Fitbit, pacemakers, key fob may snitch on you to the police

In this case, normal home technology caught a criminal in his likes.  From the Chicago Tribune:

The firefighter found Richard Dabate on the floor of his kitchen, where he had made a desperate 911 call minutes earlier, court records show. Bleeding and lashed to a chair with zip ties, the man moaned a chilling warning: "They're still in the house." 

Smoke hung in the air, and a trail of blood led to a darkened basement, as Connecticut State Police swarmed the large home in the Hartford suburbs two days before Christmas in 2015. 

Richard, 41, told authorities a masked intruder with a "Vin Diesel" voice killed his wife, Connie, in front of him and tortured him. Police combed the home and town of Ellington but found no suspect. 

With no witnesses other than Richard Dabate, detectives turned to the vast array of data and sensors that increasingly surround us. An important bit of evidence came from an unlikely source: the Fitbit tracking Connie's movements. 

Others from the home's smart alarm systems, Facebook, cellphones, email and a key fob allowed police to re-create a nearly minute-by-minute account of the morning that they said revealed Richard's story was an elaborately staged fiction. 

Undone by his data, Richard was charged with his wife's murder. He has pleaded not guilty. . . .

The rest of the article is available here. 

Meet FormerBu. Actually former FBI director James Comey

From Fox News:

Former FBI Director James Comey’s 'secret' Twitter account has finally been revealed after months of rumors linking him to cryptic tweets from the @FormerBu account. 

The account created a stir earlier this year when Gizmodo reported that it likely belonged to Comey. At the time the account used the handle @projectexile7. The account’s name has remained Reinhold Niebuhr. . . .

Post at the Crime Prevention Research Center: from defensive gun uses to recent media to what is happening in Washington

Here are some recent posts at the Crime Prevention Research Center

-- Permitted concealed handguns stop two kidnappings, in another case holding a killer until police arrive, and other cases

-- Dramatic self-defense by concealed handgun permit holder caught on high definition video

-- On the Dennis Prager Show to talk about the gun control

-- Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer (NY) urges Democrats to hide views on gun control because of 2018 elections

-- Will new bipartisan House bill to ban bump stock guns actually ban all semi-auto guns?

Democrats have become more consistently liberal over time than Republicans have become consistently conservative

So who has become more dogmatic over time?  Democrats or Republicans?  If you believe a recent PEW poll, it is Democrats.

Acknowledging the media bias on guns from former CEO of National Public Radio

The former CEO of National Public Radio Ken Stern has a piece at the New York Post on the media's bias on guns.  This discussion could have been taken from my book The Bias Against Guns.  From the NY Post:

. . . Over the course of this past year, I have tried to consume media as they do and understand it as a partisan player. It is not so hard to do. Take guns. Gun control and gun rights is one of our most divisive issues, and there are legitimate points on both sides. But media is obsessed with the gun-control side and gives only scant, mostly negative, recognition to the gun-rights sides. 

Take for instance the issue of the legitimate defensive gun use (DGUs), which is often dismissed by the media as myth. But DGUs happen all the time — 200 times a day, according to the Department of Justice, or 5,000 times a day according to an overly exuberant Florida State University study. But whichever study you choose to believe, DGUs happen frequently and give credence to my hunting friends who see their guns as the last line of defense for themselves and their families. 

At one point during my research, I discovered a video of a would-be robber entering a Houston smoke shop, his purpose conveyed by the pistol that he leveled at the store clerk. But the robber was not the only armed person in the store. The security cameras show Raleigh, the store clerk, walking out from behind the counter, calmly raising his own gun and firing an accurate stream of bullets at the hapless robber. The wounded robber stumbles out, falls over the curb and eventually ends up under arrest. 

It is not just the defensive gun use that makes the video remarkable — it is Raleigh himself who evidences such a nonchalance that he never bothers to put down the cigarette that he is smoking. At the end, Raleigh, having protected his store, enthuses “Castle Doctrine, baby” — citing a law that allows a person to use force to defend a legally occupied place. 

It is an amazing story, though far from unique, but you simply won’t find many like it in mainstream media (I found it on Reddit). 

It’s not that media is suppressing stories intentionally. It’s that these stories don’t reflect their interests and beliefs. . . . 

Interesting information on crimes committed by NFL players

The data set is available here.