventually, drones will be able to follow and even shoot the suspect. Don't worry, other specialized "judge & jury" drones flying in close formation will ensure due-process is rapidly followed.

Simply because it's a great story on some related issues, I'll again recommend Neal Stephenson's "Jipi and the Paranoid Chip":

http://www.vanemden.com/books/neals/jipi.html

rayiner• 12 years ago

The technology has little to do with the punchline of this story. A convict and a suspect in an armed robbery pointed a gun at NYC police officers. He was shot and killed. Nothing new or unusual.

rdl2• 12 years ago

From a purely tech nerd perspective, I'm interested in how these pill bottle tracers work. Do they just rf beacon, or do they maintain a cell data link and periodically report position.

Robbery Suspect Tracked by GPS and Killed

Related Stories