Do police even try to solve property crimes?

[MrBottomTooth]

Gotta love the police. Forgive me, I need to rant to get my blood pressure down.

Got robbed a few weeks back. Got some still frames of him from a security camera, which was nice, although not the best quality. The actual full motion video was stolen along with 3 of my computers.

One day later, one of the thief's friends (we did not know he was a friend at the time) comes around my friend's place of business and starts asking weird questions and seems to know details about the crime before even being told. He was fishing to see if we already knew who did it. He was also curious to see if we still had the keys to the ATV that was stolen. (I am guessing they are too dumb to hot wire it, so are maybe looking to steal the keys too.)

We start passing out the pictures we have and end up with a few people that identify this thief, including one of his former friends. The police did nothing with the pictures, I had to place my own ad in the local paper offering a cash reward for information.

So now we take all our info to the police, giving them the guy's name, address, photos from facebook, even his driver's license number from another person at the license office who identified him, tell them how his best friend obviously knew about the crime and had info about it that he shouldn't have known, and then we sit back and wait for the police to do something. Nothing happens. They haven't questioned anyone.

These kids are dumb as rocks, I have no doubt they would have cracked if they questioned them.

So now what? Take the law into our own hands? I have been driving around with a 3 wood in my truck for the past week, hoping to run into this guy in a private area.

The sad part is that this thieving bastard's sister-in-law is an employee in my family's business. Can't even fire her to get revenge, since we are unionized.

And it's not that the police have better things to do. We are a small town community where there are no serious crimes. They just hand out speeding tickets, seatbelt fines and DUI's.

Should also note we called crimestoppers and after telling them we had info which would solve a theft, we were put on hold until we finally hung up 30 minutes later.

(CLIFF NOTES: I got robbed, we have decent evidence of who did it, police refuse to do anything)

[alias]

Molotov.

[MrBottomTooth]

Originally Posted by alias

Molotov.

I was thinking of carving "THIEF" into the sides of his truck to at least out him in the public.

[alias]

Just don't get caught, don't want to add insult to injury.

[MrBottomTooth]

Originally Posted by alias

Just don't get caught, don't want to add insult to injury.

Yes, that would be a slap in the face.

Should also note that after the police showed up when I called in the robbery, they happened to notice a pellet handgun in my closet. For some reason he thought it was a paintball gun, but then asked if I had any other firearms, and asked if any were stolen.

I said yes I have some, but they are all in the safe downstairs. He spotted the butt end of a shotgun in the bottom of the closet, and got a mean look on his face and said, "Well, what the hell is that?" I slid it out and showed him it was just a butt that I had taken off one of my other guns to replace with a pistol grip.

So basically, he had a hard-on for charging me with unsafe storage of firearms. He didn't care about me just being robbed, he just wanted to fuck with me because it wouldn't have taken any hard work.

[sortie]

Originally Posted by MrBottomTooth

Gotta love the police. Forgive me, I need to rant to get my blood pressure down....

Is the guy in the still photos actually committing the crime in the photos?

Maybe they want more physical evidence like seeing the guy with the
stolen property.

[ajrocks]

They sure do, if someone steals from them. Anyone else gets no help at all. Cops suck ass!

[u-Bob]

Pay him a visit with a couple of friends, take back YOUR property.

[u-Bob]

Originally Posted by ajrocks

Cops suck ass!

If they can't fine it or taze it, they're not interested....

[MrBottomTooth]

Originally Posted by sortie

Is the guy in the still photos actually committing the crime in the photos?

Maybe they want more physical evidence like seeing the guy with the
stolen property.

There are snapshots showing him putting on gloves in my garage. He had one on when he entered, then put the second glove on after he entered.

Then they show him wheeling the 4 wheeler outside and closing the garage door.

The trouble is they were taken with a $100 chinese IP camera, and are only 640 X 480. He told my friend that still photos can't be used as evidence as they can be photoshopped. I was stupid enough not to secure the device recording the video, which I have already corrected, so that is my fault.

