Saved By The Echo – Amazon Echo!

This is one of those pretty strange stories.

An Albuquerque man is in jail charged with beating and threatening his girlfriend and the prime witness is …. yes … an Amazon Echo.

The suspect, Eduardo Barros, was arrested July 2nd after a standoff with Albuquerque SWAT police officers.

The couple was house sitting for the victim’s parents at the time when the victim received a text.  Barros accused his girlfriend of cheating on him and said he was going to kill her if she called the cops.

He asked her (actually yelled at her) if she had called the Sheriff and – yes – the parents had an Amazon Echo in the house and it interpreted that to be a request for the Echo to call the Sheriff.

When 911 called the victim to verify what was going on, Barros saw the 911 caller ID, threw the victim to the ground and started kicking her.

The 911 operator overheard the screaming between the two and notified SWAT, who responded to the location, eventually arresting the suspect.

A court spokesperson said that Barros is facing 14 charges including false imprisonment and possession of a firearm by a convicted felon.  He is being held without bond.

It is certainly reasonable that the victim would have been much more seriously hurt had her parents not had an Amazon Echo in the house.

We have seen a number of cases recently where Internet of Things devices from Amazon Echos to smart water heaters played a prominent role in apprehending criminals.

Information for this post came from Fox 6 News.

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