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Indiana man charged with theft for removing police tracking device from car

washingtonpost.com

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Re: Indiana man charged with theft for removing police tracking device from car

#211

Post by MFLoon »

Nasrudith wrote: post #145
MaxfordAndSons wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And use a second car/taxi for your drug dealing If you are a drug dealer and find a police tracker on your car, it's time to stop being a drug dealer.

If part of an organized ring I wonder how well acting as a dedicated decoy would pay off strategically. Deliberately "cry wolf" with legitimate but shady looking shipments while other members carry out business. Of course that would make them and the organization lose their illegitimate income and the police likely outnumber them in particular even if there may be more smugglers total. Of course long term thinking an…

Larger scale smugglers/producers definitely do this, and yea, if you're a middle management drug dealer in one of those organizations, that's probably the play. But also they'll be getting spied on by federal/international organizations with better tools than physical magnetized trackers.

Re: Indiana man charged with theft for removing police tracking device from car

#212

Post by logfromblammo »

MFLoon wrote: post #210
logfromblammo wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I upvoted this specifically so the people who still believe in the essential lawfulness of police would have a better chance of seeing it. The slang term is "testilying". There is low conditional probability that a drug dealer smart enough to locate and remove a GPS tracker would put it in the same physical locker compartment as a crack pipe after taking it off. Were I the judge, I would be especially wary of "automa…

> Were I the judge... Your mental model of a typical American judges values is, unfortunately, unrepresentative in the extreme.

My mental model of the typical American judge involves a lot of corner-cutting, and disdain for actually doing the job of applying reason and wise judgment to real-world situations, instead of just following a checklist of established procedures and conforming to precedent.

Judges tend to rule in favor of lawyers that do most of their work for them. It's a lot easier to get an order if the lawyer submits a draft order, and the judge can just sign it.

I get it. I also like to slack off and get paid. To be perfectly honest, I'd probably only double-check the evidence if a random number generator said to do it, based on the pre-established sampling rate setting in my judge-automation program.

Re: Indiana man charged with theft for removing police tracking device from car

#213

Post by MFLoon »

logfromblammo wrote: post #212
MFLoon wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Were I the judge... Your mental model of a typical American judges values is, unfortunately, unrepresentative in the extreme.

My mental model of the typical American judge involves a lot of corner-cutting, and disdain for actually doing the job of applying reason and wise judgment to real-world situations, instead of just following a checklist of established procedures and conforming to precedent. Judges tend to rule in favor of lawyers that do most of their work for them. It's a lot easier to get an order if the lawyer submits a draft orde…

I suppose I misspoke, your mental model sounds accurate XD. I wish there were a mandated evidence double check sampling rate! The point I was making is that I suspect in most courtrooms the rate is effectively 0.

Re: Indiana man charged with theft for removing police tracking device from car

#214

Post by logfromblammo »

rosybox wrote: post #204
logfromblammo wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I upvoted this specifically so the people who still believe in the essential lawfulness of police would have a better chance of seeing it. The slang term is "testilying". There is low conditional probability that a drug dealer smart enough to locate and remove a GPS tracker would put it in the same physical locker compartment as a crack pipe after taking it off. Were I the judge, I would be especially wary of "automa…

> so the people who still believe in the essential lawfulness of police Your jaded perception of police is mistaken. You just hate the police and your argument doesn't make any sense. > Ask to see the glass pipe they found. Ask to see the photograph of it in situ next to the tracking device. Compare it very closely to evidence taken from previous drug cases. When the cops are unable to back up their bullshit story, t…

No. My initial presumption is that the pipe they found with the tracker was actually taken out of the evidence room, from a previous drug case, and planted at the search site solely to justify a further search elsewhere on the property. The comparison would be to see if they were using the same piece of evidence for multiple cases.

It probably would have been easier to just watch the bodycam and dashcam videos.

Re: Indiana man charged with theft for removing police tracking device from car

#215

Post by coldtea »

dbcurtis wrote: post #69
lazyguy2 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you hide something on my car to spy on me then it's not reasonable to expect it back if I find it. Charging somebody with theft for something like this is effectively rewarding the police for being incompetent. One of the worst mistakes in modern government is pretending that the people 'serving' have more rights and privileges then everybody else. They should have less.