Sounds like if you don't get fingerprints then they just write the whole case off. Once they seen the photos of him with the gloves on, I think they just gave up.

[Sly]

If it's a small community, I would write a letter to the editor of your local newspaper. Complained up the chain until somebody listens. Your police chief may have been elected.

[MrBottomTooth]

Originally Posted by Sly

If it's a small community, I would write a letter to the editor of your local newspaper. Complained up the chain until somebody listens. Your police chief may have been elected.

I don't think our police departments work that way (Canada), I will have to check and see. But we are not done yet.

We are going to talk to the police again this week to see if anything has been done at all. If they are not interested in assisting further then we will start a life-long campaign of never-ending revenge.

[Ethersync]

Originally Posted by MrBottomTooth

Gotta love the police. Forgive me, I need to rant to get my blood pressure down.

Got robbed a few weeks back. Got some still frames of him from a security camera, which was nice, although not the best quality. The actual full motion video was stolen along with 3 of my computers.

One day later, one of the thief's friends (we did not know he was a friend at the time) comes around my friend's place of business and starts asking weird questions and seems to know details about the crime before even being told. He was fishing to see if we already knew who did it. He was also curious to see if we still had the keys to the ATV that was stolen. (I am guessing they are too dumb to hot wire it, so are maybe looking to steal the keys too.)

We start passing out the pictures we have and end up with a few people that identify this thief, including one of his former friends. The police did nothing with the pictures, I had to place my own ad in the local paper offering a cash reward for information.

So now we take all our info to the police, giving them the guy's name, address, photos from facebook, even his driver's license number from another person at the license office who identified him, tell them how his best friend obviously knew about the crime and had info about it that he shouldn't have known, and then we sit back and wait for the police to do something. Nothing happens. They haven't questioned anyone.

These kids are dumb as rocks, I have no doubt they would have cracked if they questioned them.

So now what? Take the law into our own hands? I have been driving around with a 3 wood in my truck for the past week, hoping to run into this guy in a private area.

The sad part is that this thieving bastard's sister-in-law is an employee in my family's business. Can't even fire her to get revenge, since we are unionized.

And it's not that the police have better things to do. We are a small town community where there are no serious crimes. They just hand out speeding tickets, seatbelt fines and DUI's.

Should also note we called crimestoppers and after telling them we had info which would solve a theft, we were put on hold until we finally hung up 30 minutes later.

(CLIFF NOTES: I got robbed, we have decent evidence of who did it, police refuse to do anything)

Know anyone at your local TV news station or newspaper?

[BlackCrayon]

Originally Posted by Ethersync

Know anyone at your local TV news station or newspaper?

this is a good idea. the media will eat it up that the police do nothing even after loads of evidence is presented to them. disgusting really.

if this was me in small town ontario, i would just get some friends together and fuck his shit up like hes never seen before (ie set his car on fire, tie him up and scar him or something similar). problem is it could result in a back and forth shitfest and if anyone you really considered a friend was involved in the theft that could cause troubles as who do you trust?

[2012]

they got bigger fish to fry

[PR_Glen]

not enough evidence and they know the charges wont stick based on that... If you had illegal fire arms that is a more serious crime than robbery you should know that already ;)

3 wood is no good, get a cheap aluminum bat, way more secure and versatile. Ad in craigs list looking for something specific they took will flush them out fast.

[Zyber]

Contact the FBI and have them investigate the corrupt local police officers.

[MrMaxwell]

I hope that the guy who robbed your home gets raped.
Literally raped in the asshole and mouth.
Good luck to you.

[Tom_PM]

Work the sister-in-law. Maybe she hates the guy.

[MrBottomTooth]

Originally Posted by 2012

they got bigger fish to fry

No, they really don't around here. There might be a few pot heads with some marijuana drying in their barns, but other than that, nothing really happens around here except for thefts.

