Gps Technology Foils Bank Robbery

[tholt4]

Saw this in today's news:

 

GPS Device Finds Robbery Suspect

 

POSTED: 8:55 am EDT May 6, 2005

UPDATED: 9:34 am EDT May 6, 2005

 

CINCINNATI -- Police say modern technology foiled an old-fashioned bank robbery.

 

A teller placed an electronic Global Positioning System device in a bag of stolen money, allowing police to track down a suspect in just 42 minutes Thursday.

 

"Around here (GPS) is still relatively rare," Hamilton County sheriff's office spokesman Steve Barnett said. "But with the advancement in technology and the continued success of catching bank robbers, soon I would hope that other financial institutions would jump on board."

 

Authorities said that after William Ingram, 46, left a U.S. Bank in suburban Colerain Township, the GPS device tracked him to a car dealership in Hartwell, where he was returning a Honda that he had borrowed for a test drive but actually used as a getaway car.

 

When Ingram was confronted, money began spilling from his pockets, officials said.

[+Team Tayjam]

I'm not sure how that would work. I didn't think you could track someone if that person was using a GPS. I thought the GPS only told you where you were, it didn't let others see where you are.

 

I don't know much about it though.

[+M-T-P]

There are GPS transmitters that basically function just like our regular GPSr to determine the Lat/Lon coordinates, but ALSO transmit those coordinates back to communication satellites or radio towers used by police and others. It is very similar to the way OnStar works.

[+gpsjeep]

It's the same way the Lo-Jack systems are used to track stolen cars.

 

-Jeff

[+IVxIV]

That must have been something other than a GPS device the teller stuck in the bag.. These things just wouldn't work well "inside a bag" and "inside a car" perhaps even in the cars trunk.

 

Then if the crook drives into a garage there ain't now way the GPSr could aquire a satellite lock.. It probably was something more like a LO-jack which is less suseptable to interference by objects.

[+Team Tayjam]

I see. That makes much more sense now.

[+scott9282]

Actually LoJack does not use GPS. The system consists of an in-car transmitter with antenna and a battery pack that is hooked into the vehicle's power supply.

 

The off-vehicle system is a series of transmitters and a computer system. The receivers are contained in police cars and helicopters.

 

The way LoJack works is once a vehicle is stolen, when the report is filed the Vehicle Identification Number is fed into the National Crime Information Computer database. If it is a LoJack equipped vehicle, a signal is sent to all LoJack transmitters to activate the specific code for that vehicle. The code is a 5 digit alphanumeric specific to each vehicle.

 

When the LoJack signal goes out to the unit to activate, that unit starts to transmit a signal with the alphanumeric code. Police vehicles will pick up the signal, and through the use of a signal strength indicator and a circular display that shows the direction of the signal. When first activated the incar unit transmits a signal once per second, then slows to once every 30 seconds. When a police officer either enters a valid LoJack code into his in car computer, or the dispatcher does the same thing, a signal is sent out again to the LoJack unit in the stolen vehicle speeding it up to once per second again. Through the use of the incar police receiver, the police track the vehicle and drive right up to it.

 

In some ways it is unfair to the car thief. There is no indication that a LoJack unit is in the car, and even cutting the battery cable doesn't work, as the battery unit with the LoJack device is good for 5 days. The look on a car thief's face when he is cornered is priceless. Even during a pursuit, police can hang back since they know where the car is going anyway.

 

GPS has nothing to do with this system. There are other systems that do use GPS technology, but they are dependant on dispatchers at remote sites interpeting the data from the system.

 

And no, I'm not a LoJack salesman. But I have used LoJack to recover stolen vehicles. In fact, before I retired I held the NYPD record for most LoJack recoveries in a single year, 36. All the recoveries were within 24 hours of the car being stolen, although in a couple of cases the vehicles had already been stripped for parts.