Kid's cell calls police while he allegedly boasts of burglaries

There are those who believe machines have minds of their own.

In which case, the cell phone belonging to a 16-year-old from Peoria, Ariz., is of a mind to uphold truth, justice and to make 16-year-old thieves look really, really stupid.

The unnamed teen was allegedly hanging with his buds and regaling them with what seems to be the story of how he had ripped a stereo from a car and stolen a Cricket phone.

While his friends were apparently unimpressed with the Cricket (they're rather more moved by BlackBerrys), I am stunned to discover that people these days bother to rip stereos out of cars. Somehow that seems so 1987.

Still, in the pulsating moments that the kid was boasting of his crimes, his cell phone decided to call 911.

I know that sentence sounds a little like a scene from the CW's quite rivet-free "Supernatural." And no one is quite sure how the phone suddenly spurted into action.

"Dear Kid, You steal that Corolla and I'm calling the cops."

(Credit: CC Wandering One/Flickr)

Perhaps the vibrations from the nether regions of the teen, engendered by his excited pride at pulling off the Peoria Job, activated a one-touch button to 911 on the cell phone in his pocket.

But imagine the amusement of the guardians of the law as they enjoyed the feast of felony being described.

You can listen to the call here, courtesy of the Phoenix New Times.

You may enjoy his words when speaking of lifting the stereo: "It took all my energy to lift it out of the car."

Perhaps it took all his gray matter too.

The police kept listening in for quite a while, performed a little signal triangulation and, according to a police spokesperson, actually caught the stereo-stealer with the machine still in his hands.

He was charged with felony vehicle burglary.

It is rumored that the cell phone has been nominated for a police commendation.

[dhdickey]

You may be interested to know that many cell phones will dial 911 if certain numbers are held down for some length of time. '9' is common to many phones and some will dial 911 if any button is held down long enough. The Apple touch-screen phone is by far the worst offender as anything in a person's pocket can 'spontaneously' dial 911, though they are less common than when the phone first came out so I assume there is a programing option to disable it. At the police department where I work, we sometimes talk to as many as a half dozen pockets or purses a day, though I have yet to hear anything as fun as this story.

[rayzoredge]

The clamshell design would prevent this, no? Not saying that the kid had a clamshell phone, but just sayin'.

[pjhenry1216]

Very few things in a person's pocket will actually cause the touchscreen to respond. Put cloth over your finger and see if you can get any response. Honestly, I'm not a huge fan of Apple, but lets not spread rumors.

[rollcage]

Yeah...iPhone is very unlikely to dial itself. First you would need something in your pocket that would make the screen respond. Then you've got to hit either the home or sleep button, swipe the thing across the bottom of the screen to actually unlock the phone, manage to hit the phone icon on the home screen, possibly switch to the keypad in the phone app, dial the number, and then hit send. I'm thinking some object in your pocket is unlikely to do any of this...

[oassaf]

Hey it could have been, he could have locked himself inside that car and called 911 to ask for help

[aMUSICsite]

Big brother is here....

[vertig0730]

New car feature, Bluetooth in radio calls cops on any available cell phone when being forcible removed.

[shootdraxxus]

As a guy who had his stereo ripped off, this idea would be awesome!

[shootdraxxus]

Ive never heard of an iphone "spontaneously" dial anything. I have owned one for 8 months, and my wife has the original iphone and it has never dialed out by itself. Is it possible for an iphone to dial by itself in a pocket or purse kind of environment when it uses capacitance and not pressure to activate its touch screen?

[redwall_hp]

The only time an iPhone could spontaneously dial would be if someone put it directly in a pocket/purse/etc without pressing the sleep button first. If you turn the display off, it won't respond to any screen taps. Either the sleep or home button would have to be accidentally pushed, and something would have to move the slider, in order to even get the phone unlocked. (Then there's the question of bringing the keypad up.)

[pjhenry1216]

@redwall_hp: You still failed to respond to the point of it being capacitance and not pressure activated. Very few things cause the touch screen to respond.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Touchscreen#Capacitive

The object utilizing the screen would have to have its own capacitance.

[pepper454]

sounds like he stole the system in the trunk. win win for the neighborhood.

[man_w_balls]

I've had a stereo stolen too, even in this decade, so I have mixed feelings about this story. For one, it's good to catch thievin' crackheads, but for another, it sounds fishy about the mystery phone activation.

See this article on remote eavesdropping via cell speakerphone:
http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2006/12/remotely_eavesd_1.html

'mobile providers can "remotely install a piece of software on to any handset, without the owner's knowledge, which will activate the microphone even when its owner is not making a call."'

[ZOMGZBBQ]

ECHELON.

[faraway_so_close]

Sounds like he stole a crappy Cricket phone, sat on it, it dialed the emergency number, and the 911 operator listened in, like they are supposed to. I don't recall reading anywhere that it was an iPhone that dialed 911 spontaneously. Nothing mysterious about it. Of the 1000's of stereos stolen daily, this was the one unlucky chap who had this series of events happen to him and he was caught. Serves the punk-kid right.

[GardenLobster]

What's all this about an iPhone? It was a Cricket: http://www.mycricket.com/cricketphones/ I see several bar phones there that, if placed in the pocket unlocked, could potentially dial a number. I have always had Motorola or Nokia clamshells that often take pictures of my pocket or purse, and currently have a Samsung blast that, even though the phone is locked, will easily get the unlock sequence of push buttons pressed in my purse and kill my battery from just the backlight on and that easy tZones button getting pressed. It's not a touch-screen or clamshell phone that made this call, despite the picture shown. Stop being paranoid and realize that if this kid was dumb and poor enough to steal a car stereo and has Cricket as the wireless carrier (i.e. no credit check and prepaid), he's probably not smart enough to lock the phone - and even if he is, a push-button unlock sequence can potentially be pressed by something else in the pocket (keys, for example) and the 9 key can be held down, which usually calls 911.

[LizzieLizzie]

If it was a non-flip phone that didn't have its keyboard locked, it's really, really easy to accidentally dial 911. I did it once with my old Tracfone while making out with a guy in a car... quite embarrassing! Didn't realize it until I heard a muffled, faint voice yelling at me.

[rustylite2001]

Come on guys, April Fools has been over for a while now.

[karpenterskids]

hahaha