8 ms·

Robbery Suspect Tracked by GPS and Killed

brownbat 12y 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/heroin-use-in-the-united-states-data-and-recent-trends http://journalistsresource.org/studies/society/public-health... http://www.cdc.gov/vitalsigns/PainkillerOverdoses/index.html http://www.cdc.gov/vitalsigns/PainkillerOverdoses/index.html http://www.drugabuse.gov/publications/topics-in-brief/prescription-drug-abuse http://www.drugabuse.gov/publications/topics-in-brief/prescr... http://www.drugabuse.gov/about-nida/noras-blog/2013/07/prescription-painkillers-are-claiming-more-womens-lives 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-391-the-anti-addiction-pill-thats-big-business-for-drug-dealers 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 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.
- rdl 12y 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 12y ago
    yes, as per Piketty, r > g
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- girvo 12y 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).
cottonseed 12y 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.
- dredmorbius 12y ago
  And ... ? What sort of response did this prompt?
  - cottonseed 12y 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 12y 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 12y 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 12y ago
  Hopefully someone innocent wouldn't aim a handgun at a police officer.
  - hga 12y 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.
- dredmorbius 12y 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 12y 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 12y ago
  "one" implies that the officer who fired the deadly shot can be easily determined.
  - gojomo 12y 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 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SelectaDNA
    - deleted 12y ago
      [deleted]
    - hga 12y ago
      Even at handgun energies, I find it difficult to imagine DNA surviving the heat and flame associated with firing, and enough being recoverable in the pass through case. Actually, the smokeless powder in handgun ammo pretty much doesn't finish burning up by the time the bullet exits, resulting in a muzzle flash problem at nighttime, and that burning powder ought to do a good job of burning up any chemical taggant. It's probably telling the gun grabbers have never seriously suggested this (vs. tagging powder or brass). Then there's the traceability problem. Lots of ammo is bought in bulk, especially by police departments, it would cost vastly more to get customized ammo for each officer, be a total nightmare to try to get it to designated officers and keep it isolated to them. You can't realistically demand an officer never hand a spare magazine to another, especially in a firefight, and ammo is generally a fungible item. It would never work in a civilian context, it would be vastly more expensive as noted above, we'd boycott any manufacturer who tried such a stunt, and since in the US we buy the vast majority of ammo it would stick. Also note US civilian ammo production for all types is above 12 billion rounds per year, and I've read rimfire ammo (e.g. .22 LR, not considered by almost everyone as suitable for self-defense) is only 3-4 billion of that. Those numbers strongly suggest taggant approaches are impractical.
scalene 12y ago
Is it worth keeping drugs off the non prescription market if it just leads to robberies and the killing of those robbers?
gojomo 12y 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 http://www.vanemden.com/books/neals/jipi.html
rayiner 12y 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.
rdl 12y 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.

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/heroin-use-in-the-united-states-data-and-recent-trends http://journalistsresource.org/studies/society/public-health... http://www.cdc.gov/vitalsigns/PainkillerOverdoses/index.html http://www.cdc.gov/vitalsigns/PainkillerOverdoses/index.html http://www.drugabuse.gov/publications/topics-in-brief/prescription-drug-abuse http://www.drugabuse.gov/publications/topics-in-brief/prescr... http://www.drugabuse.gov/about-nida/noras-blog/2013/07/prescription-painkillers-are-claiming-more-womens-lives 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-391-the-anti-addiction-pill-thats-big-business-for-drug-dealers 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 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.

rdl 12y 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 12y ago
  yes, as per Piketty, r > g
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
girvo 12y 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).

cottonseed 12y 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.

dredmorbius 12y ago
And ... ? What sort of response did this prompt?
- cottonseed 12y 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 12y 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 12y 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 12y ago
Hopefully someone innocent wouldn't aim a handgun at a police officer.
- hga 12y 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.
dredmorbius 12y 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 12y 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 12y ago
"one" implies that the officer who fired the deadly shot can be easily determined.
- gojomo 12y 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 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SelectaDNA
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
  - hga 12y ago
    Even at handgun energies, I find it difficult to imagine DNA surviving the heat and flame associated with firing, and enough being recoverable in the pass through case. Actually, the smokeless powder in handgun ammo pretty much doesn't finish burning up by the time the bullet exits, resulting in a muzzle flash problem at nighttime, and that burning powder ought to do a good job of burning up any chemical taggant. It's probably telling the gun grabbers have never seriously suggested this (vs. tagging powder or brass). Then there's the traceability problem. Lots of ammo is bought in bulk, especially by police departments, it would cost vastly more to get customized ammo for each officer, be a total nightmare to try to get it to designated officers and keep it isolated to them. You can't realistically demand an officer never hand a spare magazine to another, especially in a firefight, and ammo is generally a fungible item. It would never work in a civilian context, it would be vastly more expensive as noted above, we'd boycott any manufacturer who tried such a stunt, and since in the US we buy the vast majority of ammo it would stick. Also note US civilian ammo production for all types is above 12 billion rounds per year, and I've read rimfire ammo (e.g. .22 LR, not considered by almost everyone as suitable for self-defense) is only 3-4 billion of that. Those numbers strongly suggest taggant approaches are impractical.

scalene 12y ago

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

gojomo 12y 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 http://www.vanemden.com/books/neals/jipi.html

rayiner 12y 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.

rdl 12y 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.