> One of the worst mistakes in modern government is pretending that the people 'serving' have more rights and privileges then everybody else. The correct term to use here is "powers". The people have "rights". The people delegate, through the constitution, certain "powers" to the government. The government, in turn, delegates some of those powers to the police. The police do not have "rights". The government does not…

>The people delegate, through the constitution, certain "powers" to the government.

Did the people vote to delegate those rights? Were the people ever asked?

Re: Indiana man charged with theft for removing police tracking device from car

#216

Post by ben509 »

Hamuko wrote: post #40
ben509 wrote: post #34

If you find something like that, you put it in a box and mail it back to the police. Be sure to include an invoice with a hefty charge for shipping and handling.

> Besides, Keating said, there was no indication that it belonged to law enforcement. How do you know where to mail it?

Local police. If they send it back, you keep any paperwork and throw it away, since now you have proof that you tried.

Re: Indiana man charged with theft for removing police tracking device from car

#217

Post by rolph »

huffmsa wrote: post #114
cm2187 wrote: post #95

That part doesn’t sound right: > trackers placed by the government under a warrant are distinct from those placed by private citizens. Removing a device from a car where it has a legal basis to be “deprives the police of its use,” he claimed, and constitutes a crime. You have no way to tell a police tracker from a stawker’s one. How can removing it possibly constitute a crime?

Had he been made aware of the tracking device, like one is with an ankle monitoring bracelet, then sure, removal is cause for an arrest on theft, destruction of property, etc. However, since he was not made aware of the device, he has no obligation to be compliant. If the police were tapping someone's phone and they threw away the phone, for whatever reason, would they be in a similar situation? If they avoided a hum…

5th amendment comes to mind, as in you are not under obligation to provide incriminatory evidence

Re: Indiana man charged with theft for removing police tracking device from car

#218

Post by dbcurtis »

coldtea wrote: post #215
dbcurtis wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> One of the worst mistakes in modern government is pretending that the people 'serving' have more rights and privileges then everybody else. The correct term to use here is "powers". The people have "rights". The people delegate, through the constitution, certain "powers" to the government. The government, in turn, delegates some of those powers to the police. The police do not have "rights". The government does not…

> The people delegate, through the constitution, certain "powers" to the government. Did the people vote to delegate those rights? Were the people ever asked?

Why yes, yes indeed they were asked, and yes indeed they did vote. Look up the voting procedures around the ratification of the US constitution. They are rather interesting. The vote was put directly to the people, intentionally bypassing the statehouses so that the vote would be directly by the people. (Where the definition of "people" is white, male, and I believe also had to be a landowner -- but still, considering the times, a radical level of democracy.)

Re: Indiana man charged with theft for removing police tracking device from car

#219

Post by rosybox »

logfromblammo wrote: post #214
rosybox wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> so the people who still believe in the essential lawfulness of police Your jaded perception of police is mistaken. You just hate the police and your argument doesn't make any sense. > Ask to see the glass pipe they found. Ask to see the photograph of it in situ next to the tracking device. Compare it very closely to evidence taken from previous drug cases. When the cops are unable to back up their bullshit story, t…

No. My initial presumption is that the pipe they found with the tracker was actually taken out of the evidence room, from a previous drug case, and planted at the search site solely to justify a further search elsewhere on the property. The comparison would be to see if they were using the same piece of evidence for multiple cases. It probably would have been easier to just watch the bodycam and dashcam videos.

I imagine you can't just take a crack pipe from a previous case out of a police evidence room.

Re: Indiana man charged with theft for removing police tracking device from car

#220

Post by coldtea »

dbcurtis wrote: post #218
coldtea wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The people delegate, through the constitution, certain "powers" to the government. Did the people vote to delegate those rights? Were the people ever asked?

Why yes, yes indeed they were asked, and yes indeed they did vote. Look up the voting procedures around the ratification of the US constitution. They are rather interesting. The vote was put directly to the people, intentionally bypassing the statehouses so that the vote would be directly by the people. (Where the definition of "people" is white, male, and I believe also had to be a landowner -- but still, considerin…

>Where the definition of "people" is white, male, and I believe also had to be a landowner -- but still, considering the times, a radical level of democracy

So, at best the "people" of 3 centuries ago where asked. And not all the people, just the white, male, landowners (and rich -- poorer white male people only got to vote 1.5 centuries later or more in the US, even in general elections).

And why is this binding for people, including poor, non landowning, women, blacks, latinos, asians, etc, 3 centuries later?

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