@djheath: i think its just fun to laugh at idiot crooks who are just so oblivious to the technology around them. And apparently Gizmodo agrees

Dapole

Damn, nigga, you look dope'!

xCruciaLx

A couple of points:

1: Why is Gizmodo starting to take a lot of links from the Daily Mail? I have seen quite a few recently. In the UK it really is regarded as the lowest of the low of all the newspapers! Even the sun has topless ladies which puts it higher than the Mail in the "from white trash to toff" newspaper scale!
2: What's this got to do with gadgets? Is it just the CCTV angle?

djheath

@djheath: A little bit of "popular culture" to relax ourselves. Gadgets are still the core of the site.

literato

@djheath: Yes, it's the CCTV angle. And we do all sources, not just the Daily Mail.

jesusdiaz

@The Incredible OMG! Ponies!: Wow, it only took just over an hour for someone to get even marginally offended by that.
My view- if black people are going to use the word nigga too refer to each other, then I can to.

Plus, he DOES look dope!

homerjay

Daily mail... yuck..

gizmofo

@xCruciaLx: Getting a little close to the "right/wrong" line with that comment there.

Back to the story:

What does every criminal defendant have in common? They got caught. Not all criminals are idiots, but the dumb ones are usually caught, and the absolute boneheads do stuff so stupid that it hits the airwaves - especially in a media environment that puts "light and easy on the brain" before "complicated and requires thought".

Here's some legal advice:

Don't commit crimes.

If you have to commit a crime, don't tell anyone.

Your first priority after committing a crime is leaving the scene as quickly and discretely as possible.

If you find out, perhaps through the news, that your involvement in the crime has been discovered, leave the area as quickly and discretely as possible. Your best bet will be taking a bus. Don't wait for the bus that takes you where you ultimately want to go. Take the first one out of town.

If you see police, don't run; walk slightly quick and try to blend into crowds.

Once apprehension is imminent, do not give chase. Stand still and quiet with your fingers interlaced behind your head.

The first and only four words you should say are "I want a lawyer." Answer every question with that phrase.

You will not talk your way out of trouble; you'll just talk your way in deeper.

The Incredible OMG! Ponies!

@xCruciaLx: I guess one part of me should be criticizing you over that comment, but I lol'd instead.

Kaiser-Machead's got LindsayJoy's cookies on the SuperDrive

Disagree. The stupidest thief ever was in my town a few years ago.

He robbed a 7-11, but somehow managed to leave his wallet and hence all of his ID on the counter.

He realized what he did, and drove to the local Police Station and turned himself in.

Smitty Werbenjagermanjensen

It's a shame, but this doesn't surprise me. Society is getting stupider and stupider.

Dook_In_The_Urinal

haha what an idiot

rpr986

@strider_mt2k: Oooh, look. Ringo's written a song. Hey everyone, look - Ringo wrote a song. We'll put it right here on the fridge, won't we.

The Incredible OMG! Ponies!

@gizmofo: It's a steady job, but he wants to be a paperback writer...

strider_mt2k

@homerjay: First of all, I never said I was offended. I said he was getting really close to the line between appropriate and inappropriate.

Furthermore, there's a big rift in the African-American community over issues like that. The African American community is far from monolithic and issues like this are where the divides occur. Many within the African-American community want to move beyond the ghetto glamorization. This view is espoused by, amongst others, Cornel West and Richard Prior.

Basically, it comes down to the mentality that an ethnicity maintains for itself. While "reclaiming" a derogatory word may be a way to defang that word, it ultimately maintains an attitude of oppression.

While the current issue at the forefront is the eradication of the "Stop Snitching" mentality, the use racial slurs for self-reference remains prominent.

And no, African American's use the word to refer to each other (and its purported social acceptance amongst the African American community) does not grant you social license to use the word.

The Incredible OMG! Ponies!

It has to be one of those cameras behind a mirror right? You know when you walk into a subway or a train and there is a big goofy looking mirror in the corner, he probably didn't realize that a camera sits behind them. I am just having a hard time thinking he was posing or looking at his reflection in a 2" lens.

mizunoer

I wish there were video of this idiot checking himself out with the stolen goods... people are loosing brain cells by the second. I feel bad for the victim but come on that's funny.

VeeDub

@djheath: Thanks for the insight man.

mizunoer

Uh. . . wow, we at least try to hide it. He has reached the upper echelons of stupidity.

mizunoer

I learned in my forensic science class that to get away with murder you just need to:
1) Go somewhere you've never been.
2) Kill someone you've never met.
3) Leave and never come back.

Fortunately, most people have no desire to kill someone they've never met in a place they've never been...and the desire to return to the scene of the crime is too much.

GoatMonkey

Crime DOESN'T pay!!

Unless you get away, and never get caught...I guess in that instance it does pay, and quite nicely!

