Wednesday, July 20, 2016

Snappy Arrests

"Man busted after police say he posted Snapchat videos while stealing a Jeep" by Dana Hedgpeth Washington Post   July 20, 2016

Note: If you’re going to steal, probably best not to post about it online as you’re in the act.

But that’s exactly how police in Ocean City, Md., said they nabbed a 24-year-old man who allegedly stole a Jeep Wrangler, and posted videos of the theft as he was doing it on Snapchat.

The incident was reported just before 11 a.m. Saturday, when police responded to the parking lot of a popular hangout at the beach called Seacrets Bar & Grille along the main strip of Coastal Highway.

At first, officers had no suspects in the case of the stolen 1994 Jeep Wrangler, which was taken in the early hours of the morning. It was found several hours later, parked at a condo.

But later that evening, they got an anonymous call asking them to check social media.

They did, and figured out that the alleged thief — later identified as Brian Engelmann of Mastic Beach, N.Y. — posted videos showing him stealing the Jeep Wrangler earlier that morning.

Police said the videos “depict Engelmann stealing the Jeep and driving erratically” in the area.

Lindsay Richard, a spokeswoman for the Ocean City Police Department, said the videos “show him thinking about it, taking it, and then driving erratically.”

One of them, she said, shows him parking the Jeep where it was later found.

“It is not something we see often,” Richard said. “In the past couple of years, we have seen quite a few people who post their crimes on social media.”

More typically, she said, they’ll post pictures of “something they’ve stolen,” like a road sign.

“This is a unique one where someone posted the entire series of their crime,” she said.

She said the videos also showed Engelmann driving with no hands and driving while using a cellphone — both of which earned him additional traffic violation charges.

Richard said it is believed that Engelmann stole the vehicle after finding that the keys had been left inside.

Police said they were also able to determine that Engelmann went back to the Seacrets bar that night. And that’s where he was later found and arrested."

He was drunk, right?

Also seePair convicted in Snapchat rape

Related: Snapchat Videos Vanish

They should have used Facebook.

"Man sentenced after victim IDs old classmate from Facebook" AP  July 20, 2016

GERMANTOWN, Md. — A woman says she was able to identify the man who broke into her home and attacked her because he was a former middle school classmate who she recognized from periodic appearances in her Facebook news feed.

Montgomery Assistant State’s Attorney Patrick Mays says 24-year-old DeVonte Dixon didn’t realize that the woman whose Germantown home he invaded last year was his Facebook friend, according to multiple news outlets.

Dixon was given a 12-year prison sentence Monday for his role in the Nov. 4 attack.

Prosecutors said that Dixon kicked open the apartment door of the young Germantown mother, demanded money, and beat the woman as an armed man stood watch at her door.

Investigators used the victim’s memory as well as a distinctive shoeprint to link Dixon to the crime."

If only they had those Bruno Magli photos earlier.

Globe took it down

Can't believe they didn't smell the stink:

"Los Angeles sewage spill shuts down beaches 20 miles away" AP  July 20, 2016

LONG BEACH, Calif. — At least 1.5 million gallons of sewage spewed from a 90-year-old pipe that burst in an industrial area near downtown Los Angeles, leading beaches to close 20 miles downriver in Long Beach, officials said Tuesday.

The top of the 60-inch underground sewer pipe collapsed Monday afternoon, causing a blockage and forcing it to overflow and belch a stinky sludge onto streets and into drains that flow into the concrete-bottomed Los Angeles River.

Workers stopped the spill in a commercial district filled with warehouses around 11 p.m., and cleanup efforts went through the night, said Heather Johnson with LA Sanitation. It was not known how much tainted water made it all the way to Long Beach.

Beaches were shut as a precaution and would remain closed until testing shows the water was safe said Nelson Kerr of the Long Beach city health department. The cause of the rupture in the pipe, which dates to the 1920s, wasn’t known....

Neglect?

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