[MrBottomTooth]

Originally Posted by PR_Glen

not enough evidence and they know the charges wont stick based on that... If you had illegal fire arms that is a more serious crime than robbery you should know that already ;)

3 wood is no good, get a cheap aluminum bat, way more secure and versatile. Ad in craigs list looking for something specific they took will flush them out fast.

Not enough evidence to stick right now, but why not ask them to come in for questioning? I have no doubt they could make his dumb friend talk.

I put his picture on kijiji with a list of items he stole. Will make sure I keep reposting it. Kijiji seems to be most popular around here.

I also have logmein installed on the computers, so if they try to connect them to the internet without wiping the hard drives I can get their IP address. I told this to the police and they just looked at me like I was speaking Chinese.

[docputer]

Years ago in Orlando, there was a similar situation. In this case, the thieves backed a uhaul up to the house when we were away and took about anything of value. They were in the house about 2 hours.

As they were finishing up, a neighbor happened to notice them, and he hollared and asked them what they were up to. He noticed one of them was a guy that was there installing a security system a couple weeks prior.

They drove off, and he followed them to a warehouse where they pulled the truck inside. When I got home, we discovered the burglary, and called the cops. The neighbor came over and told us what happened, and who he saw. The cop noted it in the report.
Then the neighbor asked the cop if he wanted to come with him to that warehouse. The cop said no, just tell the detectives and gave us a number for the detective assigned.

A couple days passed, and we kept getting a vacation message on the detectives phone. Finally he answered, and we related what the neighbor saw, and where he followed the truck. The detective asked, "what do you want me to do? get the guys from Law and Order to check it out? Maybe send the guys from CSI over?" He said he would mail us the report to give to our insurance and unless they happened to trip over our belongings on another crime scene then we would probably not hear from him again. I tried calling for a supervisor and got nowhere.

We started to try things ourselves. We contacted Uhaul with the truck #. They told us it was out on rental to the guy that installed our alarm, but that he had called them and reported that the truck was stolen. We drove to the storage warehouse where they had put the truck, and we could see it still inside. We contacted Uhaul again, and they called the police and reported they found the truck. A patrol unit showed up, called the landlord of the warehouse company. He let the U-Haul guy in to get his truck. When we looked in the back, it was empty except for a picture with a broken frame that looked like it had gotten stepped on. I told the cop that it came from my house. Again, he was unimpressed, and told us to wait for the detective to call us.
Doing a bit of checking around, we got the alarm guy's home address. Driving by, I noticed my lawnmower setting in his carport.
I called the cops, and they came out after a couple hours. The guys wife answered the door,and she insisted the mower was her husbands. The cop asked me if I had a proof of purchase with SN. I didn't. He said he couldn't do a thing since there was no proof.

The alarm guy called my house that night and threatened to sue me if I ever showed up at his house again. I kept calling the detective, and he told me to quit calling him. That they don't focus on property crime, and to get my insurance claim done, and get on with life.
I was fuming, and wondering what the hell I could do. Karma intervened before I could, as this guy and his brother in law were caught robbing a home that they thought was empty. The alarm guy's brother in law was shot, and they could not escape because the closest door was blocked with a Uhaul. Never recovered anything of value except a couple items the cops found in the guy's work van.

[MrBottomTooth]

Originally Posted by PR_Glen

If you had illegal fire arms that is a more serious crime than robbery you should know that already ;)

I am fully licensed and all my guns are registered, he should have known this beforehand if they were actually using the stupid billion dollar gun registry like they said they did before the last vote.

It wasn't a matter of illegal guns, he wanted to charge me if I had them stored improperly.

[brassmonkey]

property crimes are hard to prove. unless you put some kind of tracking or markings on the items.

[MrBottomTooth]

Originally Posted by docputer

Karma intervened before I could, as this guy and his brother in law were caught robbing a home that they thought was empty. The alarm guy's brother in law was shot,

At least there was a happy ending.

