Denver Detectives Crack Deadly Arson Case Using Teens' Google Search Histories (wired.com) 82
Three teenagers nearly escaped prosecution for a 2020 house fire that killed five people until Denver police discovered a novel investigative technique: requesting Google search histories for specific terms. Kevin Bui, Gavin Seymour, and Dillon Siebert had burned down a house in Green Valley Ranch, mistakenly targeting innocent Senegalese immigrants after Bui used Apple's Find My feature to track his stolen phone to the wrong address.
The August 2020 arson killed a family of five, including a toddler and infant. For months, detectives Neil Baker and Ernest Sandoval had no viable leads despite security footage showing three masked figures. Traditional methods -- cell tower data, geofence warrants, and hundreds of tips -- yielded nothing concrete. The breakthrough came when another detective suggested Google might have records of anyone searching the address beforehand.
Police obtained a reverse keyword search warrant requesting all users who had searched variations of "5312 Truckee Street" in the 15 days before the fire. Google provided 61 matching devices. Cross-referencing with earlier cell tower data revealed the three suspects, who had collectively searched the address dozens of times, including floor plans on Zillow.
The August 2020 arson killed a family of five, including a toddler and infant. For months, detectives Neil Baker and Ernest Sandoval had no viable leads despite security footage showing three masked figures. Traditional methods -- cell tower data, geofence warrants, and hundreds of tips -- yielded nothing concrete. The breakthrough came when another detective suggested Google might have records of anyone searching the address beforehand.
Police obtained a reverse keyword search warrant requesting all users who had searched variations of "5312 Truckee Street" in the 15 days before the fire. Google provided 61 matching devices. Cross-referencing with earlier cell tower data revealed the three suspects, who had collectively searched the address dozens of times, including floor plans on Zillow.
That's what it takes... (Score:3, Insightful)
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What do you mean now, and how do you propose things were different in the past?
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In the good old days, there would have been none of this and the police work would have been much simpler, faster and more efficient. Unfortunately now we have things like the "innocence project" [innocenceproject.org] which uses silly excuses such as the criminal having nothing to do with the crime and the evidence having been made up and discredits the great work of hardworking detectives. Back in the old days, you drove around the neighborhood until you saw a kid you thought you recognized, arrested them, kept them locked away
Re: That's what it takes... (Score:4, Insightful)
In the "good old days" this would have remained an unsolved crime. Unsolved arsons are the norm.
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Re: That's what it takes... (Score:4)
I think the point was that in the "good old days" this would have officially been a "solved" crime because of the innocent person railroaded into prison but remained an unsolved crime in actual reality.
Re: That's what it takes... (Score:2)
In the past the police would catch teenagers when they blabbed to friends. Like how my classmate showed a video of a severed head to others at a party. Someone always talks to the cops if you've been bragging about your murders.
Re: That's what it takes... (Score:2)
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It was back in 1996, used to have to use Wayback machine to link the article. But there was an update [woodtv.com] a few years ago in my local news. (pretty gruesome, so prepare yourself)
The young man killed was running away from a group home, and not from the local area. So I always kind of wonder if Kiko never told anyone if anyone would have ever found out. I knew the murderer, we hung around in some of the same circles, but rarely hung out together. The murder was a huge shock when it happened.
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Kids these days... Back in my day, we'd punch arson locations into into our TomToms and have Homer Simpson's voice give us there.
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Bah...
Back in my day, we'd just look up the address in the phone book and use our general knowledge of where everything in the city was, or as last resort, find a paper map to look at....
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The real problem is that the reputation of the police is so abysmally bad that these three (cretins, no argument there) decided to take matters into their own hands.
Re: That's what it takes... (Score:5, Informative)
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The real problem is that the reputation of the police is so abysmally bad that these three (cretins, no argument there) decided to take matters into their own hands.
They decided to risk murdering several people as the revenge for a stolen iPhone. Now some evil person with an IQ over 100 would have still made sure first that this absolutely 100% sure the home of the thief, but they didn't bother with that. So they deliberately risked to commit five murders as revenge for a stolen iPhone.
Re: Punishment (Score:4, Funny)
He was just trying to land an airbus.
Re: Punishment (Score:5, Funny)
He was just trying to land an airbus.
This deserves recognition.
For the non-AVgeeks out there, Airbus passenger jets have an audible "retard" when close to the ground as a reminder to the pilot to set the throttles to idle for landing. The joke goes, the first warning is a verb, the second is a noun.
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The throttle is not on idle when landing. /FACEPALM
Re: Punishment (Score:2)
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Perhaps you like to compare the length of a typical runway, with the distance a plane needs to land.
A big plane needs to be able to start again if the pilot realizes he touched down to late, or anything else is wrong.
So the go on idle "when it is safe".
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I have no problems with immigrants. Do you?
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Of course, criticisms of Putnam's findings on Diversity that analyzed the same data set that Putnam used disagreed with his conclusions. It turned out that the effect was pretty much limited to white people in those communities. So, you're pretty much just using other people's racism/white supremacist viewpoint to justify your white supremacist viewpoint.
