If it was an iPhone and the text came in, it lights up and displays on the face of the phone, even if locked. The friends were texting him to come get them, so it may have been actively going on. Also, the article says the phone rang and one of the officers answered it and the friends says come get us. The boy told them where to go get them.KingofChaos wrote:You don't actually know if the message was displayed. In fact, I'd roll with chasfm11's thought, and say that its highly improbably that the message was still showing. The kid likely wasn't messing with his phone after the officer made initial contact. And if he was, it almost certainly wouldn't be to text his friends about the robbery he committed. It'd probably be to call his parents or something of that nature. So he puts the phone down, and while the officer does the "Hi, give me your ID" etc. the phone would likely timeout and the screen would go black. I don't know what kind of phone you have, but even older non-smartphones have screen timeouts. This story stinks. Maybe the kid really is an idiot, and continued talking to his friend about the robbery/reading those text while the officer was there. Maybe he really doesn't care about his battery and extended his screen timeout to a ridiculously long time. Or maybe the officer went through his phone. All we'll ever know is what we're told, but I for one think what we're being told makes no sense when subjected to even a small amount of thought.The Annoyed Man wrote:He didn't go through the kid's phone, the message was already displayed, which means that it had just been viewed. That is evidence of a crime in progress and IMHO entirely actionable. And the end result was that a passle of criminals (not misguided yoots) were caught red-handed and arrested. I call that a good result.KingofChaos wrote:Forget the break-in, I'm much more concerned with the fact that he went through the kids phone. That sort of invasion by Law Enforcement, sans a warranty, makes me exceptionally fearful and angry.
It also doesn't matter if the kid was a criminal, or what the result was. There are tons of violations of privacy that would likely have positive results, but I'd bet you wouldn't support them. Heck, requiring NICS checks for private sales would likely have positive results, since not everyone requires the buyer to have a CHL, but from your previous post on this forum I'm going to go out on a limb and say you'd be against that. The ends don't always justify the means.
Bottom line, news articles are notoriously wrong. And young kids are VERY good at spilling the beans when they are caught and think they will get an easier ride if they tell what was happening. It's the old 'Don't arrest me, I was just taking my friends for a ride and THEY got out and broke in. I wasn't in the store....' etc. type of confession.