Thief "pocket-dials" 911 during crime, gets caught with fellow crooks, say upstate NY cops

(CBS/AP) CLAY, N.Y. - There are so many new ways for crooks to get caught nowadays, it sometimes seems amazing they ever get away with anything.

Consider the case of the three larceny suspects overheard planning break-ins in upstate New York, when one of them accidentally "pocket-dialed" 911 during the plotting phase.

Definitely a wrong number.

Onondaga County Sheriff Kevin Walsh says police who were already looking for a suspicious person got the unlikely assist, when one of the plotters "pocket dialed" his cellphone's emergency number while driving near the scene of an earlier heist.

As the 911 dispatcher relayed the conversation to deputies, the men discussed their plans, described their surroundings and even commented, "there go the cops now."

Walsh says that was enough for a deputy to turn around and stop the Kia Sportage full of tools and stolen from a business in the Syracuse suburb of Clay. The dispatcher then heard the driver being asked for his license and registration.

The men, who were arrested April 26, face grand larceny and stolen property charges.