Crooks using radios to help evade LE detection/capture

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KB9NLL

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The article was posted here as an example of dirtbags having & using scanners. For an unknown period of time, the use of the scanner(s) provided a tactical intelligence value to the mexican scumbags who clearly weren't too impressed or concerned with the officer's authority, personal armament, or even the canine.

Approximately 5-8 minutes.
 

KB9NLL

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My additional point was that a crowd of 60 people, if they really wanted to makes sure the officer didn't leave the area alive, could have attacked him in such a way that he would have to do more than just draw his weapon to keep them at bay. The risk/benefit ratio to the thugs in the crowd obviously didn't pencil out since they wanted to leave the area alive more than they wanted to kill this officer. Hence, my "talking trash" reference. If you're outnumbered 60-1 and there are people willing to die to kill you, you are going to die, but some of them will die with you. The presence of a scanner would be totally irrelevant in such a situation.


Especially if they had decided to use the loaded banned assault rifle that officers said was at the scene at the time. With 60 people it possibly could have been easy to sneek up with it without the officer realizing till it was to late.
 

dracer777

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If we ban scanners, we have to ban cell phones, wireless internet, radar detectors, and FRS radios. Scanners are just a small tool, you can use them to your advantage, yes. However, if the crime is high-profile enough, there will always be a replacement tool. As for low-level crime[traffic offenses through burglary], MOST people that are commiting these crimes are not tech savvy enough, don't have a large enough budget, or just are ignorant to there even being scanners.

With that said, should we ban recreational flying? There is no need to fly, right? and i hear they make good bomb carriers... or guns, I think guns are wayyyyyy more a threat than scanners.

Yes, i have used my scanner to avoid being pulled over for reckless driving, horrible, i know. But i have also been saved countless times more by trapster.com sms service. Cell phone ban? I don't think so. No radio service can prevent everything, and scanners are rare enough in crime, it is ridiculous to talk about this.
 

Hooligan

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and scanners are rare enough in crime, it is ridiculous to talk about this.

What you know is that it is rare to catch a criminal with a scanner. You then assume it means that scanner use by criminals is rare.

Anyway, auto-crashes & thefts are statistically "rare enough" too, so I hope you're not wasting your time & money on "ridiculous" things like wearing a seatbelt, automobile insurance, or locking your car doors.
 

dracer777

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Hooligan said:
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and scanners are rare enough in crime, it is ridiculous to talk about this.

What you know is that it is rare to catch a criminal with a scanner. You then assume it means that scanner use by criminals is rare.

Anyway, auto-crashes & thefts are statistically "rare enough" too, so I hope you're not wasting your time & money on "ridiculous" things like wearing a seatbelt, automobile insurance, or locking your car doors.

No hostility intended, although this thread is full of hostility, but i think the things you mentioned are irrelavant considering they do not hinder people, once again, debatable. As with seatbelts, it is the in some states do to certain chains of events. However, we did not ban driving because of those events. As for scanners, the ratio of criminals to law-abbiding citizens owning scanners, i would believe to be fairly low. If you do want to limit crime, or furtherance, i think it would be of more use to ban cell phones during certain hours, but, never gonna happen. I understand that scanners do assist in crime, yes. But you cant restrict driving because of a criminal running after he stabs someone. And why are the people on this site pushing restrictions on scanners anyway? I thought we were supposed to set a standard so we may continue this hobby that will probably die.
 

Hooligan

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No hostility intended, although this thread is full of hostility, but i think the things you mentioned are irrelavant considering they do not hinder people, once again, debatable. As with seatbelts, it is the in some states do to certain chains of events. However, we did not ban driving because of those events. As for scanners, the ratio of criminals to law-abbiding citizens owning scanners, i would believe to be fairly low. If you do want to limit crime, or furtherance, i think it would be of more use to ban cell phones during certain hours, but, never gonna happen. I understand that scanners do assist in crime, yes. But you cant restrict driving because of a criminal running after he stabs someone. And why are the people on this site pushing restrictions on scanners anyway? I thought we were supposed to set a standard so we may continue this hobby that will probably die.

Seatbelts not *hindering* people? That's funny!

Anyway, who on this site is "pushing restrictions on scanners...?"
 

Hooligan

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April 2010 issue of _WIRED_ magazine has a very interesting article titled "The Art of the Steal," about Gerald Blanchard, who was known as "the world's most ingenious thief." His bag of tricks, used to break into high-security banks, museums, etc. around the world included hidden cameras & audio device planted inside the targets to get a feel for security, and using a police scanner to monitor police/security forces, though the author of the article writes that Blanchard had "...scanners programmed with the encryption keys for police frequencies" which is rather nonsensical.