Also reminds me of a story around here. A guy caught Indians from the rez robbing his variety store / gas station.

He shot their tires out as they drove away, and he was charged for it. He was facing prison time, but luckily the indians never showed up as witnesses for the trial, so the case was dismissed.

We are not allowed to shoot people that rob us around here, even if they break into our homes in the middle of the night and we fear for our safety.

[BestXXXPorn]

No, no they don't. I have another great example...

I had just bought a new paid of sunglasses they were like $280 (price is relevant). I went to the bank to make a deposit with my business partner and he wanted to see the sunglasses so I handed them over and started filling out the deposit slip at the counter. My business partner then set the sunglasses down next to me without saying anything. At the time I didn't realize the guy next to me swiped them.

After depositing the checks I asked for my sunglasses back at which time my business partner produced nothing and said he set them down next to me. There was only one other person in the position to steal them so I asked the teller who that person was. They can't divulge any info about a client so I asked if they could review the tapes. Tapes are kept offsite with no local replay ability. I asked what could be done, they said call the cops, so I did.

Cops arrive and tell me they can't do anything about it because they would need a warrant to subpoena the tapes and since the glasses were less than $300... they couldn't do anything... Here I am telling the cops. How EASY can your job get? There are LEAST 20 cameras in this bank and he's on every one of them. The teller even held the guys check he cashed (paycheck) to the side and the cops wouldn't do anything. ABSOLUTELY fucking nothing. Wouldn't even question the teller.

So I told the copy, "Look, you don't need a subpoena to do police work. That's court work. Let me show you how it's done."

I walked over to the teller and asked a series of questions about what she could and couldn't do. Until finally landing on one she could do. She could call the guys workplace as he had cashed a work check and it was a local smaller company. She called and after 5 min on the phone she told me, "the owner of the company answered and said his employee came back with a brand new pair of sunglasses from lunch... they would be returned that day or he would lose his job."

The cops were still standing there watching me to make sure I left the bank without problems so as I walked past I said, "and that's how you do police work... thank you so much for your assistance. I'm glad to see my tax dollars are hard at work."

[alias]

Originally Posted by BestXXXPorn

No, no they don't. I have another great example...

[moeloubani]

Happened to me before, just send an email to the cop with a CC going out to the local media, the head of the police, the head of police's assistant, and the public relations person at the station, mayor of the city, the state police and governor. You'll have your problem taken care in no time ;)

I had to do it this summer a year ago some cop caught me and a bud with some weed in a car, he decided he would be cool and take my laptop. After the charges were withdrawn I kept calling and calling and kept getting the run around as to where my stuff was. 1 email cc'd to all the right people (and you have to mention the cc in the message) got me a letter from the police chief's assistant saying that the email was passed off to the right person and within an hour I had someone emailing me telling me where I could go pick up my stuff.

Make sure you mention that this was a crime against you, that you are fearing for your safety and let them know that if it ever happens again it will be because they didn't follow up on it and administer justice and they wouldn't allow you to administer justice and they will be held 100% responsible. If you want to take it the extra step CC to your lawyer too!

[DaddyHalbucks]

In some cities, no.

Urban decay, budget deficits, and shrinking manpower mean that only violent crimes get attention in some cities. Alot of this "hope and change" started long before Obama. For example, the unions were a major factor in destroying the automakers, killing jobs, and laying waste to Detroit. Without jobs, the local economy crumbles.

Here's another headline from the news:

Monday, February 16, 2009
California to free 55,000 inmates because of budget woes

California, suffering from a major budget deficit, may be forced to release a third of their prison population by 2012.

http://westernstandard.blogs.com/sho...dget-woes.html

[baddog]

Originally Posted by MrBottomTooth

The sad part is that this thieving bastard's sister-in-law is an employee in my family's business. Can't even fire her to get revenge, since we are unionized.

You can't fire her for revenge, but if she is a crappy worker you can most certainly build a case to make a justifiable termination. Even if she isn't, if you are creative enough you should be able to.

