14 DAY TRIAL // These days, people who go around stealing iDevices often end up behind bars. Sometimes it’s because of Apple’s Find-My feature, and sometimes it’s thanks to good Samaritans like Mohammad Armeli.
The Minnesota CBS Local news station reports that “Last Thursday, a boy was punched and the iPad in his hands was stolen outside a Minneapolis restaurant.”
As the surveillance video shows, 32-year-old Aaron Stillday waited for just the right moment to hit the child and snatch the tablet computer from his hands, leaving the boy bleeding on the sidewalk.
Mohammad Armeli, who works as a cook at the restaurant in question, heard the commotion outside and immediately started chasing the robber. As he was chasing Stillday, Armeli took out his phone and called 911. He eventually trapped Stillday in a dead end and held him there until the authorities arrived.
“Poor kid,” said Armeli. “I can’t believe it, the blood was all over his face. Could have broken his nose. [...] “This is the scum of the earth,” he added. “You cannot hit a child like that. Don’t hit him for his iPad, or for anything.”
According to police accounts, Stillday had been arrested 60 times before. “I can’t believe they let him out,” said Armeli.
The surveillance video also shows that Stillday dropped the iPad on the hard concrete as he was making a run for it. It was later revealed that the tablet’s screen got shattered. As a sign of good faith, Apple gave the kid a brand new iPad.
Scott Seroka of the Minneapolis Police Department is quoted as saying, “These are valuable items that people want. And if you don’t have to have them out, maybe you can wait until you’re in a secure environment to use them.”
Despite Apple equipping iDevices (and even Macs) with a way to locate them after being stolen, thieves are mostly unaware of this security measure taken against them.
Usually the stolen device is recuperated after the owner tracks it down using Apple’s iCloud tools, but there have been cases where the stolen device has passed from hand to hand (seller to buyer), making it impossible for the original owner to claim it back.
Some thieves are so ignorant to the fact that Apple iDevices have living beacons in them that they will actually go and take photos of themselves and their friends and families, unknowingly uploading these photos to the original owner’s iCloud account.