
Posse of SF police with battering ram sent to arrest architect for iPhone theft - mysterypie
http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2018/01/18/sf-man-recounts-harrowing-mistaken-arrest-iphone/
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Judgmentality
I'm honestly not saying this to be antagonistic - I really don't understand
what it is the SF police do. As far as I can tell they ignore all problems
that involve homeless people (including assault and robbery), ignore break-
ins, and tend to do odd things like this article mentions that just incite
rage amongst the public. From my understanding a lot of the problems lie with
the DA not prosecuting criminals, and many overly forgiving laws in the state
of California. But I still have no idea what it is the SF police do on a daily
basis.

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hkmurakami
They are very diligent about citing parking violations.

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thirtyseven
That's the SFMTA, they are a completely different city department.

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antoncohen
It's hard to understand what the SFPD were thinking. Imagine if the phone was
actually one of the 300 stolen in the heist. Did the SFPD actually think that
the person using the phone, with their Apple ID attached, was one of the
thieves? It isn't like they stole 300 phones to keep for themselves.

If it was stolen it would have been someone who bought stolen merchandise,
knowingly or unknowingly. Knock on the dude's door, and nicely say "hey, sorry
to bother you, but we think your iPhone is one that was stolen in a big heist.
Do you have a receipt for the purchase?"

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frankharv
Wonder if the cops lied to the judge or how they got a warrant with no
probable cause.

We need to start making the individual officers responsible. You hurt an
innocent guy by chaining him YOU pay. Not the taxpayers.

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philip1209
It sounds to me like apple thinks that they have the serial numbers of the
stolen phones, and that this guy's phone was unfortunately mixed up with them.
I wonder if they went to his apple ID address, or if they accessed his gps to
track him. Sounds like a privacy violation if it was the latter . . .

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valuearb
I would have waited till my wife got dressed before opening door. Am I dead
now?

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tritium
So, it’s safe to say that from birth to death, it’s possible to take a phone,
from point of sale, all the way through the rest of it’s usage history, watch
it float around, and then tie it presumptively to an individual, whenever the
phone’s various identifiers appear on the network, and that might turn out to
be pretty accurate most of the time?

I mean we’ve known about the identifiable aspects of cellular phones for a
long time, but I’m not sure I’ve heard of a store claiming a number of unsold
phones as stolen goods, handed off a list of targets to police, who then
utilize technical resources, attempt to passively triangulate on anything in
their jurisdiction, and then hunt them down.

In this case, it was point of theft to doorstep, and the accuracy was
sacrificed for a rush job to “ _catch a bad guy_ ” or “ _save lives_ ” as is
so often said, but consider the operations of a slower, more patient, even
cautious operation.

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emodendroket
Hell, why not just hire the police out directly at this rate?

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on_and_off
why bother ?

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emodendroket
At least it would be honest.

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godzillabrennus
I hope they sue and win.

Seems to be the only way for an average citizen to check authority in
government these days.

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brokenmachine
If they sue and win, the average citizen is the one who pays, and that outcome
does literally nothing to check authority.

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garyfirestorm
Why bother chasing a single iPhone? Unless you have a proof that this person
is responsible for the heist. In that case why ask the wife where's the dudes
iPhone? It's unfortunate that somebody has to endure this, suing seems to be
the only way to get justice and it's unfortunate that we 'the tax payers' are
going to pay for it.

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shiven
I hope they sue the underpants off each officer, their supervisor, the SFPD
and the warrant issuing judge - who, in turn, should jail the person(s)
providing the wrong IMEI, for perjury and contempt of court.