Originally Posted by Sly

If it's a small community, I would write a letter to the editor of your local newspaper. Complained up the chain until somebody listens.

MBT: Did you mark your property? Write down serial numbers, stuff like that? Possession of stolen property is hard to Photoshop

[Ron Bennett]

Firstly, the stolen security footage would have greatly helped. Next time, consider automatic real-time / batched uploading of the footage to a remote server...

But this is not full-proof, since the thieves could cut the network connection and/or the power - a UPS may keep your computers running, but likely won't keep your connection going unless it's on a UPS too, which adds costs. And that assumes the thieves don't cut the network connection, which may then necessitate having a backup network connection too...

So many variables doing automated security footage upload - though another option is having two separate security systems that appear as being one in the same ... in such a setup, it's likely the thieves will steal some of the footage, but thinking they have it all, inadvertently leave some footage behind. The costs of doing security effectively rapidly gets expensive ... for many, it's easier / cheaper to do the basics and have good insurance just in case.

Even if the police did arrest the suspects and, assuming, they were convicted, most likely they'd get little to no prison time.

Prevention (locked doors & secure windows) / deterrence (dog / firearm) / insurance (ideally, replacement value coverage) is the answer to dealing with property crimes - don't count on the police. Not saying the police can't help, but often even if they do, the thieves will like get little to no prison time anyways.

Even big business, while they'll often get better police response, at the end of the day, will usually just seek recovery through their insurance carrier and move on.

Ron

[_Richard_]

Originally Posted by MrBottomTooth

Gotta love the police. Forgive me, I need to rant to get my blood pressure down.

Got robbed a few weeks back. Got some still frames of him from a security camera, which was nice, although not the best quality. The actual full motion video was stolen along with 3 of my computers.

One day later, one of the thief's friends (we did not know he was a friend at the time) comes around my friend's place of business and starts asking weird questions and seems to know details about the crime before even being told. He was fishing to see if we already knew who did it. He was also curious to see if we still had the keys to the ATV that was stolen. (I am guessing they are too dumb to hot wire it, so are maybe looking to steal the keys too.)

We start passing out the pictures we have and end up with a few people that identify this thief, including one of his former friends. The police did nothing with the pictures, I had to place my own ad in the local paper offering a cash reward for information.

So now we take all our info to the police, giving them the guy's name, address, photos from facebook, even his driver's license number from another person at the license office who identified him, tell them how his best friend obviously knew about the crime and had info about it that he shouldn't have known, and then we sit back and wait for the police to do something. Nothing happens. They haven't questioned anyone.

These kids are dumb as rocks, I have no doubt they would have cracked if they questioned them.

So now what? Take the law into our own hands? I have been driving around with a 3 wood in my truck for the past week, hoping to run into this guy in a private area.

The sad part is that this thieving bastard's sister-in-law is an employee in my family's business. Can't even fire her to get revenge, since we are unionized.

And it's not that the police have better things to do. We are a small town community where there are no serious crimes. They just hand out speeding tickets, seatbelt fines and DUI's.

Should also note we called crimestoppers and after telling them we had info which would solve a theft, we were put on hold until we finally hung up 30 minutes later.

(CLIFF NOTES: I got robbed, we have decent evidence of who did it, police refuse to do anything)

you guys have anything like a town meeting etc? i'd bring it up there and start asking questions like 'what do we need to do, take matters into our own hands?'

that'll get their attention

[The Heron]

Steal your shit back, just make sure to wear gloves!

[Rochard]

We have a false impression on how police work really works. It's not all CSI and stuff. It's always funny watching these shows because they always show these totally cool police stations. I got news for you, no one has a police station like that.

Police move really slow. It's not like it is on TV. They know who the guy is and they know he did it, but proving it is another matter. For all you know they have a team of people assigned to watch him, tracking his every move until he does it again....

I have an alarm system and a large dog. If I ever get robbed, I have insurance.

