Police could do more

Stuff reports:

A man who tracked his stolen iPad is disappointed police could not obtain a search warrant to recover it.

The Napier tradesman had the iPad and about $7000 of equipment stolen from his van on Monday evening.

Using the Find My iPad feature, an application that uses GPS to track the device, he tracked it to the suburb of Onekawa. Police applied for a search warrant for a specific address but a police spokeswoman said this was declined “on the basis that there wasn’t enough evidence”.

“While it did “ping” in the [address] vicinity, that is only regarded as a general area and not a specific location. Often with these tracking cases we have found items not in the locations specified by the apps, but nearby,” the spokeswoman said.

She could not say whether police took any further action concerning the man’s complaint, such as making inquiries of the property’s occupants.

This isn’t good enough.

Yes sometimes the GPS location is slightly off by 10 metres or so. In built up areas this could mean a different house.

But surely the Police can still make inquiries. Go knock on the door and ask questions. Check if known criminals are at the address or nearby. Ask for permission to check the house. Use the Find My iPad feature to get it to make a loud noise.