GPS Tracking

With hard times come hard criminal activities.  Bands of roving thieves are stealing more products and merchandise than ever before and demanding ransom for lives, too.  You can find them in pirate ships off of Somalia, or on the streets of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

It seems that even though authorities are successful in taking some off of the streets (and water), new recruits quickly take their places and the illegal activity just continues to grow.

Most of these groups of bandits are into drug dealing as their first source of income.  Indeed, many countries have “better and more important work to do” rather than cracking down on the drug trade.  In fact, if the flow of money were clearer, the leaders of third world nations are filling their own pockets with blood-tainted drug money.

But, fortunately, the effort of the United States DEA and local police agencies has made it more difficult for them to make money.  Often, they turn to other methods including extortion, kidnapping for ransom and even bank robbery.

Now, these thieves have added another way to add to their ill-gotten gain: cargo theft.  The reason that this is becoming more common is because there is a low risk / high reward payoff. (more…)

In the “There’s a First Time for Everything” category, an unusual news item.

A young man, accused of a random, possibly gang-related, shooting in Baltimore, MD is using the GPS tracking report from his court-ordered home monitoring device as an alibi.

Lamont Davis, 17, is behind bars, accused of the July 4 shooting of a 5-year-old girl and her female teenaged cousin. Raven Wyatt was shot in the head and her cousin (who was only identified by the name “Reds) was shot in the arm with stray bullets as they were walking one afternoon on South Pulaski Street. The two survived.

A blue light surveillance camera, set by police at strategically-placed high crime parts of the city, captured some grainy footage of the shooter. Witnesses identified the male figure as Davis.

However, the accused, whose trial is now underway in Baltimore Circuit Court, claims he was home at the time of the crime and submits his GPS tracking records as evidence. The tracking system report does record the GPS receiver at his home address at the time of the crime.

But a GPS expert in law enforcement and one in the consumer manufacturing industry dispute the criminal’s claim. They say the GPS tracker was at home at the time of the shooting, but Davis was not. He allegedly slipped off the ankle bracelet committed the crime and returned home later to put it back on.

Davis, while though only 17 years old, could be considered a career criminal. He has been arrested more than 15 times as a juvenile. At the time of the crime, he was on house arrest, out of detention for assaulting a teenage girl, and ordered to wear an ankle GPS tracking device.

Both the prosecuting and defense attorneys agree on one thing in this case. Davis was good at slipping out of the GPS tracking anklet. He was caught by a probation officer “not where he was supposed to be” on about 100 occasions in the month’s time he was on house arrest.

It is uncertain if Davis will get off, but it is obvious that state authorities have to admit the GPS tracking system they had on Davis’ ankle was flawed.

Points made in court at the trial:

• The GPS tracking and monitoring company, based in state in Nebraska, is supposed to report all violations to Maryland State, but they don’t always do it.
• Criminals have nothing better to do than figure out how to outsmart the system. They then tell companions in crime. The end result is some people are masters at escape.
• The GPS tracking device can’t relay GPS tracking data if it is out of range of a transmitter.

GPS tracking systems were originally designed for vehicle tracking. They are very effective and location readings are accurate within a few feet. But technology advances very quickly, and in this case, the courts in Maryland might be relying on an older model system.

Sources: The Baltimore Sun , WJZ13

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Child Molester Escapes Because Monitoring Bracelet Doesn’t Have GPS Tracking

It took a Great Escape to prove to folks in Australia that a criminal’s natural urge to flee justice is maybe a bit stronger than his right to privacy.

A convicted child molester has escaped an extended supervised stay facility near Melbourne. Red-faced police authorities admit that, while the criminal was fitted with an electronic monitoring bracelet as a stipulation of his probation, they do not know where he has gone. That’s because the bracelet was equipped with a simple electronic warning system and not the latest GPS tracking technology. (more…)

If satellite technology had been in existence 75 years ago, notorious bank robbers like Bonnie and Clyde might have gotten a more serious run for their money!

Originally developed by the United States Department of Defense for such military applications as navigation, target tracking, and searches and rescues,  GPS tracking systems have been heralded as the new method with which to fight crime and ensure public safety.  They are increasingly finding their way into America’s courtrooms as an effective means of producing certain evidence that was not available even ten years ago.

Global positioning systems (GPS) are able to identify a suspect’s physical location using the numerous satellites that orbit the earth.  Offenders wearing GPS tracking devices enable law enforcement officials to track the whereabouts and movements of these offenders almost second by second.

(more…)