[SpongeBub]

Originally Posted by u-Bob

Pay him a visit with a couple of friends, take back YOUR property.

That's the same advice that someone gave OJ and look at him now.

[MrMaxwell]

Originally Posted by docputer

Years ago in Orlando, there was a similar situation. In this case, the thieves backed a uhaul up to the house when we were away and took about anything of value. They were in the house about 2 hours.

As they were finishing up, a neighbor happened to notice them, and he hollared and asked them what they were up to. He noticed one of them was a guy that was there installing a security system a couple weeks prior.

They drove off, and he followed them to a warehouse where they pulled the truck inside. When I got home, we discovered the burglary, and called the cops. The neighbor came over and told us what happened, and who he saw. The cop noted it in the report.
Then the neighbor asked the cop if he wanted to come with him to that warehouse. The cop said no, just tell the detectives and gave us a number for the detective assigned.

A couple days passed, and we kept getting a vacation message on the detectives phone. Finally he answered, and we related what the neighbor saw, and where he followed the truck. The detective asked, "what do you want me to do? get the guys from Law and Order to check it out? Maybe send the guys from CSI over?" He said he would mail us the report to give to our insurance and unless they happened to trip over our belongings on another crime scene then we would probably not hear from him again. I tried calling for a supervisor and got nowhere.

We started to try things ourselves. We contacted Uhaul with the truck #. They told us it was out on rental to the guy that installed our alarm, but that he had called them and reported that the truck was stolen. We drove to the storage warehouse where they had put the truck, and we could see it still inside. We contacted Uhaul again, and they called the police and reported they found the truck. A patrol unit showed up, called the landlord of the warehouse company. He let the U-Haul guy in to get his truck. When we looked in the back, it was empty except for a picture with a broken frame that looked like it had gotten stepped on. I told the cop that it came from my house. Again, he was unimpressed, and told us to wait for the detective to call us.
Doing a bit of checking around, we got the alarm guy's home address. Driving by, I noticed my lawnmower setting in his carport.
I called the cops, and they came out after a couple hours. The guys wife answered the door,and she insisted the mower was her husbands. The cop asked me if I had a proof of purchase with SN. I didn't. He said he couldn't do a thing since there was no proof.

The alarm guy called my house that night and threatened to sue me if I ever showed up at his house again. I kept calling the detective, and he told me to quit calling him. That they don't focus on property crime, and to get my insurance claim done, and get on with life.
I was fuming, and wondering what the hell I could do. Karma intervened before I could, as this guy and his brother in law were caught robbing a home that they thought was empty. The alarm guy's brother in law was shot, and they could not escape because the closest door was blocked with a Uhaul. Never recovered anything of value except a couple items the cops found in the guy's work van.

Ha Ha Ha
Let's just see me catch some fuck hole who robbed my house, and then let's seem him threaten ME.... I'd **** his whole family and then myself because I'm fucking sick. Bet he wouldn't rob anyones house, again

I am glad that one of them was shot while robbing a house. Hope it took his leg off.

[MrMaxwell]

Originally Posted by MrBottomTooth

At least there was a happy ending.

Also reminds me of a story around here. A guy caught Indians from the rez robbing his variety store / gas station.

He shot their tires out as they drove away, and he was charged for it. He was facing prison time, but luckily the indians never showed up as witnesses for the trial, so the case was dismissed.

We are not allowed to shoot people that rob us around here, even if they break into our homes in the middle of the night and we fear for our safety.

Where are you?

[MrBottomTooth]

Originally Posted by MrMaxwell

Where are you?

Ontario, Canada.

[MrMaxwell]

Originally Posted by Ron Bennett

Firstly, the stolen security footage would have greatly helped. Next time, consider automatic real-time / batched uploading of the footage to a remote server...

But this is not full-proof, since the thieves could cut the network connection and/or the power - a UPS may keep your computers running, but likely won't keep your connection going unless it's on a UPS too, which adds costs. And that assumes the thieves don't cut the network connection, which may then necessitate having a backup network connection too...

