Find My iPhone helps NYPD locate thief and stolen iPhone

We’ve heard plenty of stolen iPhone and iPad stories where Apple’s Find My iPhone came in handy in locating the missing devices, but this next story shows us something a little different. When a cashier at Tuci Italia in New York was robbed of her iPhone at gunpoint, the responding officers knew immediately what to do.

Officer Robert Garland, who arrived at the scene and who is an Apple fan–he and his wife own several iOS devices–knew that Find My iPhone may help track the thief and corner him. It worked.

The NY Times reports:

Punching in the victim’s Apple ID, which is the log-on people use to buy, say, songs from iTunes, he quickly determined by the location of a small gray phone icon on a digital map that the robber was near Eighth Avenue and 51st Street.

As Officer Garland and his partner drove there, the signal source shifted, closer to Eighth Avenue and 49th Street. There, a man later identified by the police as George Bradshaw, 40, of New Lots, Brooklyn, stepped outside a Food Emporium.

After locating Bradshaw, Officer Garland used the Find My iPhone app on his own device–this was possible after the victim entered her Apple ID and password into the officer’s app–to emit a sound from the stolen iPhone. Bradshaw was beeping just 20 feet away.

Locating and recovering the stolen iPhone, along with arresting the thief, took no more than 30 minutes. I’m sure the Tuci Italia cashier was thrilled to get her stolen iPhone back in no time. And it’s great to know that law enforcement officers are now becoming technology savvy, which undoubtedly helped with the very swift justice in this case.

If you own one or more iOS devices, consider enabling and using Find My iPhone for all of them. You never know when it might come in handy.