BOSTON, MA – Global Positioning System (GPS-based) vehicle tracking devices have a way of taking all the fun out of a police chase.
A man from the Dorchester neighborhood in Boston, MA. and two accomplices are behind bars for attempted bank robbery. Not only did the trio fail to get any cash when they staged a holdup at the East Boston Savings Bank in Everett, their escape was rather ho-hum. Police watched the crime happen, then just followed the getaway car on a computer screen in real time. The men were in custody a few minutes later.
Massachusetts State Police planted a vehicle tracking device last October on the car Richard R. Wark Jr., 25, was borrowing from his uncle. Police had suspected Wark was involved in a different bank robbery about three weeks earlier, so they had him under surveillance with the vehicle tracking device.
They placed the vehicle tracking device on the car Oct. 25.
On the day of the most recent crime, state and federal authorities followed a Dodge Intrepid driven by Wark for several hours, rather uneventfully, until the vehicle tracking system showed it parked outside the East Boston Savings Bank about 4 p.m.
Police at the scene allegedly saw two passengers get out of the car, enter the bank, then flee the bank quickly and get back into the car. The FBI said they never got any cash. Then authorities simply tracked the getaway car a short distance away to South Boston and arrested the three men.
With the vehicle tracking report submitted as evidence in court, it was rather difficult for the would-be robbers to deny they were at the scene of the crime.
Wark pled guilty June 16 in Boston federal court to the attempted bank robbery and also admitted he was involved in an Oct. 1 robbery of a Citizens Bank in Hampton Falls, N.H. During the Citizens Bank robbery, Wark and another man got away with $8,500.
Wark will be sentenced on Sept. 23. He could face up to 40 years in prison.
The two other men allegedly involved in the vehicle tracking bank robbery, Jason S. Geddes and Edward A. Stone, pled guilty and were sentenced in July.
Federal law allows police to place vehicle tracking units on people’s cars because, although vehicle tracking is high tech spying, it’s really no different than just tracking a car visually. Of course, GPS vehicle tracking is easier and more efficient than the alternative.
Vehicle tracking devices are used heavily by law enforcement agencies. They enable police to know exactly where a vehicle is, from miles away at a remote location.
