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When police seek a suspect by tracking his or her cellphone signal, ordinary citizens who also have cellphones nearby are often caught in the surveillance web. The (Tacoma) News Tribune spent four months investigating the Tacoma Police Department's use of this highly technical and secretive device — a decoy cell tower commonly known as a Stingray. After the newspaper confronted the department, Tacoma police became the first in the state to admit they had the device. The News Tribune spent thousands of dollars to unseal court documents that proved police hadn't been telling judges — who sign off on orders to find suspects by tracking their cellphones — that the police use cell site simulators to find their quarry.