Note to self: Leave cell phone at friend's house prior to committing a crime in order to better establish an alibi.

Not sure why my GPS enabled cell phone records would ever come into play but man does that level of tracking availability scare me. Especially with the administrative warrant recently used for a REPORTER'S call log from his Cell phone provider.

So, the guy comes home and somewhere in the course of setteling in he discovers the two perps. He goes for his rifle and is killed in the process. I can't help but wonder if the outcome would have been different if, instead of having to travel and to the rifle, load it or whatever, he had only but to draw from the hip ... would the outcome have been different?

One thing is for sure - a loaded gun on your hip is faster than the unloaded gun in the closet 40 feet away. The perp killed the man with a .22 but I wonder how the perp would have fared with a few .45's in his chest.

Regarding the perps - today on WCCO:

http://wcco.com/crime/robbinsdale.home. ... 36661.html

Exerp:

According to the warrant application, a tipster told Hennepin County Sheriff's deputies about overhearing two men "brag" about "robbing houses." One man was also overheard "bragging about committing physical violence towards any victims" that he would encounter during these crimes.

Detectives found that one suspect was arrested twice for robbing people, twice for weapons possession, and once for robbing a business.

They believe one suspect is a member of the "Emerson Murder Boys Gang," according to the application.

I think you might be reading the news story wrong. It sounds as if he tried to grab a rifle away from the rifle-toting criminal.

That said, I agree that a gun on the hip might have helped the victim.

My understanding of what transpired was the homeowner; his wife and two friends arrived home from being out on New Years Eve. There was a knock on their unlocked front door and it sounded like they simply opened it without knowing who was on the other side. One of the BG’s was knocking the homeowner’s wife around and the owner tried to defend her apparently by grabbing the BG’s rifle. That’s when he was shot. When BG's left they finally locked the front door. A little late by then.

Most of them you can turn the GPS off in the menu if you want. Mine is off unless I call 911 then it turns itself back on.

If, however, it's powered on, you can track the general location of the phone by which cell towers it hits.

If you turn off the GPS and are not making a call you should be ok. Atleast that is what my friend of mine that is a cell tech for Sprint tells me. Some phones however you can not turn the GPS off at all.

I'm pretty sure that's wrong. Even when you're not making a call, your phone registers itself with the network so it'll know what cell you are in. When someone calls you, the network knows what cell you're in and sends out signals on a common channel to your phone that tell it to answer the call on some frequency not currently in use in that cell. And as princewally says, they can still know your general location regardless of whether your phone is GPS equipped.

Also, courts have rules that it's legal for law enforcement to turn your cel phone (it was the OnStar device) into a listening device that beams your every word back to the FBI whether you're on a call or not.

Do you think such a court would bat an eyelid at having the GPS tell you it's off when in fact it's on?

I have a solution to the problem! Shut off the phone and yank the battery

But wait... I like to make and receive calls... Dam it anyhow!

Update: Both of the thugs are in jail.

http://www.startribune.com/local/west/3 ... page=1&c=y



More details in this story. They weren't just smacking Mrs. Marks around, they were attempting to rape her, when Jamis Marks decided he'd had enough.

Don't take that to mean he should have sat back and watch her being beaten. I have heard that argument made regarding this incident. He died doing something everyone should be prepared to do: protecting his family.



Lesson to learn for the thugs in the world: If you use your girlfriend as the getaway driver, don't ever dump her.



Requiescat in pace, Mr. Marks.

Suspect #2 George Watkins not guilty on all counts: http://kstp.com/news/stories/S1127271.shtml?cat=1

WTF?!??!!??

His girlfriend was wearing the woman's jewelry, and they still think this guy wasn't involved!?!?!?

-Mark

Sounds to me like the prosecutors a: did a lousy job, and b: had a credibility problem for their cops.

Expect to see a lot of that, until there's a cleanup in the badged set. And sometime after.