Chromeo

@mizunoer:
Nope, on our buses they are cameras in full view behind little vandal proof windows, next to big, "Big Brother is Watching you" I mean, "you are on CCTV" signs.

djheath

HA HA HA HA!!!! What a dumb fuck. I actually live in this town- it is actually Croydon which is a bigger shit hole than neighbouring Bromley. The tram apart from having stickers warning CCTV is in operation also announces this fact over loudspeakers periodically. Often we have Police on the trams as schools kick out to curb this behaviour. Will keep an eye out for this idiot when I'm on the tram

jimbowyer

bling bling, bro!

genterara

@AJ_Syrinx: Seconded, that was a really good movie.

evslin

@djheath: Meh it's just funny that someone could be so stupid.

DJTripleRRR

@GoatMonkey: In "Mr. Brooks", Kevin Costner lives by those rules. Check out the movie if you haven't. It's definitely worth watching.

AJ_Syrinx

Being someone who lives in Bromley Id like to make two points.
One. its a tram not a bus, the beckenham junction to east/west croydon if im not mistaken.

Two. Seeing as how South London has had a spate of serious muggings mostly ending in young boys getting stabbed for no reason, this kid got lucky. It also highlights just how smart these kids are that he would pose in a CCTV camera. Im actually sick of the current mugging/stabbing trend. its rediculous.

xshortx

Shazam!

Noobs-R-Us

@ANoel: That, I'm afraid, I couldn't tell you.

AddyDugdale

@AddyDugdale:
...does it come from slang term "teef" ?

ANoel

@The Incredible OMG! Ponies!: As a European American myself, I had no idea that there was such a rift in the African American or PC community.

johnnyabnormal

@ninjagin: No, there isn't. It's cockney rhyming slang for thief.

AddyDugdale

I'm curious about the label of "tea leaf". What does it mean when you call someone a "tea leaf"? Is there a racial connotation?

ninjagin

Candidate for Gizmodo's Daily Darwin Award in the Techo-colour category?

ANoel

@homerjay: I can't believe you are that ignorant.

cubensis

@AddyDugdale:
Well the one thing we do know is that ignoranus tea leaf ain't @The Incredible OMG! Ponies!: ... I've written your advice on the palm of my hand (just in case).

ANoel

@The Incredible OMG! Ponies!:
(212) 664! 766437 ?

ANoel

@ANoel: If you ever get yourself in trouble in New York City, give me a ring. Yes, I am a lawyer. Which means that I'm a mother, a father, a priest, and a boss all rolled into one when trouble catches up with you.

Don't do crime, don't blab about doing crime, don't get caught doing crime.

The Incredible OMG! Ponies!

@ANoel: Teef is of Caribbean dialect.

"Bi ya stole me sheet metal! Ya teef!"

Kaiser-Machead's got LindsayJoy's cookies on the SuperDrive

@The Incredible OMG! Ponies!: Maybe if they just called themselves American, they wouldn't feel so divided.

LoganSix

Why does this kid remind me of Mush Mouth from Fat Albert...

CaptCaveman

im never ever looking at those mirror again....

Amiash

What if Numbnuts here thinks he'll be better off in prison? So he makes sure he's seen in that CCTV deal.

apeguero

holy crap, see i was guessing british because i believe addy is british but now that i know i'm right i'm wondering if i was actually stereotyping british people.

Paradise

@CaptCaveman: i was going to say it was more like something out of Snatch.

Paradise

@Kaiser-Machead's got LindsayJoy's cookies on the SuperDrive:
Zeen. Whole heaps Bredda.

ANoel

I wonder if he's gonna ask for that tape to check if he was looking good on the stolen stuff.

You know, in between the ass raping he'll get in jail.

Bokusatsu_Tenshi

@cubensis: I am. I really am.

homerjay

@LoganSix:

And behold, a new contender for homerjay's 'King of Ignorance' Crown emerges!

Would you refer to yourself solely by the nationality of the country that enslaved, raped, tortured, lynched, and oppressed your people?

A rift does exist. And it's because that country hasn't done much to repent for it's past, preferring instead to sweep it under the rug and hope it all gets forgotten.

A rift exists when black youth arrested for drug possession for the first time are incarcerated at a rate that is forty-eight times greater than the rate for white youth, even when all other factors surrounding the crime are identical.

A rift exists when persons with "white sounding names," according to a massive national study, are fifty percent more likely to be called back for a job interview than those with "black sounding" names, even when all other credentials are the same.

A rift exists when white men with a criminal record are slightly more likely to be called back for a job interview than black men without one, even when the men are equally qualified, and present themselves to potential employers in an identical fashion.

A rift exists when, according to the Justice Department, Black and Latino males are three times more likely than white males to have their vehicles stopped and searched by police, even though white males are over four times more likely to have illegal contraband in our cars on the occasions when we are searched.

