The theft of a cell phone June 14 from an 18-year-old Darien man volunteering at St. Luke’s Church tag sale shows the limits of the “Find My Phone” feature for these phones when they’re stolen.
Darien police gave this account of what happened:
The volunteer thought the phone may have fallen out of his pocket at 2:50 p.m. when he was sitting on a couch at the event. He noticed the phone missing at 3:30 p.m.
He used the “Find My Phone” app, which indicated the device was then at Goodwill in Norwalk. He drove there, but by the time he got to the store, the phone’s location changed. He notified Norwalk police, who told him he needed to notify police in Darien, where the theft took place. He reported the incident at 4:45 p.m.
The phone was later at Walmart on Connecticut Avenue (Route 1) in Norwalk, then near Virgil Street in the West Side section of Stamford. The owner turned on the “lost mode” for the phone, preventing it from being used.
Police said Virgil Street in Stamford has many homes, parking lots and businesses on it, and police said it was too difficult to find just where on the street the phone was located.
The owner posted a message on the phone asking anyone who had it to please return it to Person-to-Person at St. Luke’s and no questions would be asked.