BMW traps alleged thief by remotely locking him in car

BMW traps alleged thief by remotely locking him in car

Stealer's Wheel? Seattle police department quotes "Watchmen" movie in a recap of the recent arrest.
Tech Culture

by Gael Fashingbauer Cooper December 4, 2016 5:00 PM PST

It's maybe the most satisfying arrest we can imagine.

Seattle police caught an alleged car thief by enlisting the help of car maker BMW to both track and then remotely lock the luckless criminal in the very car he was trying to steal.

Jonah Spangenthal-Lee, deputy director of communications for the Seattle Police Department, posted a witty summary of the event on the SPD's blog on Wednesday. Turns out if you're inside a stolen car, it's perhaps not the best time to take a nap.

"A car thief awoke from a sound slumber Sunday morning (Nov. 27) to find he had been remotely locked inside a stolen BMW, just as Seattle police officers were bearing down on him," Spangenthal-Lee wrote. The suspect found a key fob mistakenly left inside the BMW by a friend who'd borrowed the car from the owner and the alleged crime was on.

But technology triumphed. When the owner, who'd just gotten married a day earlier, discovered the theft, the police contacted BMW corporate, who tracked the car to Seattle's Ravenna neighborhood. The car was parked, still running, with the snoozing suspect fast asleep behind the wheel.

"BMW employees were able to remotely lock the car's doors, trapping the suspect inside, presumably while hissing something terrifying like 'I'm not locked in here with you, you're locked in here with me' into the car's sound system," Spangenthal-Lee wrote. (Yes, that's a line from "Watchmen.")

The 38-year-old suspect, who was carrying a small amount of methamphetamine, was booked into the King County Jail for auto theft and drug possession, police said.

That's a pretty entertainingly written item for a cop blotter, and it's not the first time Seattle PD has strived to make their police reports entertaining. In 2012, Spangenthal-Lee made headlines with "Marijawhatnow?", a guide to legal pot use in the city.

https://www.cnet.com/news/bmw-traps-thief-by-remotely-locking-him-in-car-he-was-stealing/


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Report: World’s 1st remote brain surgery via 5G network performed in China

World’s 1st remote brain surgery via 5G network performed in China Published time: 17 Mar, 2019 13:12 ·           A Chinese surgeon has performed the world’s first remote brain surgery using 5G technology, with the patient 3,000km away from the operating doctor. Dr. Ling Zhipei remotely implanted a neurostimulator into his patient’s brain on Saturday, Chinese state-run media  reports . The surgeon manipulated the instruments in the Beijing-based PLAGH hospital from a clinic subsidiary on the southern Hainan island, located 3,000km away. The surgery is said to have lasted three hours and ended successfully. The patient, suffering from Parkinson’s disease, is said to be feeling well after the pioneering operation. The doctor used a computer connected to the next-generation 5G network developed by Chinese tech giant Huawei. The new device enabled a near real-time connection, according to Dr. Ling.  “You barely feel that th...
Read more

New ATM's: withdraw money with veins in your finger

New cash machines: withdraw money with veins in your finger Cash machine technology that reads the pattern of finger veins is already available in Japan and Poland   By Telegraph Reporters 6:59PM BST 15 May 2014 Cash machines could soon be installed with devices that identify customers by reading the veins in their fingers. The technology is already being rolled out in Poland, where 1,730 cash machines will this year be installed with readers, negating the need for a debit card and Pin. Developed by Hitachi, the Japanese electronics firm, the machines read the patterns of the veins just below the surface of the skin on your finger using infra-red sensors. The light is partially absorbed by haemoglobin in the veins to capture a unique finger vein pattern profile, which is matched to a profile. The technology is used by Japanese banks and also in Turkey, offering “groundbreaking levels of accuracy and speed of authentication”, Hitachi said, which in t...
Read more