Rescued by cellphone pings
A teen who was allegedly sexually assaulted by a ride-share driver was tracked down by police with the help of some advanced cell tower technology OPINION
Ping. Ping. Ping.
The lifeline between the teen and police was silently bouncing between cell towers and her quickly-dying phone.
As the white Honda Civic barrelled down the QEW — first toward Niagara, then back toward Toronto — the teen knew police were tracking the phone she was texting from, trying to find her.
But pings generated by text messages can only get police to within a 400-metre radius, she would later learn. And when the texts are sent from a fast-moving car, that radius shifts location faster than the technology can recalculate.
A needle in a haystack.
It was just before noon on May 6, a Sunday, and the 18-year-old had used her Lyft app to request a drive from her boyfriend’s Burlington home to her place in Hamilton.
She had used the ride-sharing service before, choosing it over Uber because it is cheaper.
Lyft sent her a photo of the driver who would be picking her up and named him.
Lyft got them and dropped her boyfriend off at work. The teen, riding shotgun, expected to be home within minutes.
That was not how things went, it’s alleged.
She says the driver kissed her hand first. Then, she says, he told her she was beautiful and that he likes young people. She says he asked to hold her hand and then touched her breast and crotch.
He also, she says, “ended” the ride on the app, making it seem as though he dropped her off and she was no longer in his car.
He refused to pull over, she says.
She was terrified.
The teen — who cannot be named because of a publication ban — surreptitiously texted her mom and told her what was happening.
“I’m scared,” she messaged. Her mom called Hamilton police — one of four police services that would become involved that afternoon — and an officer arrived at her house.
The officer commandeered the mom’s phone and began texting the teen, asking her to report what roads she was passing. She tried.
Meanwhile, Niagara Regional Police was tracing pings between the teen’s phone and cell towers along the Toronto-Niagara corridor. But that trace wasn’t specific enough to pinpoint the Lyft’s location.
The teen says she was afraid the driver would take her phone away — or worse — if he caught her using it. So she was very cautious, sneaking in texts to her mom’s phone when she could.
Then she got a text sent by the Hamilton officer, telling her she needed to call 911 so they could narrow down her location. A 911 call could bring them to within Four police services helped track a Lyft driver in a white Honda Civic.
six metres.
Police use of cellphone pings has skyrocketed in the last decade. It has become an evidence staple at virtually every homicide trial, with experts tracking the movement of key phones from place to place with the help of hundreds and often thousands of digital records.
The teen dialed and put the phone on mute. She didn’t say a word, but the police communications centre had been alerted that if someone dialed 911 and didn’t speak — it was likely the teen.
She called a few times. Time was ticking. Her battery life was now down to single digits.
Const. Rob Conant of the OPP’s Burlington detachment was listening to the multi-agency operation on his police radio.
He realized, when the radius became smaller, that he was close by.
He pulled his cruiser over on the side of the Toronto-bound QEW at Casablanca, got out, and began eyeballing the stream of traffic for a white Honda Civic. He didn’t have a plate number to look for.
“There were a lot of white Honda Civics,” Conant says. “He’s a ghost.”
Another one entered his field of vision. This time, an arm thrust out the passenger window. “It gave a little wave at me.” “What’s the chance that someone in a white Honda Civic would just happen to do that?” he thought.
He pulled the car over and approached the driver’s window. He made eye contact with the teen in the passenger seat.
“She looked at me and we both gave this little nod,” he says.
A moment later, a Lyft driver was under arrest.
Halton Regional Police Service have charged Majid Kayali, 63, of Toronto with sexual assault.
He is to appear in Milton court on
‘‘ What’s the chance that someone in a white Honda Civic would just happen to do that? CONST. ROB CONANT
Burlington OPP
May 30.
Conant took the teen to his detachment, where she was interviewed and reunited with her mom.
The teen is very grateful to Conant, who has a teen daughter of his own.
“At the end,” she says, “before I left the station, I gave him a big hug.”