I don't see what your friend did as an act of smartness. If he was smart, he would have known that carrying his hardware wallet around was a big risk, especially since he had no urgent need to transact. That was his first mistake, and if anything had happened to his coins, he should hold himself responsible.
Although he may have done the right thing by moving his funds quickly after suspecting that his wallet had been compromised, this would not have happened if he had not been carrying the device around.
It didn't end there. He quickly downloaded another hot wallet in a panic just so he could transfer his bitcoins out immediately. That was not a wise decision. As a Bitcoiner, you should avoid anything that puts you under pressure. Simple security and safety checks that are ignored can pose a greater risk than the one he was trying to escape from with the cops.
That's true, storing in a hardware wallet should mean that he's holding for long-term not just the 4 years cycle but something beyond that like 10 years or more so there's no point carrying a hardware wallet when he's going to visit a relative in same city if am not mistaken, that's the first mistake he made.
Secondly, he was able to unlock it for the authorities, which means there's a possibility that he saved it online or somewhere in his phone, that's another error if he saved it online. Let's say he was smart enough to take note of the camera and wonder if they had copied his seed phrase with it, he shouldn't have transferred it to Trustwallet but Electrum.
