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horrifying attack on Jussie Smollett

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I'm having trouble imagining what the phone or call records might provide to investigators that might aid in finding the perpetrators if Smollet is telling the truth. All it would do is confirm that he had a call with his manager and the timing of that call. Both pieces of information that I believe Smollet has testified to. The phone would only be useful evidence as to the truthfulness of his account. If he is telling the truth, the phone won't help find his attackers.



Well...

No video evidence corroborates the attack along the route we assume he took. Ok, that could be due to the fact that we don’t have a good time frame to pinpoint on video and/or we don’t know exactly where the attack took place. Oh? There’s a phone call that has the exact time of the attack? Perfect! We can get a time of attack AND the cell towers it was pinging.

Seems like good info to have but IANADetective.


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Myles said:
Embarrassing photos, texts, emails, web history - things such as that could influence his decision not to allow it to be examined whether this is a hoax or not.
If it is a hoax then the phone might contain evidence showing the planning of the hoax. But the worst scenario for a hate crime hoaxer would be if the phone also shows evidence of planning a hoax threat letter.

That would be very embarrassing. Probably worse than any photo that has nothing to do with hoaxing hate crimes.

If the phone is voluntarily handed over then it would be highly unlikely to contain any of that hoaxing evidence. If it does contain that stuff he probably now won't want to risk it being discovered and would destroy the phone and it would never be found.
 
Well...

No video evidence corroborates the attack along the route we assume he took. Ok, that could be due to the fact that we don’t have a good time frame to pinpoint on video and/or we don’t know exactly where the attack took place. Oh? There’s a phone call that has the exact time of the attack? Perfect! We can get a time of attack AND the cell towers it was pinging.

Seems like good info to have but IANADetective.


Right. There is testimony that the attack occurred during the phone call. If there is a way to verify the time and length of the call without the surrender of the phone itself, then coordinate that info hopefully by surveillance camera/s that hopefully had the correct time, it could possibly verify that the attack did or did not occur.

If the surrender of the phone is necessary to obtain that info and Smollett still refuses to do so, that would end the investigation for me.
 
Given the amount of time and effort Chicago has put into this nonsense, the fact this celebrity isn’t bending over backwards to assist means:

Shut it down.

Stop wasting time and our resources
 
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I'm having trouble imagining what the phone or call records might provide to investigators that might aid in finding the perpetrators if Smollet is telling the truth. All it would do is confirm that he had a call with his manager and the timing of that call. Both pieces of information that I believe Smollet has testified to. The phone would only be useful evidence as to the truthfulness of his account. If he is telling the truth, the phone won't help find his attackers.
How many man hours should the CPD devote to the investigation of a "domestic terrorist attack" without attempting to verify that such an attack actually happened?

The victim is not the only one with an interest in what is going on here.
 
Right. There is testimony that the attack occurred during the phone call. If there is a way to verify the time and length of the call without the surrender of the phone itself, then coordinate that info hopefully by surveillance camera/s that hopefully had the correct time, it could possibly verify that the attack did or did not occur.

If the surrender of the phone is necessary to obtain that info and Smollett still refuses to do so, that would end the investigation for me.

Phone records are easy to get, especially for something so recent, so the phone is not needed.
 
If Smollett and his family really do regard this as a domestic terrorist attack then they should be demanding the involvement of the FBI.

Our son has been the target of terrorism for two consecutive weeks now. We demand that the FBI fully investigate both the letter and the violent attack in Chicago.
 
He probably assumed it was evidence, had DNA on it and possibly fingerprints, and wanted the police to collect it from where it was left. Or, possibly, he was unaware that it was there. The fact that he left evidence in situ shouldn't be taken as meaning that it wasn't evidence, or that it was faked evidence, or that there is something otherwise fishy with his story.
If he was traumatized by being attacked it is not a stretch that he was unaware of the rope or did not think about what to do with it.
 
Jesus H.......absolutely not a single shred of anything whatsoever to support your little makey uppie scenario. What is it with some people that makes it impossible to accept that someone might be telling the truth, particularly when that person has no motive to make the story up, and has an awful lot to lose if his charade were to be uncovered? This is supposed to be a forum for sceptics. Well apply a bit of scepticism and analysis to what you are actually suggesting. You and others should be posting this crap in the Conspicracy sub forum, not here........and to absolutely clear, your argument is akin to that of "truthers".

You can’t think of motives? Beat up by prostitue, hates Trump and those who like him, drunk or drugs...etc.
Plenty of possibilities.
 
Phone records are easy to get, especially for something so recent, so the phone is not needed.

