FILE — An Apple iPhone (Steve Helber, Associated Press)
A stolen iPhone helped lead Denver police officers to the people they said snatched it off the street during a robbery late Monday in Montbello.
A man told police he was walking on Peoria Street about 10 p.m. when a van drove by, and at least one of its seven passengers demanded his valuables. He dropped his iPhone as he ran, but one of the thieves quickly grabbed it off the ground, police said.
The phone had the “Find my iPhone” application that allowed the victim to see exactly where it was by using a laptop computer. That led officers to a Burger King on Peoria Street; they spotted the van near East 55th Avenue and Troy Street and tried to stop it, police said.
The people inside the van took off, but officers were able to quickly catch five of them — three men and two women, all juveniles, department spokesman Sonny Jackson said. Two others remain at large. The van had been reported stolen, he said.
“By locating the phone, we were able to locate them,” Jackson said. “It was good policework, too.”
Denver, like other major cities, has seen a vexing number of iPhone robberies, often known as “Apple picking.” The department attributed a 12.7 percent increase in violent crime — and a 23 percent jump in robberies — in 2011, in part, to a surge in iPhone robberies.
The department says robberies are down 18 percent — from 1,038 between January and September of 2012 to 848 during the same time period this year. But the department could not immediately say how many of those were street robberies or iPhone stick-ups.
Jackson said people should be vigilant when using their phones in public.
Sadie Gurman: 303-954-1661, sgurman@denverpost.com or twitter.com/sgurman
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