White Supremacy (Score:1)
Every group thinks it is supreme and has supremacist views. Only Whites get punished for that because of the egalitarian guilt trap.
However, I am an ethno-nationalism, which means I think nations should be mono-ethnic, mainly because this preserves culture against the constant assault of bureaucracy and commerce. Culture works better than more police, more laws, and more red tape. It also provides a center to civilization so people are less alone.
I hope you do not fall into the current political trap of bin
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Wow, you've got the sickness pretty bad. It's easy enough to read from what you wrote that you're a white supremacist and that you will rationalize it any way you can. The self-congratulation for your supposedly clear and independent thinking is just more rationalization.
Robert Putnam (Score:1)
You are also incorrect about followup studies. Many have confirmed his results. I keep track of current news on this through this tag [amerika.org].
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Wow. You replied twice to the same comment. When I have something to add, I typically add it as a reply to my own comment rather than creating a sibling comment. This site uses threaded posting, which can be a lot more legible than the flat posting a lot of sites use, as long as people don't branch the conversation. Others may disagree on the best way to handle this of course. I agree with the slashdot policy of not allowing edits to existing posts, but I would not mind a followup feature that lets you foll
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What does any of that have to do with the topic?
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they are under 21 so getting an death sentence is very hard.
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It wasn't hard for Emmett Till, was it?
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Oops, I confused him with George Stinney, I'm sorry for that.
Re:Realtors keep plans, photos online after sale (Score:5, Funny)
Thus why I only deal with unrealtors and buy/sell unreal estate.
Re: Realtors keep plans, photos online after sale (Score:2)
You know that shits all public record right?
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As for photos... I think they'd have gotten the right house if they had doublechecked the pics. And there's no expectation of privacy for the outside of a house.
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If police would take low level theft seriously, people wouldn't resort to vigilante justice.
Do you have any idea how many low level thefts take place every day in Denver and the surrounding communities?
Besides, when police are trying [lawandcrime.com] to overthrow [lawandcrime.com] the government [newsweek.com], do you really think they care if your phone is stolen?
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Do you have any idea how many low level thefts take place every day in Denver and the surrounding communities?
A lot more than necessary, because the local governments are too busy welcoming homeless people, sheltering drug gangs, letting Tren de Aragua take over apartment buildings, otherwise supporting criminals rather than prosecuting them, and preening about all of the above.
Have you been around the conference center downtown lately? 16th Street used to be pleasant to walk along. Or in Aurora? My employer had to move our Denver office from Aurora to elsewhere in the metro area because of crime. Nobody there
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So, you are one of those people who don't understand that crime is a symptom of a larger issue, and would NEVER understand that the idea of cause and effect applies to human behavior, just like everything else. Yea, blame people who are homeless without paying any attention to WHY they are homeless. Crime more often is a symptom of a larger problem in society, but you would never think to understand the reason for things like gangs to exist in the first place.
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You are really bad at reading. I identified several of the larger problems causing crime. I even named the root cause behind those: local government that is functionally indistinguishable from evil.
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When you rob a bank, what differences does it make why you robbed it? You need to suffer the consequences for any reason other than someone had a gun to your head.
Same with homelessness. Doesn't much matter why. If you have made camp and are trespassing, you need to GTFO, period.
Etc. etc. etc.
Re:Do your job (Score:4)
Do you have any idea how many low level thefts take place every day in Denver and the surrounding communities?
Crime is pervasive, that's why the police don't do anything about it? That sounds like a recipe for even more crime.
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Question of resource allocation and priority based on crime severity. There are currently unsolved murders, if you doubled police investigators, they'd work to solve those. If you tripled police investigators, they might start working on unsolved arson, unsolved burglary. If you quadrupled the police investigators, they'd work to reduce drug traffic. At no point they would have enough resources to investigate stolen phones. And if they chose to allocate resources to stolen phones while there's more serious
Re:Do your job (Score:5, Interesting)
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Notice who has agency in this description. The cops focus on activities that generate revenue, because that's where the money is.
I
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Sure, we could've been more careful. But in following up with the police it's obvious that there's zero being done to stop this kind of vandalism and theft
It sucks that this happened to you and I think it is unfair to blame yourselves or even to blame the police for lack of follow-up. We're never going to "solve" the crime problem through more policing. Never. I'm not opposed to law enforcement. But it's like trying to stop a massive head wound with a small box of band-aids.
Instead we have to figure out what puts people in the position of committing crimes in the first place and invest in evidence-based solutions to solve those problems.
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You know why I don't rob banks? Because I don't want to get caught and go to jail..
If I thought I could rob banks with impunity, I'd quit my day job and take up bank robbery as my profession.
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Many people won't rob a bank even if they could be guaranteed they would never get caught, because they have their needs met with the resource they already have and don't want to live in a community where robberies happen all the time.
