Bad Strategy: Announcing The Target Of Your Robbery On Facebook Before Giving It A Go

from the strategery dept

Mon, Mar 16th 2015 9:16pm — Timothy Geigner

While dumb criminals doing dumb criminal-y things with technology aren't exactly new around Techdirt, we can't help but be amazed at the things some of these folks think they're going to get away with. That said, much of the silliness tends to occur after the fact. A murderer takes a selfie with his victim after the crime is committed. A phone thief uses the stolen phone to upload selfies of himself to his victim's account. A teen pimpette brags about her crimes after committing them.

But, in what may be a first, today we bring you a UK man who proactively used social media to post the location of his to-be-committed robbery before then committing said robbery. Not surprisingly, it didn't take long for the public and the police to put two and two together.

Andrew Hennells, 32, posted a comment on his profile which read: "Doing. Tesco. Over" at 19:25 GMT on 13 February. Just 15 minutes later, after he had held up the King's Lynn store, police caught Hennells with a knife and £410.

I must commend Hennells on his attempts to streamline police action this way. With all the fervor we've heard about attempts to use technology for so-called pre-crime efforts, folks like Hennells might give potential investors of those prospective systems pause as they negate their use entirely. Now, police weren't solely reliant on the Facebook posts to put Hennells in cuffs, but they obviously didn't harm the effort.

Sgt Pete Jessop said Hennells's Facebook confession had made it easier to secure a guilty plea.

"It was a bizarre and unusual case," he said. "The pictures and posts on Facebook helped us confirm what we already knew. None of this takes away from the seriousness of the crime or the trauma experienced by the victims of the robbery."

No, but it sure is good for a chuckle at the stupid. God's speed, Mr. Hennells.

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Filed Under: announcing robbery, criminals, social media, stupid criminals
Companies: tesco

11 Comments

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Roger Strong (profile), 16 Mar 2015 @ 9:48pm

Meanwhile In America
Bad Strategy: Announcing The Target Of Your Robbery On Facebook Before Giving It A Go

Good Strategy: Announcing That You're Open To Bribery By Launching A Super PAC Before Starting Your Campaign.
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Guardian, 16 Mar 2015 @ 10:33pm

the french fry guys
long ago in another time i was in jail...these two guys were there , you ask what for , they broke into a chip truck and cooked up some fish n chips lol.

ya the smoke out the top would nto give it away now....
rofl
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Anonymous Coward, 16 Mar 2015 @ 10:51pm

I'm trying to understand the newsworthiness of a story about a complete nobody who demonstrates idiocy.

Am I missing something?
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Anonymous Coward, 16 Mar 2015 @ 11:51pm

Re:
Because he used technology (social media) to (uniquely) incriminate himself (i.e pre-crime rather than after the fact) ... perhaps you could call this (un)newsworthy story a "minority report"
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tracyanne (profile), 17 Mar 2015 @ 2:31am

re Meanwhile In America
Bad Strategy: Announcing The Target Of Your Robbery On Facebook Before Giving It A Go

Good Strategy: Announcing That You're Open To Bribery By Launching A Super PAC Before Starting Your Campaign.

Reading about it on Techdirt... priceless
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Anonymous Coward, 17 Mar 2015 @ 3:52am

I'd be more interested to know how the police got this information - did someone report it/did he post it publically/do police have unrestricted access to everything we post on facebook and the ability to decifer those three words into intent to commit a crime?
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Anonymous Coward, 17 Mar 2015 @ 3:56am

Re:
Have read the bbc article..

"It was a bizarre and unusual case," he said. "The pictures and posts on Facebook helped us confirm what we already knew.

So he was caught another way or this is a parallel construction.
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Anonymous Coward, 17 Mar 2015 @ 4:33am

Re: Re:
And what about this writer's other Techdirt articles that are also about complete nobodies who demonstrate idiocy? Does adding "bragged about on the internet" automatically change a common crime from non-newsworthy to newsworthy because "technology" was somehow used?
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Michael, 17 Mar 2015 @ 6:23am

Re: Re: Re:
Yes.

It also qualifies it for patent protection.
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Just Another Anonymous Troll, 17 Mar 2015 @ 6:29am

Re: Re: Re:
It's funny. Timothy can write about whatever he wants. If you have a problem, then you can just not read these articles, or this blog.
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Anonymous Coward, 17 Mar 2015 @ 11:52am

Re: Re: Re:
it must be interesting you read it and keep commenting if it was so uninteresting you would have just moved on
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