Art of the Steal: On the Trail of World’s Most Ingenious Thief | Magazine
 

rexgame

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See If I'm a crook, I just shoot a cop and take his radio, or better yet, just pay someone to take one from the duty desk and forget to return it. How long would it take for a department the size of say NYC, to reprogram their radios if they found one missing? Scanner? I don't need no stinkin' scanner.
 
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Hooligan

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See If I'm a crook, I just shoot a cop and take his radio, or better yet, just pay someone to take one from the duty desk and forget to return it. How long would it take for a department the size of say NYC, to reprogram their radios if they found one missing? Scanner? I don't need no stinkin' scanner.

Not sure what your point is. but if you read the article, you'll see that he did pilfer a handheld PD radio while escaping custody. Are you actually trying to claim it'd be easier to just shoot a cop & steal a handheld radio, than buy a programmable scanner? That's crazy.

A capability of a trunked system & some other technology-based comm systems is that a missing radio can be
remotely "stunned' (disabled), or even set up to covertly transmit so ambient audio can be monitored & the signal could be RDF'ed.
 

rexgame

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Are you actually trying to claim it'd be easier to just shoot a cop & steal a handheld radio, than buy a programmable scanner? That's crazy.

You're thinking like a normal person, not a criminal. For the sociopaths who commit crime, it's not crazy. It's perfectly reasonable. I want to listen in on the police radio system. So, I take a police radio. Shooting a cop to do it sounds odd to you because your a normal person, not a criminal. For the criminal, in this case it's simply part of the process of acquiring a police radio. They don't think anything of the shooting.

However, skip the shoot a cop part, and like I said before, a field loss of one radio, occurs more often in large police forces than they would like to admit. So those once a month audits of their communications lockers are probably the first time they notice when one "walks off."

And I guarantee you, that in any major city, there is an LEO hurting for cash enough, to take one of those radios and sell it someone, knowing full well it could be a week or more before someone notices.
 

gmclam

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Are you actually trying to claim it'd be easier to just shoot a cop & steal a handheld radio, than buy a programmable scanner? That's crazy.
I agree with rexgame on this one. I remember back when lawmakers thought that adding locking steering wheels to automobiles would actually eliminate auto theft. Yeah right. One thing it did was create a new crime - carjacking.

This is something agencies should consider before going to encryption or other technologies deemed not scannable. If someone wants to monitor you bad enough, they will do whatever it takes to do so. In the meantime all you do is take away law abiding citizen's ability to be another set of eyes and ears for you.
 

n1das

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On several occasions while watching Cops or other Law Enforcement TV shows I have seen criminals getting caught with a Family Radio Service two-way radio in their possession. Not only criminals are using scanner, cell phone but they are also using FRS two-way radios so the other person can be the "look out person" as the other person is committing a crime.

This is a good example of why I regularly keep a scanner on the GMRS/FRS channels and have it going 24/7. I own several scanners and it's not a big deal to dedicate one of them to scanning the GMRS/FRS channels.
 

davidbond21

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You're thinking like a normal person, not a criminal. For the sociopaths who commit crime, it's not crazy. It's perfectly reasonable. I want to listen in on the police radio system. So, I take a police radio. Shooting a cop to do it sounds odd to you because your a normal person, not a criminal. For the criminal, in this case it's simply part of the process of acquiring a police radio. They don't think anything of the shooting.

If anyone really believes this, as a common characteristic among "criminals", then they're only demonstrating their naivete on the subject. That's not to say that some sociopaths don't exist, and that sometimes the heat of the moment doesn't contribute to very bad decisions, but it's insane to think that a criminal is going to shoot and/or kill a cop as a matter of routinejust so that he can listen to police radio comms for the commission of that particular/single crime. Anyone that has had any extended kind of contact with lowlifes would probably agree that one of the most common traits among criminals is the concept of self-preservation(readily evident when a group is caught and they're all willing to blame one another). Before a crime, a criminal will ask himself what the probability of getting away with it is, and then go on to do the deed or not based on the odds of getting caught. Shooting a cop to take his radio just to rob a bank(just as an example) does not bode well for the future of his bank robbing career when every cop in the city is stirred up looking to get retribution for their fallen comrade. It's not reasonable at all, by any stretch of the imagination, for a criminal to think it's not crazy to shoot or a kill a cop, because you become more than just a wanted man, you become a Hunted man, and you're going to prison for a while if caught. And all criminals know that they'll be caught at some point or at least acknowledge the possibility; they accept that as part of the life they chose, and if they care at all to continue that life of crime, they don't go around murdering cops just to gain a "burglars tool" for that nights activity.

