COOK COUNTY CRIMINAL COURTHOUSE — Police identified a carjacker using a photo taken by a cellphone app smart enough to know when your phone is stolen, prosecutors said.
Brandon Cole, of Grand Crossing, was charged with vehicular hijacking more than three months after the fact thanks to a cellphone security app that surreptitiously takes a photo of its user after multiple failed attempts to open the phone, prosecutors said.
There are various apps fitting prosecutors' description, including Lockwatch for Android, which quietly takes a photo with the front camera when the wrong password or PIN is entered. The app then emails its owner the photo along with the GPS location of the phone.
IGotYa for iPhone provides similar safeguards, but requires that your iPhone be jailbroken.
Armed with the secret photo — sent to the cellphone's owner in the form of an alert after the crime — police used facial recognition software to identify Cole, 35, prosecutors said.
He was later picked out of a photo array by the victim, who was carjacked at gunpoint by Cole and at least one more man as he was leaving work on May 27, prosecutors said.
Cole and his unnamed accomplice pulled up behind the victim, blocking him in his parking spot in the 4400 block of South Cicero Avenue, prosecutors said. They got away with his 2000 Chevy Impala and cellphone.
More than three months later, Cole was arrested on a warrant after officers from the Gang Enforcement Unit patrolling a Safe Passage Route spotted him in the 6400 block of South Eberhart Street, prosecutors said.
Cole, who works as a security guard, according to court documents, admitted to trying to get into the stolen phone but said he had nothing to do with the carjacking, authorities said.
A Cook County judge ordered Cole held on $325,000 Friday.
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