A rift exists when the media pushes a readily adopted belief by white America that black youth are thugs, however, according to CDC data for 2006, white males are a third more likely than black males to have carried a weapon in the past month (31.4 percent vs. 23.7) and fifty percent more likely to have taken a weapon to school (10.1 vs. 6.8).

A rift exists when black youth are portrayed as druggies, however, according to CDC data for 2006, although there is no statistically significant difference between white and black youth when it comes to marijuana use, whites between grades 9-12 are almost 3.5 times more likely to have tried cocaine, twice as likely to be current coke users, twice as likely to have used inhalants, twice as likely to have used illegal steroids, 3.3 times as likely to have used hallucinogenic drugs, nearly four times as likely to have used methamphetamine, and slightly more likely to have used heroin or ecstasy. While it should be noted that only very small percentages of youth of any color have tried these harder drugs--obviously good news, and important to recognize, given the tendency to stereotype young people generally as irresponsible--the fact remains that blacks are typically the least likely to have done so.

A rift exists when whites regard blacks as a violent race, however, according to DoJ statistics from 2006, with 30.1 million African Americans over the age of twelve in the U.S. and thus, eligible for consideration in crime data, if blacks commit 1 million violent crimes a year (the rough total for the most recent year on record), this means that even if we assumed each crime had a unique perpetrator (in other words, if there were no multiple offenders--obviously not the case), the maximum percentage of blacks who were violent criminals, as a share of all blacks, would be 3.3%. Meaning that at least 96.7% will NOT commit a violent crime this year, let alone against a white person, let alone against a white stranger, let alone against us.

So, if the 3% of blacks who will commit a violent crime in a given year, somehow prove that blacks are dangerous and to be avoided, then why don't the 97% who won't commit such a crime, equally prove that blacks are non-violent and perfectly safe to be around? After all, why should the acts of a maximum of 1 million people, be seen as a better indicator of what the group is like, than the non-acts of the other 29 million or so?

And of course, if we are to take statistics such as these to indicate a group's dangerousness, then whites should have intense bias against other whites. After all, according to DoJ statistics, as whites, we are five times more likely to be victimized violently by another white person than by a black person, and each year, far more people are killed by occupational diseases and injuries--resulting from inadequate safety and health standards in white owned corporations--than are killed in street-level homicides, let alone those committed by blacks. Yet rarely do whites seek to avoid other whites because of our documented predisposition to corporate fraud and misconduct (think Enron, think the S&L swindle, think Bhopal, India).

A rift exists when the Wall Street Journal reports that 70% of whites with poor credit are able to receive a mortgage, compared to only 16% of blacks with equally poor credit. A glaring example of the institutional racism that is still widespread in America.

A rift exists when the government offered up racially-restrictive FHA and VA loans in 1950's and 1960's which created over 14 BILLION dollars in wealth via home and land ownership for whites, while those same loans were off limits to non-whites. Over 14 BILLION in wealth that has been passed down through white families which explains why today, white families have 3 TIMES the wealth of black families, even when household income and expenses are the same.

So please, homerjay and LoganSix, stop with the white victimhood. Stop pretending you have any remote clue about racism and any insight into racial relations. Just keep living in your little bubble of ignorance and be happy that you're white and are representative of the dominant group in this country for the past 200+ years. Enjoy it while you can, because pretty soon you and I will be the minority and things CAN and WILL change. How you face that change is largely determined by how you view things now. And from a quick shake on my magic 8-ball, I agree with it's prediction for you both: 'There are rough roads ahead...'

FSeven

That kid isn't that stupid after all:

First the Met.Police will rely on somebody snitching on him, which might never happen, secondly, even if they catch him, he's probably underage and he won't be persecuted... end of the story: not so much as 'stupid' but kinda showing off!

bigbluevoid

@FSeven:
Props for taking the time to share your indignation with your nation... as a Canadian I may have an advantage in seeing the "forest" more than the "trees" and I expect many of the international commenters here share that view too. I for one feel saddened to recognize the truth in what you say, and sad to be unable to help in any direct way with the serious healing that is required of our dear neighbours and friends.
I read what you wrote, as did a lot of other people I'm sure, and was moved by your clearly stated and understandably passionate views. The "rifts" you speak of in the US run long and deep and now, worldwide - way beyond just the black and white issues.
Any problem can be solved given the creativity and will and effort I know Americans are capable of, but first it has to been seen and recognized as such.
Your post helped do that.
Thanks.

ANoel

@FSeven: so i don't get it... are you saying there is or isn't a rift that exists?

cause you can normally seal those right up by reconfiguring the deflector array to emit a broadband inverse tachyon pulse.

x23

@The Incredible OMG! Ponies!: "What does every criminal defendant have in common? They got caught."

Uh, surely some of them are actually innocent, and therefore didn't "get caught" as much as "get wrongly arrested"?

I take it you don't take on those kind of cases...

cbdsteve