Only Indian kids would go to such lengths to finish a class assignment.
The University of Maryland’s student paper, the Diamondback is reporting that three graduate students from India (two men and a woman) were detained and questioned for nearly four hours by Montgomery County police early Tuesday morning for using a device to track wireless communication signals for a class assignment (thanks masked tipster). Neighbors reported the three to the police for suspicious activity because they had been driving through Silver Spring, Md (a suburb of Washington DC) at about 15 miles per hour with elaborate equipment in their rental vehicle.
Yeah, it sounds shady. If a car was constantly roaming around my neighborhood from about 10 pm to 2 in the morning, I too would probably be a little suspicious, especially at that hour. Well, so were the police.
At about 2 a.m. early Tuesday morning while driving through a residential Silver Spring neighborhood, the students noticed a police car following them and flashing its lights. The students were stopped and answered questions about their identities, equipment and assignment, and were then escorted by police back to I-495 and sent home.
You would think it would have ended at that. It is kind of funny, a trio of Indian students geekily get pulled over, not for partying or do something illegal, but for doing their homework. The crappy thing is, it didn’t end there.
Police from Montgomery and Prince George’s counties rejoined the students at their Berwyn House Road apartments, where after more questioning, an officer copied down the equipment’s serial numbers and informed one of the male students his laptop appeared on a list of stolen electronics.Officers detained them there for nearly two hours, questioned them, photographed them, recorded detailed descriptions of their physical appearances and inspected their visas, passports, university identifications and international driving permits.
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p>Now I am a bit confused. Why would the police need to follow them home? The students showed the police their ids, equipment, and explained to the police the class assignment. What was the point in following them home and recording all of their personal data? And the bit about taking the laptop I am not too clear on.
“Everyone was shocked, dumbfounded, speechless,” the female student said. “This has never happened before in our lives. I was very angry. I didn’t appreciate the harassment.” The students were released by officers about 5 a.m. Tuesday and later informed their professor and department.
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p>And yet, it all could have probably went away had they called their professor earlier. The good Indian students that they are, they didn’t want to bother him.
They said they didn’t want to call us in the middle of the night and wake us up,” said Steve Tretter, director of the program. “I told them they were crazy and should have called us immediately.” Tretter said he and administrators were upset for the students.
Isn’t College Park not too far from where this happened and history would have been different perhaps if the cop had followed the person home ? Perhaps it was the same cop who wanted to make sure he didn’t make the same mistake of letting suspicious people go too easily. 🙂
At first, I was laughing because it reminded me of all those “fob” inspired plotlines on google video. But by the end of the story… uh, wow.
The laptop being stolen is not that uncommon. It used to happen in universities all the time. Then some one goes and sells it on ebay. My books were stolen once and w/ half or ebay you dont know where they were sold Also some universities had laptop insurances that kids were abusing. More often the kids knew that laptops cant really be tracked especialy that in 4 years top its going to be in trash can and figured that with the $100 or so replacement charge to get a replacement newer laptop. and sell the old one!
I was never stolen, except when, uhm, the cops took me away from my owner. The guy who is typing this knows this too!
yeah leave it to us desis for doing something like that!!! lol!! i guess they will make for a really dedicated workforce!
The pulled over part is ok (kind of). The part where they get detained and harassed by the cops later on is inexplicable. Damned if you drive over the speed limit, damned if you dont. I guess it doesn’t matter what speed you drive at, if you are brown skinned and have 5 “o”s in your name.
I can’t find any fault in the police trying to follow up, better be thorough than sorry. When the laptop showed up as stolen( if its true) may have prompted them to investigate somemore checking their passports,visas etc.
But, i am just curious what kind of assignment requires people to snoop on wireless communications? The professor/students should have taken permission from residents before doing this…
This reminds me of a funny incident. One of my friends works for a mobile phone company. He is a field officer and one of his responsibilites is to drive to different parts of the USA and monitor the cell phone reception. He drives a Huge ford explorer with close to 42 antenas mounted on the top and has devices occupying all the space behind the driver & passenger seats. Once, he got pulled over by a cop and he asked him .. “Sir, y is that you have more antennas that i have??”. He explained wht his job was and the officer was really impressed and let him go. Every time he stops to have some food every one look at the antennas on the top and say “Wht the f***?” and give him a geeky look.
I think I forgot to mention that the student showed police the receipt for the computer, the shipping notice and the box it came in, before the officer confiscated it.
Pikesville is about 35 miles away from College Park, and the police officers were from two different police precincts.
My comment was sort of tongue in cheek to illustrate that for law enforcement it is damned if you do and damned if you don’t.I am not going to be surprised if somebody gets pulled over for driving slowly in front of a bank at 2 am in the morning with a truck loaded with industrial metal cutting equipment either, regardless of what receipts they have to prove their ownership of that equipment. And isn’t wireless snooping without special permission somewhat controversial these days ? 🙂
All in all, sounds like that was a pretty dumb thing to do…don’t think the cops can be blamed here for trying to make sure everything was alright.
This was in Silver Springs? That’s about an hour away from my house. Looks like I’m stayin’ in the crib tonight.
unfortunate!
Nanda: I am in agreeance that the cops pulling the students over and investigating was more than justified. In fact, I would be alarmed had they not.
I think following them home for questioning, photographing, and recording detailed descriptions of their physical appearances and inspecting many of their other documents, however, borders on excessive.