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I've had some experience with this issue as a police officer. Unfortunately, you can't just walk up to somebody's house and say "Apple says the phone is here, let me in! " Sometimes the technology works very well, sometimes it doesn't. The Fourth Amendment protects people from situations like this, and you should be glad it does.

I've had some success knocking on the door and talking to the homeowner. Especially when the parent looks at the kid and says " go get the phone, now! " More often though, people won't answer the door when I come knocking. Experience as a cop goes a long way. How you talk to people and what you tell them, plays a big part.

The accuracy of the app is often suspect. If there is one house at the end of a country road, it's pretty good. However, when you're looking at 12 apartments in one building of a huge complex, it's not nearly so good. I've seen the app say the phone was in one place and then suddenly say it was 5 miles away, when it was determined in the end that it never moved.

As far as getting a warrant goes, the officer can't swear to the accuracy of the information or the technology it's based on. Judges don't issue search warrants based on free apps. Again, you should be glad they don't. We may get to the point some day where this technology is good enough, but that's a long way off.

The question regarding the Lowjack hit is a good one. I suggest anyone wondering about that dig a little deeper. Start with learning what a Carroll stop is. The bottom line is the law is almost always lagging behind advances in technology. But you have to ask yourself how you'd feel if somebody kicked your door in and came in your house based on the information provided by a free app.

...but open-ended fairy tales are just so much more fun.

I had a home burglary a few years ago, a few months later, I found my wife's compound bow on eBay, offered by a local pawn shop. I went to the shop and talked privately to the owner who, after seeing a copy of the police report, agreed that the bow was the one stolen from my home. Of course, he could not give me the name of the person who pawned it, but he did show me everything that person had pawned and asked if any of it was mine (it wasn't). He also told me that, by law, a list of every item pawned was uploaded to a law enforcement database each day and that law enforcement could look at every item the person had pawned at any pawn shop in the state. He told me to notify the sheriff's office, have then come by and pick up the bow and the name of the person who pawned it.

I went straight to the sheriff's office, talked to a detective and gave him all the info......called back 2 weeks later and they hadn't even gone to the shop to get the name of the person who pawned my stuff. As far as I know, they never did.

Talk about a slam dunk gimme.......all they had to do was get the persons name, look up what he had pawned on the database, confirm that it matched items taken from my house (and probably others) and arrest him........guess they were too busy writing tickets or eating donuts.......

Did you get your stuff back? As was noted before, possession of a stolen item alone is not probable cause for arrest. If it was, the pawnbroker would be guilty too.

No, I didn't get anything back, the insurance had already paid off so the items would have gone to them anyway. I understand that the pawnbroker wasn't subject to arrest, but the person who pawned it should be.

How is possession of stolen property not grounds for arrest?? People are charged with possession of stolen property all the time.....

No, I didn't get anything back, the insurance had already paid off so the items would have gone to them anyway. I understand that the pawnbroker wasn't subject to arrest, but the person who pawned it should be.

How is possession of stolen property not grounds for arrest?? People are charged with possession of stolen property all the time.....

The simple fact is most busy departments can't be bothered with solving property crimes.

Worth reading again.

That's a very ignorant statement.



DAve

Worth reading again.

Fireball is very ignorant.



Dave

Well Clark in our county....

That is pretty much true...

We have like one sheriff and about 3 full time deputies to cover a county that is bigger than Rhode Island...

Protocol is, if you catch people robbing your home.... if the cops do respond... they don't arrest them, they don't have the funds to run the jail... so the cops will issue them a citation and a court date... and then leave...

more normal, Josephine County... will tell you to make a list of the things stolen and go on line and file a police report... and they will have it available to your insurance company...

Right here is all we have available here in Hooterville..

https://www.co.josephine.or.us/Page.asp?NavID=1808

Apple needs to add a new "Explode on Command" app.

Whether it blows their head off when talking, or a chunk of their ass off while carrying it in their hip pocket, it'd still be a "bang" to see thieves get what's coming to them.

Make the app do the same for stolen Air Jordans too.

No...you must be thinking of Microsoft operating systems.

Sorry you think so. That has certainly been my impression every time I have tried to get police action on a theft.

After a stereo was ripped out of my parents' car I showed the (Chicago) cop the identifiable footprints around the car and the same footprints going down our unpaved alley all the way to the back door of a neighbors house. He shrugged.

(I put a rock through the kid's windshield. Then I shrugged.)