Man tracks stolen cell phone with GPS, police won't help get it back - wistv.com - Columbia, South Carolina
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CHARLESTON, SC (WCSC) - A Charleston man used GPS technology to track down his cell phone after someone stole it out of his car, but police won't help him get the phone back.
Dwight Smith stopped off at his mom's house on Reid Street in downtown Charleston. When he came out a few minutes later, his cell phone was gone.
"I was reaching in my pocket, didn't feel my phone," Smith said. "So I turned around and went back in and couldn't find it anywhere in the house. I went back out to the car and noticed it wasn't in the car either."
Smith says he pays a few extra bucks each month on his Sprint account to get a service called Family Tracker. It uses GPS to track the location of each of the phones on his account.
Over the weekend Smith tracked it down to within 18 yards of a West Ashley apartment complex. Monday the signal came from inside West Ashley High School, so Smith waited outside the school until classes got out.
Smith says he continued to track the phone using his laptop computer in his car. He noticed that it continued to move, and figured out the phone was on a school bus. Eventually the bus stopped at the Mulberry Place apartment complex, the same place Smith says he tracked the phone over the weekend.
Smith says when the bus stopped two kids got off and went into one of the apartments, and the signal from his phone hasn't moved since.
After tracking down the phone, Smith flagged down a patrol officer in the area.
"The one officer I talked to said that there was nothing they could do and they were not going to pursue trying to track down a stolen cell phone," Smith said. "The only thing I can assume is that it's not high enough on their priority list. And from where I came from, a crime is a crime, so everything should be a priority."
Smith says he also tried to file a report with Charleston Police, but they told him they couldn't help.
Police officials told WCSC in Charleston Smith only reported the phone as lost and not as stolen, and that's why they couldn't help. Smith says that is simply not true.
©2009 WCSC. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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