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> Police identified Haspil through “anti-felon identification cards that were spewed like confetti in Saleh’s apartment,” NBC New York reported.

Can someone explain what this is? I assumed the guy would quickly be suspect #1 once they combed through Saleh's computer and found discussions about the stolen money. What's this "anti-felon identification cards" reference about?



Looks like its a deterrent to someone using a Taser in a "bad" way:

> So in 1993 the AFID system was created. Now, when many Taser guns are fired, they disperse dozens of colourful anti-felon identification (AFID) tags, which resemble confetti and are printed with tiny serial numbers. It would be very time-consuming to pick all the tags up and so inevitably the police are able to find some and trace the (TASER) gun that was used.

https://www.mentalfloss.com/uk/law/31712/why-is-there-confet...


When you fire a tazer, along with the wires a bunch of confetti sprays out as well. The confetti has id numbers on it that can be traced back to who purchased it.


https://www.mentalfloss.com/uk/law/31712/why-is-there-confet...

It turns out Tasers spew many little tags with unique identifiers on them when fired.


What happens if you use someone else’s taser and make them a suspect in a murder case?


Then the investigation gets more complicated.


The same thing that happens if you use someone else's car as a getaway vehicle during a bank robbery.


I think this is the major point but it's side-tracked from the writer.

Here is an interesting tidbit:

> In order to track the weapon’s use, the cartridges containing the projectile darts are given serial numbers. When fired, the projectiles are accompanied by 20 to 30 vibrantly colored circular paper tags, a little smaller than one-quarter inch in diameter. The tag is known as an AFID with each AFID bearing a serial number printed on it corresponding to the serial number of the cartridge from which it was fired. Despite the bright colors of the AFIDs, their size makes them very difficult to detect. This presentation demonstrates a method for locating the released AFIDs using an alternate light source.

tl;dr: Tasers' use is traceable and identifiable. The assistant probably didn't know that.


Maybe that explains the portable vacuum. Seems like it wasn't fully effective.


Well he was also interrupted while cleaning up.


This was new to me as well. The slow motion video at the bottom of this Mental Floss article helped me visualize what they were discussing.

https://www.mentalfloss.com/uk/law/31712/why-is-there-confet...




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