Once Again, Burglar is Tracked and Caught Using App – This Time by Teen

Advanced technology is back on the case – solving another residential crime, and again with an Apple app! Just a month after my post on police cracking a case by tracking a stolen iPad through a mobile application, a second story appeared that clearly demonstrates the extent to which today’s consumer electronics can help fight crime. This latest story from Seattle, Washington, is one more great example of using technology to catch the bad guys. And this particular bad guy was a serial burglar - good to have him off the street.

A tech-savvy 14-year-old helped Seattle police track down a felon who was arrested with thousands of dollars in electronics equipment stolen from the boy's home. Using a laptop and the "Find My iPhone" app, Max Malkin pinpointed the location of his mother's iPhone, taken along with other items during a burglary early Saturday.

How They Caught the Burglar

An officer "quarterbacked" the search from Malkin's kitchen, communicating with officers on the street until a suspect was detained — and a well-timed phone call to the iPhone enabled police to recover the stolen loot, said Max's father, Harold Malkin. "When the phone rang," Malkin said Tuesday, "the guy kind of knew the jig was up. It was fascinating to watch them work together," Malkin said of son Max and Officer Kurt Knox. "... From the time the laptop was opened to the time they got this guy, it was probably 15 minutes." Officers later recovered $4,000 worth of electronics stolen from the Malkin home.

Background on the Theft

Malkin said he heard a noise around 2 a.m. Saturday coming from the main level of his house. He said he figured it was the family cat running around, so he fell back to sleep. When he awoke hours later, he went downstairs and found the back door wide open. The door had been accidentally left unlocked, and Malkin hadn't armed the home's security system.

Didn't arm the alarm system? Shame, shame - that's what it's for! That's a hard way to learn an important lesson.

What was Stolen

Malkin quickly discovered that several items were missing — his U.S. Justice Department-issued BlackBerry, his wife's iPhone, his iPad, a MacBook and an iPod Nano, as well as the family's Xbox and Wii game systems. Also gone were $150 in cash and a brown, rolling duffel bag Malkin had bought for his wife's upcoming trip to Europe.

I can't help but repeat the obvious advice in this case: arm your alarm system! Having a monitored home alarm system has been proven to be the best deterrent to burglary – especially a system with safer cellular monitoring and smarter interactive features. As the leader in wireless home security, FrontPoint specializes in the best protection: that’s why we’re the #1 ranked alarm company in the US. Safer, smarter, simpler, more affordable, and virtually impossible to defeat: that's the FrontPoint advantage. And when technology works to the victim’s benefit, that’s even better!