Doesn't this mean that anybody with the [widely, publicly known] FDNY elevator override key can get right into the apartment? I've seen far too many physical pentesting talks (i.e. any at all) to trust a setup like that for my home in a city.
> One of the law enforcement officials said a surveillance camera had captured video of Mr. Saleh in the building’s elevator with another person who was wearing a black suit and black mask. On the video, the elevator door opens and Mr. Saleh goes into the apartment, the official said. The masked person follows directly behind him, and the two immediately start to struggle, the official said.
> The worried sister went to the apartment because she hadn’t seen her brother in a day, and arrived only to find his butchered body, cops said.
> The suspect bolted via a staircase as the sister rode the elevator upstairs to visit victim Fahim Saleh, with her impending arrival interrupting the killer’s efforts to scrub the bloody condo clean and dispose of the body, the source said.
> “He was dressed like a ninja, full out, so you can’t even see his face,” the source said. “He clearly knew what he was doing. We think his intent was to get rid of the body parts and go back and clean it up and make it look like nothing happened. He left before he finished the job.”
> The assassin stabbed him repeatedly in the chest to kill him, according to his autopsy results. He used a stun gun to incapacitate Saleh before murdering him, police sources said.
> A police source indicated investigators believed the grisly execution was prompted by a business deal gone lethally bad.
Society wouldn't be very fun or fruitful if we all lived in secure underground bunkers.
Not that penthouse problems will ever be my problems, granted. But let's not be too absurd here.
The main reason a thief wouldn't want to is that is loud and suspicious looking, much more likely to be noticed. People seeing someone they don't know fucking around with smashing a window in town might call the cops, if they seem someone they don't know using a key they assume they were given it by the residents
These buildings also change hands, whether between family members, or just outright sales, more so if a unit in the building is currently for sale, someone could access the building by showing interest, not even with the real estate agent but just telling the doorman you have a viewing. You wouldn’t have to hack the elevator at all and I doubt this perpetrator did. It would take a pretty vigilant doorman to stop this/determine the identity and purpose of all visitors.
Most of the doormen are there to provide additional services to the residents, like having a cab waiting when they are on their way out and other small conveniences, not so much as gate keepers especially since 99.99% of the people entering are no cause for concern.
Most people lost more from the door/door frame damage than they did from the theft.
We used to buy popcorn and snacks from him when the scouts were fundraising. Great opportunity to case places....
Also, other than "high security" locks, it is easier to bump a lock than it is to get a duplicate key. Most people have mid grade entry sets on their house. Anybody can learn to bump those, with some practice, and it only takes about twenty or thirty seconds, particularly on an older, worn, lock.
I taught myself, decades ago, and was surprised how easy it was. My father always said, locks just keep honest people honest.
Not sure that kind of talk is allowed here, HN feels very strongly about how all knowledge can be extrapolated from first principles if you grew up in a nice enough suburb.
Per the article:
> ...found inside a $2 million Lower East Side condo...
It may sound absurd for folks outside of NY (or Bay Area), but $2M barely gets you a 2/2 in Manhattan these days [1].
[1] https://newconstructionmanhattan.com/nyc-apartments-by-price...
$2M USD can buy an older stock 3-bed 2-bath or "classic six"[1] co-op apartment in Manhattan.[2] Anything north of $2M for a 2-bed 2-bath is more likely to be in an expensive neighborhood, an explicitly expensive/luxury building or new (and likely luxury) condo unit building. This last category is pertinent to NYC real-estate because most apartment inventory is co-op compared to condo.[3]
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classic_Six
[2] https://streeteasy.com/3-bedroom-apartments-for-sale/manhatt...
[3] https://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/07/realestate/getting-starte...
Yes, it's very different from the sheltered life of a developed country.
The diversity of human experience is truly staggering.
Nothing happened and the stop was done in a couple minutes, but it reminded me of how different the daily lives of those guards must be from any job I've ever worked.
The purpose of my previous comment is that, depending on how we define "developed" (which is very blurry! Think about the range of wealth within the US or India for example), it's not the case that you need to walk around with body armor everywhere in each country that's not "developed". The parent comment I responded to seemed to imply that "wear body armor and stay in window-less houses" == "life outside of developed countries".
See parent comments/thread for more context. If you see a mistake or if I misunderstood something, please feel free to point it out.
He’s kind of exaggerating, and but not totally. When I said that my family and friends lived in fortresses, it’s along those same lines. While the house is somewhat normal aside from the iron window gates (it was not windowless), the outer structure is not. The outer fence is a large tall concrete wall, with metal gates which are sometimes automatic. The top of the wall is lined with a combination of wire, metal spikes, and broken glass. Every household is fully armed. Some families even have security guards both onsite and as an escort. Some families have a perimeter of fences.
Even with all that, someone who worked for one of our family friends got his face blown off by simply answering the gate. It’s hard not to be paranoid if you ever live in one of those places. After moving to the US decades ago, one of the luxuries I really enjoyed was being able to walk in most places without the need for an armed escort or concealed firearms. Feeling relatively safe in a non-fortified home is also nice. I didn’t realize it was the norm in the developed world outside of movies
Thank you for sharing
The GINI seems to be a somewhat better fit: https://i.imgur.com/vYSsLMw.png
That's true for newer buildings that are purposely built to be luxury apartment buildings. But if you're living in a building that used to be an office building or a factory then it's not necessarily going to have a doorman. This applies to a lot of the old industrial buildings in SoHo, Chelsea, the meatpacking district, Union Square, etc. It's basically impossible to change where the elevator shaft of a building is after it's been built, because it's part of the structural support system of the building, so you can't just move everything around to add a lobby and front desk to the ground floor after the fact.
The building this attack happened in had a total of 7 units.