Mobile Phone in Kid's Pocket Auto-Calls Police For Just Mentioning Crime

by Adriana Lee , Gadget Editor

When the guy who stole an iPhone, and then emailed a pic of himself with it, got caught, there was no doubt it was a colossal mistake. In fact, I pretty much have to invoke A Fish Called Wanda here: Calling that dude stupid would be an insult to stupid people.

Now here’s another entry in “Dumb Thieves Exposed” file. This one, though, is a blunder so perfect in its ridiculous precision and timing that it almost surely has to be divine intervention at work.

The headline says it all: “Mobile Phone in Kid's Pocket Calls Police as He Brags of Burglaries; Found With Hot Stereo in Hands.”

The Phoenix New Times reported on a story about a Peoria teen whose mobile phone suddenly dialed the police by itself — just as the kid was talking about stealing a car stereo. [This is not an urban legend. It’s a real news story. Check out the phone call for yourself here. If you’re into this kind of stuff, you’ll be rewarded about 4 minutes, 25 seconds into it. That's when, after long silences and murmurs, the thief’s voice becomes clear. Toward the end, at around 12 minutes or so, the cops arrive on the scene. Warning: There's some cussing in here, so skip it if you offend easily. Or at least turn it down, if you're at work.]

The authorities eavesdropped on this conversation long enough to triangulate the caller's position via cell towers. They deployed a squad car to the area, and the patrol caught the teen red-handed. Seriously, he actually had the stereo IN HIS HANDS.

We’ve all had friends dial us by accident. Usually it means we’re on somebody’s speed dial and they’ve just sat down and butt-dialed you. But there’s no way this thug would have the cops on speed dial. So then what? Somehow the 9, 1 and 1 buttons were magically depressed individually and in that order?

Okay, scratch stupid. This wasn’t dumb, it was… just perfect.