Robbery Suspect Tracked by GPS and Killed(nytimes.com)
nytimes.com
Robbery Suspect Tracked by GPS and Killed
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/17/nyregion/robbery-suspect-tracked-by-gps-and-killed.html
23 comments
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).
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...)
yes, as per Piketty, r > g
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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.
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?
How long until people use these devices to manipulate police officers into shooting who they want?
Hopefully someone innocent wouldn't aim a handgun at a police officer.
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.
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.
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.
Last summer, a guy held up a pharmacy near where I was living in Somerville and dropped the (lojack'ed) containers in our garbage.
And ... ?
What sort of response did this prompt?
What sort of response did this prompt?
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.
Is it worth keeping drugs off the non prescription market if it just leads to robberies and the killing of those robbers?
"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?
Why "one or more"? Is this unknown to the police or do the police just not report such things to the press?
"one" implies that the officer who fired the deadly shot can be easily determined.
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
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.
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.
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Pretty much because you need to claim that in order to murder a suspect with impunity.
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.
...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).
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
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
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.