The Watchdog with David Bozell

I went to Houston this week to raise money for the Media Research Center.

Monday evening, I left my hotel room at the Hilton near the Galleria at exactly 5:55 p.m. for a donor dinner right down the road. I was gone about two hours.

When I returned around 8:00 p.m., my iPad and charger were gone.

I did what every modern crime victim does: I pulled out my iPhone and opened Apple’s “Find My” app.

For the uninitiated, “Find My” lets you track Apple devices tied to your account. If a missing device is online, the app can show its location on a map. If it is offline, nearby Apple devices can still help relay an approximate location. Once you get close enough, your phone can tell you the device is nearby.

I have to admit, the technology is pretty good.

MRC spends plenty of time monitoring and exposing the bias on Apple News. I stand by every word of it.

Credit where it’s due, though: Apple News may drive me crazy, but “Find My” helped save the day.

My iPad was showing up about a mile and a half away at the Drury Hotel.

Well, terrific.

I went downstairs and told hotel security somebody had been in my room and stolen my iPad. The nighttime security officer told me there was no security footage from my floor and suggested nobody else should have been able to get into the room anyway.

Meanwhile, my supposedly impossible-to-steal iPad was cheerfully announcing its location from another hotel.

So I called Brandon, one of MRC’s fundraisers extraordinaire.

“We’re going to the Drury,” I told him. “We’re getting my iPad.”

Apparently executive leadership now includes amateur fugitive recovery.

By roughly 9:30 that night, Brandon and I were standing outside the Drury. Once we got close enough, “Find My” started telling me the iPad was nearby.

It was there.

We called the police. They were perfectly reasonable about the limits of what they could do. A blinking dot on my phone did not give them probable cause to start kicking down hotel doors or searching every car in the parking lot.

We even tried activating the iPad, hoping it might light up inside a vehicle and give us something more concrete.

No luck.

The officers asked whether there had been any sign of forced entry back at my original hotel room. I hadn’t noticed any. 

So I went back and looked
again.

The answer was suddenly hard to miss.

Someone had crowbarred open my hotel room door.

Tool marks ran along the door and frame. Paint chips were scattered across the carpet.

I went downstairs and informed the nighttime security officer.

Actually, “informed” is generous.

I barked at him.

Someone had crowbarred open a guest-room door, entered my room, and stolen my property.

His response was to suggest that I fill out an incident report.

I demanded, somewhat more loudly, that perhaps he might first want to LOOK AT THE HOTEL ROOM SOMEBODY HAD JUST BROKEN INTO WITH A CROWBAR. 

Apparently the possibility had escaped the evening checklist.

He reconsidered.

We went upstairs. He took pictures. I filled out the report.

And then I checked out.

Call me difficult, but once somebody has demonstrated that a hotel room door can be opened with hardware from aisle seven at Home Depot, I start questioning the value of the deadbolt.

I moved to a Marriott nearby, crawled into bed around 2:30 a.m., and proceeded not to sleep.

At 6:00 Tuesday morning, I checked “Find My” again.

The thief was on the move.

And now things got weird.

My iPad went to Homewood Suites.

Then the Hyatt Place.

So I began calling these hotels around the Galleria.

“Be on the lookout for somebody carrying an iPad in a red case. I think he may be casing hotels.”

Some took me very seriously.

Others, I suspect, filed me under “man yelling about electronics before breakfast.”

The pings continued. The thief was rummaging around the medical corridor nearby.

First Houston Methodist Hospital.

Then Baylor College of Medicine.

Then Texas Children’s Hospital.

Meanwhile, Brandon and I had to begin our supporter meetings.

So there I was, essentially panhandling for the Media Research Center, going from meeting to meeting explaining all the tremendous things our staff is accomplishing and everything we want to do next.

Every few minutes, I glance down at my phone because my stolen iPad has apparently embarked on a grand tour of Houston's medical and hospitality industries.

To the supporters I met with that day: you know who you are, and I owe you a tremendous thank-you.

You were patient, gracious and far more understanding than I had any right to expect while I sat across from you talking about MRC’s future and simultaneously texting hotel security about the latest coordinates of stolen consumer electronics.

You gave me room to deal with the situation, laughed with me about the absurdity of it and kept our conversations focused on the reason we were together in the first place.

I genuinely appreciated it.

Fortunately, the daytime security officer at my original Hilton was a completely different story.

He wanted to catch the guy.

So throughout the morning, I fed him location updates.

The Westin on Main St.

The Marriott on Fannin St. 

Another hotel. 

Another street corner.

Another ping.

Another text.

Then the iPad arrived at yet another Hilton, this time a DoubleTree. The map made it appear our thief had wandered into a more confined area near the hotel.

I sent the location.

My security guy moved.

Then came a text:

Stay by the phone; we’re closing in.

At 1:54 Tuesday afternoon, my phone rang.

“Mr. David, we got your iPad.”

They had my iPad.

They had my charger.

And they had the guy.

I cannot adequately describe the satisfaction of hearing those words after spending the previous 17 hours watching a little electronic dot tour Houston.

One final twist made the whole episode even more ridiculous.

Remember when I was told Monday night the hotel had no useful camera footage?

The hotel had useful camera footage.

The daytime security officer showed me a clear image of the man who had entered my room.

And I recognized him immediately.

I had seen him sitting in the lobby of the Drury the night before, the first hotel I tracked my iPad to.

He was right there.

Brandon and I had been feet away from the guy while my iPad was pinging inside the building.

Had we had the photograph Monday night, the entire ridiculous adventure might have ended before bedtime.

Instead, I got a story.

I also got my iPad back.

And I discovered Hilton employs someone with perhaps the greatest job title in corporate America: Director of Lost Possessions.

I did not know such a position existed.

Frankly, every organization needs one. Half of Washington could use an entire department.

The Director of Lost Possessions and the daytime security officer worked together to recover my property. I am enormously grateful to both of them.

I’m grateful to the Houston police officers, too. They treated me seriously, explained exactly what they could and could not do, and gave me useful guidance on what came next.

And yes, after all of it, Brandon and I kept our meetings.

Because I went to Houston for a reason.

MRC has enormous opportunities ahead of us, and building the organization we want requires getting on airplanes, sitting across from people, telling them what our staff is accomplishing, and asking them to be part of what comes next.

So we kept going.

And I’m glad we did.

The supporters I met with that day reminded me why I was in Houston in the first place. They were gracious, patient and generous with their time while I was conducting a running manhunt between meetings.

I left Houston grateful for them, grateful for the security team that got my iPad back, and grateful that Apple makes at least one product we can praise without footnotes.

As for the thief, he picked the wrong iPad.

MRC people are very good at tracking things down.

Take it easy,David Bozell
President