Now the rest of your post(not quoted here) is a lot more accurate, but I would add to it that with well organized criminal activity, the radios don't even need to walk off the job or disappear. The mafias have cops on the payroll, which gives them more intel than just a radio(even w/ encryption keys loaded) ever could. Of course, that's a serious accusation, but to a certain extent, it is a problem that is real and it exists, though it is likely(and hopefully) not widespread.
 

poltergeisty

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I agree with rexgame on this one. I remember back when lawmakers thought that adding locking steering wheels to automobiles would actually eliminate auto theft. Yeah right. One thing it did was create a new crime - carjacking.

My tool:

http://tinyurl.com/26y43e6

Speaking of tools! Cops have lots more than thieves...
 
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rexgame

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If anyone really believes this, as a common characteristic among "criminals", then they're only demonstrating their naivete on the subject.

You seem to think I'm saying most criminals are sociopaths, which isn't what I said at all. I said "for the sociopaths who commit crime." In other words, the psychopathic criminal would be more apt to do this. (Note, I use sociopath and psychopath interchangeably as they are both listed in DSM-IV under Antisocial Personalities with almost entirely the same traits).

A few things to consider. The individual likely to engage in the violent act of shooting the police officer to take the radio are generally psychopaths. Consider:

-20-25% of those in prison are considered psychopaths, which supports the Philadelphia police chiefs instance that 1 in 5 arrests, that result in prison time, are of criminal sociopaths. So instances an officer may face this situation are actually not as rare as one might think.

-Psychopaths generally more violent than non-psychopaths; 97% psychopaths v. 74% non-psychopaths received at least one conviction for violent crime (Hare, 1981)

-Inmates with high PCL scores much more likely to have been convicted for a violent offense that with low PCL scores (Hare & McPherson, 1984)

-Psychopaths are more likely to engage in a variety of different types of aggressive acts than are nonpsychopaths (Hare & McPherson, 1984)
 
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davidbond21

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You seem to think I'm saying most criminals are sociopaths, which isn't what I said at all. I said "for the sociopaths who commit crime." In other words, the psychopathic criminal would be more apt to do this. (Note, I use sociopath and psychopath interchangeably as they are both listed in DSM-IV under Antisocial Personalities with almost entirely the same traits).

Actually, that is somewhat removed from the context of what I quoted. You began your post by saying "You're thinking like a normal person, not a criminal." with the following sentence stating "For the sociopaths who commit crime, it's not crazy." To me this structuring means that I should infer that by 'sociopath' you are still talking about the 'criminal'. I can see how I could have misread into that with your explanation in your subsequent post, but the problem is, you then go on to use the word 'criminal' throughout the rest of that thought in your post, seemingly using it and 'sociopath' interchangeably.

Semantics aside though, if that's not what you originally meant to say then I apologize for my public misreading of your post(though what I railed on about I feel is still correct, though not applicable to our disagreement here). The statistics you provided are interesting, but apparently they are pretty old, and the PCL test you refer to has been revised twice since then(now the PCL-R) so I'm not sure how much relevance they hold today, especially in light of the newer methodologies.
 

rexgame

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Actually, that is somewhat removed from the context of what I quoted. You began your post by saying "You're thinking like a normal person, not a criminal." with the following sentence stating "For the sociopaths who commit crime, it's not crazy." To me this structuring means that I should infer that by 'sociopath' you are still talking about the 'criminal'. I can see how I could have misread into that with your explanation in your subsequent post, but the problem is, you then go on to use the word 'criminal' throughout the rest of that thought in your post, seemingly using it and 'sociopath' interchangeably.

Semantics aside though, if that's not what you originally meant to say then I apologize for my public misreading of your post(though what I railed on about I feel is still correct, though not applicable to our disagreement here). The statistics you provided are interesting, but apparently they are pretty old, and the PCL test you refer to has been revised twice since then(now the PCL-R) so I'm not sure how much relevance they hold today, especially in light of the newer methodologies.

My apologies, it's probably my style of writing. I've been declared by many as a hard to read by American English speakers and others, who drive on the wrong side of the road and think Cadillac is a luxury brand :) I need to start remembering this is an internet forum, not a debate with a douchey, pipe-smoking, cardigan-wearing, pillock, professor who thinks if you didn't attend the London School of Economics, your viewpoints are invalid. Of course he does have a funny accent, and I'm from Philly, I know funny accents.
 
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davidbond21

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My apologies, it's probably my style of writing. I've been declared by many as a hard to read by American English speakers and others, who drive on the wrong side of the road and think Cadillac is a luxury brand :) I need to start remembering this is an internet forum, not a debate with a douchey, pipe-smoking, cardigan-wearing, pillock, professor who thinks if you didn't attend the London School of Economics, your viewpoints are invalid. Of course he does have a funny accent, and I'm from Philly, I know funny accents.

No worries. Except for the one misunderstanding, I couldn't even tell. Although I thought that was exactly the type of debate you were after; unfortunately I don't have anything but the pipe and what people from other states think(and have told me) is a funny accent(I'm from Texas), but I don't agree with them.
 
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