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If they thought there was a good chance they'd get caught, they'd be less likely to commit the crime
Sure, deterring potential offenders by making the cost of the crime higher than the benefit does decrease crime to some extent (https://www.shortcutstv.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/what-works.pdf). BUT, in a community full of drug addiction, poverty, lack of food and housing, it is not possible to hire enough police to stop all crime. You just can't.
If you really want to reduce crime, you have to address the causes of crime with much more intentionality. That means good schools, living wage jobs, afford
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I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that chances are whoever smashed your window to steal your bags has smashed other windows, stolen other bags.
So no, this is likely not a single low-level crime, it's probably one in a string of similar incidents by the same perpitrators and the police should have the time to find and arrest them especially given that they have more resources available now than ever in terms of video evidence etc.
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Welcome to the Ferguson Effect (Score:1)
It's not vandalism, it's a felony, but it will be classed as vandalism so the statistics look better. They do not want sites like this to reveal the actual high prevalence of criminal activity:
https://communitycrimemap.com/ [communitycrimemap.com]
Houston is notorious for this, by the way. Home break-ins, muggings, car thefts, and stolen air conditioners all get reclassified as "vandalism" so the crime stats do not
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> Actions have consequences.
Consequences schmonsequences, as long as I'm rich! [youtu.be]
Re:Do your job (Score:4, Insightful)
If police would take low level theft seriously, people wouldn't resort to vigilante justice.
Do you have any idea how many low level thefts take place every day in Denver and the surrounding communities?
Besides, when police are trying [lawandcrime.com] to overthrow [lawandcrime.com] the government [newsweek.com], do you really think they care if your phone is stolen?
This. To those who think the police need to attend their little crime, how much are you willing to pay for that kind of policing... and how much of a police state are you willing to live in... Citizen?
Police have never really cared about low level theft, especially in poorer neighbourhoods. The idea that the cops ever had the resources to attend every single burglary or cat up tree incident is a fantasy from old cop shows. The reality is much more like Judge Dredd, "there are 1.2 million crimes in this city each day, we can attend 8% of them. Which 8%?". Add to this that police budgets have become squeezed tighter and tighter, as well as crimes becoming more sophisticated. Police are still under strict rules of evidence and procedure, with this case in the article it's likely the police knew who did it but just didn't have the evidence to pin them to it in a court of law and a reminder that a court of law couldn't give a shit what you did, all that matters is what can be proved and the onus for that is on the prosecution.
What people need to do is learn from people who grew up in poor neighbourhoods and just don't make your shit so easy to steal. Don't want your phone stolen, don't walk around with your head buried in it. Crims always go for the softest targets. Prevention is a lot cheaper than cure when it comes to crime.
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Which 8%?".
Shoplifting at Walmart seems to be at the top of the list if you follow police reports.
The reality is that police don't reduce crime for the typical citizen. They do occasionally take criminals off the street which prevents a few random crimes. Cops driving through neighborhoods don't deter criminals or reduce crime, other than writing more speeding tickets. There are a bunch of studies that have found that Increasing the number of police does not reduce crime. Its a political response to the demand "we h
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I mean, blame the victim is a thing you can do, sure.
I know the billionaires want to live in fortified compounds with armed guards and armored cars, but maybe that isn't what the average person wants out of society.
Re: Do your job (Score:2)
If people took their own victimization seriously, they would get insurance.
These are degenerates more interested in turning their teenage angst into violence than in finding justice.
I hope they find themselves in prison with some guys who don't shine to burning babies alive.
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Yeah, that's brilliant. Carrying a gun will surely save you when someone burns down your house as you sleep.
and you want your taxes to go way up to cover the (Score:2)
and you want your taxes to go way up to cover the costs of doing that?
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A few questions on your complaints:
the government gave native groups $400M to buy a stake in an oil&gas company through loan guarantees (no reasonable requirement for the loan to be paid back, especially when it's with natives, this is part of reconciliation.)
I am assuming that the shares of the company that the loan paid for are still collateral for the loan, even with loan guarantees. So this does not sound very problematic. Is this not the case? Are there other concerns?
The government wasted $52M on a covid passport app.
To be clear, why specifically was it a waste? Any details?
The government is now about $3 billion over budget on its federal payroll system.
Are you saying that they did not need a new payroll system? I mean, sure, over budget is bad, but it's pretty normal for these things.
The government forgave 1/3 of covid business loans if they were paid back early, a gift of $12.6B to businesses.
I'm trying to parse this. You're saying that the government
Waste (Score:2)
Amazing number of devices (Score:2)
Or did they include similar searches, like close house numbers or street names, or the same location in a nearby town?
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Sue Apple (Score:1)
From the RTFA:
You think Apple would wan
note to self (Score:2)
...don't Google address of people I'm about to murder.
scratch that....
1. Make account with name of person I don't like in Google, ... ,
2. Google address of people I'm about to murder,
3.
4. profit?