So many variables doing automated security footage upload - though another option is having two separate security systems that appear as being one in the same ... in such a setup, it's likely the thieves will steal some of the footage, but thinking they have it all, inadvertently leave some footage behind. The costs of doing security effectively rapidly gets expensive ... for many, it's easier / cheaper to do the basics and have good insurance just in case.

Even if the police did arrest the suspects and, assuming, they were convicted, most likely they'd get little to no prison time.

Prevention (locked doors & secure windows) / deterrence (dog / firearm) / insurance (ideally, replacement value coverage) is the answer to dealing with property crimes - don't count on the police. Not saying the police can't help, but often even if they do, the thieves will like get little to no prison time anyways.

Even big business, while they'll often get better police response, at the end of the day, will usually just seek recovery through their insurance carrier and move on.

Ron

I was real cool with this one guy in jail... Until I found out he had robbed a house..... then I got so mad with him I almost killed him. Well he was a good fighter, so I was going to give this guy in my neighborhood some crunch to fuck him up,

But then I remembered well I was cool with him
So I let that slide

But I told the guy, if I ever see you on the outs don't fuckin' talk to me
And I never traded with him again

I hate thieves.

[MrMaxwell]

Originally Posted by MrBottomTooth

Ontario, Canada.

What ever happened in Canada? I heard they had taken all of your guns and then crime skyrocketed and cops were being killed for their sidearms

[MrBottomTooth]

Originally Posted by Ron Bennett

Firstly, the stolen security footage would have greatly helped. Next time, consider automatic real-time / batched uploading of the footage to a remote server...

But this is not full-proof, since the thieves could cut the network connection and/or the power - a UPS may keep your computers running, but likely won't keep your connection going unless it's on a UPS too, which adds costs. And that assumes the thieves don't cut the network connection, which may then necessitate having a backup network connection too...

So many variables doing automated security footage upload - though another option is having two separate security systems that appear as being one in the same ... in such a setup, it's likely the thieves will steal some of the footage, but thinking they have it all, inadvertently leave some footage behind. The costs of doing security effectively rapidly gets expensive ... for many, it's easier / cheaper to do the basics and have good insurance just in case.

Even if the police did arrest the suspects and, assuming, they were convicted, most likely they'd get little to no prison time.

Prevention (locked doors & secure windows) / deterrence (dog / firearm) / insurance (ideally, replacement value coverage) is the answer to dealing with property crimes - don't count on the police. Not saying the police can't help, but often even if they do, the thieves will like get little to no prison time anyways.

Even big business, while they'll often get better police response, at the end of the day, will usually just seek recovery through their insurance carrier and move on.

Ron

Trust me, this has been a wakeup call, and I just hope I can finish all my security upgrades before I get robbed again.

I thought the snapshots from my cameras would be good enough, but all I learned from that is that I need to get better quality cameras, and that police don't consider them good evidence. I had the cameras set to upload the pictures to my server whenever they detected motion. I am going to make the email alerts go to my cellphone as well, which was another huge mistake on my part, since I originally just had them go to a specific email address I had setup that wasn't tied to my cell.

I already have moved my modem and router inside a interior closet that only has a deadbolt on it, not a handle, and I have a UPS in there. The closet was also constructed using plywood, covered in drywall, so it's not like they can just smash their fist through the wall and open up the lock that way. And the door opens outward, so it would be extremely hard for them to kick it in. Also found this little device that will lock the door hinges together if they try to take the door pins out.

Most importantly, I am going through and getting serial numbers off all my stuff as Baddog mentioned. Going to keep it in on my server so it can't be stolen from my house!

[NemesisEnforcer]

Originally Posted by MrBottomTooth

Gotta love the police. Forgive me, I need to rant to get my blood pressure down.
...
(CLIFF NOTES: I got robbed, we have decent evidence of who did it, police refuse to do anything)

That's correct. The job of the police department is to keep the peace. If you got robbed, the best you can do is file a police report then contact your insurance company to recover your loss and/or write it off on your taxes.

