Monday, May 10, 2010

Bad weekend for robbers

Saturday was a bad day for robbery suspects in Lincoln.  The  day started with a couple of convenience store robberies, in which the suspect left some of the better surveillance photos of the year.  By the evening news, his photos were all over the place, and you had to figure that the arrest was inevitable.  Predictably, it was made in the same neighborhood where the stolen truck was dumped, and just a few blocks from where it had been stolen in a burglary.

I know the neighborhood well, a few doors from our family home during the 1980’s.  We now live about a quarter mile away, and we spent a couple of hours on Saturday afternoon looking for the jeans with the hole in the left knee.  No luck on Saturday afternoon, but shortly after the 10:00 PM news, our suspect was in custody.

Also on Saturday, this armed robber was nabbed.  The story of this crime went viral, no doubt due to the unique attire of the robber.  Our public information officer’s quip that, in light of the disguise, “there isn’t much to go on,” propelled the story to the thesmokinggun.com.  A tough-guy image will be difficult to cultivate when you are forever after known as the Toilet Paper Bandit.

15 comments:

Anonymous said...

I am glad I never had to deal with this. Low wage job and putting your life on the line is just not worth the trouble.

ARRRRG!!!! said...

I thought I spotted the TP Bandit a couple of times the other day but I was wrong.

Peter said...

Is there a way to find out what happens in criminal offenses? Those two that got shot a month ago sounded like they had plenty to get them charged (she- dealing drugs, he- a parolee around drugs), but nothing was reported on it. Being a neighbor, it'd be nice to know if they are being held, or if I should keep an eye out in case they set-up shop again. I don't want to be nosy, but I want my family to be safe (and drug houses you have to walk by to get to your car aren't rated very safe).
Thanks for the input!

Anonymous said...

Chief-Was my theory about the TP Bandit correct?

256

Tom Casady said...

256-

Yes, your theory was indeed correct.

Peter-

Both of these victims of the shooting have been cited for the drug violation within the past few days. We often wait to make the arrest until people are released from the hospital in cases like this, so we (and the taxpayers) do not become financially responsible for their medical care.

Peter said...

Chief-- that makes sense (and I agree with your rational :) ). Thanks for the response!

Anonymous said...

Somehow I suspect that taxpayers have already picked up the medical tab for the two folks you referenced for Peter. It's a matter of "pay it before or after" they entered the system.

Anonymous said...

Chief,

Is there any sort of face-recognition software used to compare suspect faces from crime scene still frames and to local, state, and federal mug shots?

Tom Casady said...

10:47-

You could be right. At least it's not out of the LPD budget, though.

10:50-

This technology is andvancing rapidly. Some of the intelligence agencies may be using it already. The application you describe will almost inevitably materialize in the not-too-distant future.

Anonymous said...

Chief,

Face-recognition software of a sort is becoming common enough to be part of a bundled basic photo editor on even some mid-priced home computers. For instance, select one of your family members' photos and have it look for all your cataloged photos containing their face (the reverse of the "who is this guy?" LE application); it actually works pretty well. I love it when what was cutting-edge tech becomes mainstream tech.

Tom Casady said...

11:34-

The weak spot at the moment is the quality of images returned from the surveillance cameras. But those are getting better with time, and facial recognition software is growing more tolerant of lower resolution images. As these two technologies converge, there is no doubt in my mind that our Crimestoppers blog will seem like a quaint example of how we attempted to identify suspects "in the old days."

Steve said...

I have face recognition on my new laptop which can be used in lieu of a password to log on. I haven't tried it yet, but if it isn't any more reliable than the fingerprint recognition that has been around for awhile, it would be a waste of time. As much as they may hype it, much if this new stuff is still just an unreliable toy.

I could type in my password a hundred times and still log on faster than trying to get my fingerprint recognized correctly. My son has a friend, Zak, who enabled face recognition on his computer. All his friends get a kick out of watching Zak trying to log on. It's sort of like a Jim Carrey exhibition with all the funny contorted faces he goes through.

Anonymous said...

The problems with the face recognition software sort of reminds me of the old time Harleys I owned that only had kick starters.

Gun Nut

Anonymous said...

TP Bandit got a mention on Letterman tonight....

Tom Casady said...

11:18-

His home office is in Wahoo, so I suppose he watches the 10-11 news before the show.

Here's the link to the monologue. It begins at 3:30 into the clip.

Dave's Monologue, Part 1 - 5/12/10