I think police need a warrant to get phone records from the phone company. They don’t need a warrant if someone voluntarily gives them access to the phone.
 
You can’t think of motives? Beat up by prostitue, hates Trump and those who like him, drunk or drugs...etc.
Plenty of possibilities.

Traumatized enough to forget to remove the bolo tie, but remembers to tell the cops to turn off their body cams.

Again totally sounds legit.

In MAGA COUNTRY!
 
I think police need a warrant to get phone records from the phone company. They don’t need a warrant if someone voluntarily gives them access to the phone.

Correct since last year.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carpenter_v._United_States

It was a 5-4 decision, so not a slam dunk I guess, but the Supreme Court has decided that the police must obtain a warrant, and hence must be able to show probable cause, to look at your phone records without your permission.

Prior to Carpenter, government entities could obtain cellphone location records by claiming the information was required as part of an investigation. After Carpenter, government entities must obtain a warrant in order to access the information. The decision overturned portions of 20th century legislation and case law when nearly all US homes had landline phones in favor of constitutional rights stemming from technological advances of cellphones in the early 21st century. The ruling was very narrow and did not otherwise change the third-party doctrine related to other business records that might incidentally reveal location information, nor overrule prior decisions concerning conventional surveillance techniques and tools such as security cameras. The Court did not expand its ruling on other matters related to cellphones not presented in Carpenter, including real-time cell site location information (CSLI) or "tower dumps" (a download of information about all the devices that connected to a particular cell site during a particular interval). The opinion also did not consider other collection techniques involving foreign affairs or national security.
 
"Chicago police also say Jussie Smollett is NOT the target or focus of any criminal investigation, he is the victim. Police have no interest or probable cause to obtain a warrant to search his phone records."

“Don’t believe anything until it is officially denied.”
 
I can understand not handing over the phone. A lot of younger people these days live on their phones, and being separated from them for even 15 minutes can start to cause then anxiety. Can you imagine how they would react to being without it for the time it took to get it back once it was considered Police Evidence? Heck I don't live on my phone, I use it maybe a couple of times a week, I don't have anything embarrassing on it, and I still wouldn't give it to the police as evidence because it's my phone and I might have need for it at some point before they return it. For someone that is on their phone nearly 24/7, that would be a huge concern.
 
Traumatized enough to forget to remove the bolo tie, but remembers to tell the cops to turn off their body cams.

Again totally sounds legit.

In MAGA COUNTRY!

Why is asking the officers to turn off their body cams an issue? It was reported that a lot of people do so when officers enter a private home, I know I would, i wouldn't want footage of my home appearing all over the internet, especially if I was famous.
 
Why is asking the officers to turn off their body cams an issue? It was reported that a lot of people do so when officers enter a private home, I know I would, i wouldn't want footage of my home appearing all over the internet, especially if I was famous.

Because the claim to which I was responding was that he was too”traumatized” to remember to take off the rope.
 
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I can understand not handing over the phone. A lot of younger people these days live on their phones, and being separated from them for even 15 minutes can start to cause then anxiety. Can you imagine how they would react to being without it for the time it took to get it back once it was considered Police Evidence? Heck I don't live on my phone, I use it maybe a couple of times a week, I don't have anything embarrassing on it, and I still wouldn't give it to the police as evidence because it's my phone and I might have need for it at some point before they return it. For someone that is on their phone nearly 24/7, that would be a huge concern.

I wouldn't voluntarily give my phone to the police for any reason. I can totally understand why he would not want to give up his, even if he knows that there's nothing on the phone that the police could use against him for any reason. He's really in a tough position because it looks like he's not cooperating when he's merely doing what's prudent.

Phone or no phone, there are too many other holes in this story for me to believe that it's true. Not turning over his phone is not something that I consider evidence of anything.
 
Because the claim to which I was responding was that he was too”traumatized” to remember to take off the rope.

Who asked for the cameras to be turned off, him or his friend that owned the apartment and likely answered the door?
 
Can you point me to any successful people in the public eye who have faked something of this nature? Someone with the same balance of what's to be gained against what's to be lost as this actor?

Has anybody said Morton Downy Jr. yet? I don't know how comparable Mort is to this guy as far as celebrity status. But back in the day, he was one of most obnoxious and successful trash television talk show hosts. He claimed he was attacked in a bathroom at SFO by neo-Nazis who roughed him up and drew a swastika on his chest. Unfortunately the arms of the swastika pointed to the left--a mistake no self-respecting neo-Nazi would make but somebody drawing a swastika on his chest while looking in a mirror might.

So, yes it does happen.
 
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