If you were in the process of being robbed, they will respond ... usually ... depending on your neighborhood.

[MrBottomTooth]

Originally Posted by MrMaxwell

What ever happened in Canada? I heard they had taken all of your guns and then crime skyrocketed and cops were being killed for their sidearms

No, we still have guns. They just make it such a hassle to own handguns and restricted guns (such as AR15's and other randomly selected "scary-looking" rifles) that no one bothers to own them legally.

You literally have to call the police ahead of time if you plan on going to the gun range with your handgun, to give them the exact schedule of when you are leaving and when you are coming home. And an "approved" gun range is the only place you can legally fire them. If you own 100 acres and have no neighbours, you still aren't allowed to shoot a handgun on your property.

That leaves you with various long guns. These have to be registered when you buy them. Maybe the stink you heard was about the long gun registry, which has cost billions of dollars and has no real purpose. The conservatives were trying to get rid of it, but they lost the vote recently thanks to the NDP and the liberals.

There was also some stink about the criminals in Toronto getting illegal handguns from the US and using them in crimes. Another reason the gun registry is such a farce. Criminals don't register their guns.

[SallyRand]

Originally Posted by MrBottomTooth

Gotta love the police. Forgive me, I need to rant to get my blood pressure down.

Got robbed a few weeks back. Got some still frames of him from a security camera, which was nice, although not the best quality. The actual full motion video was stolen along with 3 of my computers.

One day later, one of the thief's friends (we did not know he was a friend at the time) comes around my friend's place of business and starts asking weird questions and seems to know details about the crime before even being told. He was fishing to see if we already knew who did it. He was also curious to see if we still had the keys to the ATV that was stolen. (I am guessing they are too dumb to hot wire it, so are maybe looking to steal the keys too.)

We start passing out the pictures we have and end up with a few people that identify this thief, including one of his former friends. The police did nothing with the pictures, I had to place my own ad in the local paper offering a cash reward for information.

So now we take all our info to the police, giving them the guy's name, address, photos from facebook, even his driver's license number from another person at the license office who identified him, tell them how his best friend obviously knew about the crime and had info about it that he shouldn't have known, and then we sit back and wait for the police to do something. Nothing happens. They haven't questioned anyone.

These kids are dumb as rocks, I have no doubt they would have cracked if they questioned them.

So now what? Take the law into our own hands? I have been driving around with a 3 wood in my truck for the past week, hoping to run into this guy in a private area.

The sad part is that this thieving bastard's sister-in-law is an employee in my family's business. Can't even fire her to get revenge, since we are unionized.

And it's not that the police have better things to do. We are a small town community where there are no serious crimes. They just hand out speeding tickets, seatbelt fines and DUI's.

Should also note we called crimestoppers and after telling them we had info which would solve a theft, we were put on hold until we finally hung up 30 minutes later.

(CLIFF NOTES: I got robbed, we have decent evidence of who did it, police refuse to do anything)

Alll righty, here is what I would do were I you:

(1) Get a pic of the perp's buddy.

(2) Gather as much info as you can on the pair, pictures, use your security pix, names, addresses, phone numbers, Google maps of their houses, vehicle descriptions, etc.

(3) Buy domains which refer to both of their names; "Johnnyjacksass is a thief dot com, etc. Get the .com, .info, .net and buy like three variations so you have all bases covered and can forward them all to the main domain about them.

(4) Place the domains on a cheap offshore hosting account.

(5) Write up the whole story with all the shit you got on them.

(6) Offer a reward for the return of your shit.

(7) Open Twitter, etc and link to your site.

(8) Place a few ads asking for people to help you recover your property on free ad sites.

(9) Arrange for someone to let the perps know they are being outed on the internet.

(10) Sit back with a mohito and wait for the fallout.

Mallick their asses!