Well, it's not really luck. It's exactly because there's cctv in enough places that they were able to get his photo from the one moment he lowered his mask at the hostel, but even more significantly that they were able to piece together his movements enough to be able to suspect that the guy at the hostel was the same one that carried out the shooting. Then it was a matter of distributing the photo and hope someone recognizes him. And offering the reward ofc. Very simple but not luck.

It still came to down to a crappy photo from a security cam and not the drones, internet surveillance, or facial recognition software in constant use against us.

This crime could have been solved the exact same way in the 1980s. The only difference being that the guy's picture would have been distributed over the 6 o'clock news instead of the internet.

It wasn't just the one crappy photo where he lowered his mask - the taxicab photos were quite clear even if they just showed his eyes.

And they also made use of other tech, like the fact that the Citibike has GPS.

Security cameras were not nearly as prevalent in the 80's.

Their picture quality was also much worse.

Not only were security cameras not as prevalent as they are now, they had terrible video quality. We'd have an extremely grainy grey photo of a face. Not enough to visually recognise him later.

No, because he was sloppy and lowered his mask...

It still came down to an old guy recognizing him in a McDonalds.

Even then he might have escaped further notice if he'd ditched all the incriminating stuff. It's one thing to kind'a look like a guy in a low-quality pic; it's quite another to have the cops checking you out find all your murder gear with you.

Doesn't really matter. Even if the cops didn't find anything on him they'd ID him for real, there's no point trying to hide after that.

> Even if the cops didn't find anything on him they'd ID him for real

Sure thing. They would know what the guy who kinda look like a photo of a wanted man is called. Doesn’t necessarily means they can pin anything on him. Obviously increases their chances, since they can work both backwards and forwards, but that is about it.

Assuming of course that the “he got just unlucky, a random person recognised them” is true, and not paralel construction for some other mean they don’t want to reveal.

Can cops "randomly" ID people in US?

Matching a murder suspect photo is the opposite of 'randomly'.

In some states, under certain circumstances, yes.

is there any country (not currently in a civil war) where they can't do so as long as they come up with a reasonable pretense of suspicion?

Yeah, that part really surprised me too. He had advanced degrees and top grades, so he was clearly a smart guy, so why did he make such a dumb mistake that anyone who's watched a few murder mysteries would know not to do? Like some others have said, it seems like he probably wanted to get caught.

It sounds like he had a mental break. Not saying he didn't have good reasons for doing what he did, but the twitter detectives posted that his family and friends have been looking for him for the past 6 months.

You can be smart and still slip up, especially under pressure (and as we're learning, possibly mental and physical pain). Presumably one of the reasons why professionals are better is that, beyond working experience, they have a lot of practice.

(In Dr. Strangelove voice) "Of course, the whole point of a ghost gun is lost if you keep it!" Seriously tho, the fact that he went to the trouble of obtaining one shows that he gave that some thought. But then didn't follow through. So yeah, maybe he did want to get caught.

Old guy didn't get the memo to buy him a coffee and forget he saw anything

\s murder is wrong

Which seems likely to have been due to said maskless photo.

He has a written manifesto in his pocket and was out eating McDonalds. It's not like he trying hard to hide

There wouldn't be any face to recognize if he didn't pull his mask down during his trip.

He's richer than the guy he shot. He's an Ivy student from a rich Maryland family; his cousin is in the state legislature.

https://msa.maryland.gov/msa/mdmanual/06hse/html/msa18040.ht...

What proof do you have that he's "richer"?

Ok so that's no proof at all, thank you for clarifying.

Which one of us has posted a concrete fact in this thread and which one is complaining? :)

There's some people on bluesky analyzing which Baltimore high school he went to too, but I don't think I should link small personal accounts here.

I'd ask if Luigi's assets exceeds the $15 million of insider trading the CEO was accused of, but whether they're richer than the other doesn't (shouldn't) matter.

My assumption is that if you're in a rich family you have access to more than your personal assets, but it probably depends on how much your parents like you.

Assumption? So you were lying when you said you had a “concrete fact”?

No, that was the URL I linked. Here, have another one.

https://www.thebaltimorebanner.com/community/criminal-justic...

Even if he is, it doesn't have anything to do with my point.

I think describing the dead guy as a "member of the 1%" is a lot less relevant if this isn't a class-war type of assassination.

Although I personally believe Americans have a different class consciousness, where they think it's the working class and upper class billionaires allied together against annoying upper-middle class professional people like, uh, us.

I think this one is more ideological than traditional class. Either you agree with the way American healthcare companies operate, or you don’t. The dysfunctions of the industry have the potential to directly impact anyone of any class.

> anyone of any class

The American elite do (and have always) taken steps to insulate themselves from the rest of the system, including medically. There are "boutique doctors", "family physicians" and the like.

It's actually not that hard to find them, they just don't take insurance. The prices are not that high if you are not going to be back on a recurring basis.

You're still in the blast radius if your loved ones or friends suffer unnecessarily due to the healthcare industry. It's so pervasive that it's not to hard to imagine a scenario where this guy was disgruntled by simply observing the brazen profiteering taking place at the expense of human life. Many have shrugged it off as status quo capitalist behavior, but if you choose to go down the rabbit hole you'd find it very easy to locate people who have been on the losing side of the healthcare industry

This is just really funny because the implication is then something like "he wasn't a victim or a working class hero, he was a rich guy, and they're actually the bad guys.. because look! They're murderers!" And then presumably the other side can just be like, "Ok well sure, that's our point anyway I guess..."

My point is this isn't the start of a class war.

Siddhartha Gautama was a royal.

The surveillance state is good at deterring people who don't want to get caught. If you're ready to lay down your life or freedom for an assassination, it's really pretty hard to stop such a person with the patience to prepare for it - multiple cops have told me this.

I think people assume a lot about the system, based more in movies than real information.

Maybe not the _only_ reason he got caught, but a major reason is exactly what OP mentioned: the victim was a member of the 1%.

Waaay back in the late-80s, I was at an underground dance party. Some dude shot and killed another dude in the parking lot. At least a dozen witnesses saw it (I only heard it). Everyone knew the identities of both people involved. No arrests were ever made. I saw the dude on the street a few years later, walking around like he never shot and killed someone - thanks to the fine work of the Modesto PD.