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Death Wish Meets GPS: iPhone Theft Victims Confronting Perps
theodp (442580) writes "Thankfully, no one's gone full-Charles-Bronson yet, but the NY Times reports that victims of smartphone theft are using GPS to take the law into their own hands, paying visits to thieves' homes and demanding the return of their stolen phones. "The emergence of this kind of do-it-yourself justice," writes Ian Lovett, "has stirred worries among law enforcement officials that people are putting themselves in danger, taking disproportionate risks for the sake of an easily replaced item." And while hitting "Find My iPhone" can take you to a thief's doorstep, LAPD Cmdr. Andrew Smith urges resisting the impulse to do so. "It's just a phone," he said. "it's not worth losing your life over. Let police officers take care of it. We have backup, guns, radio, jackets — all that stuff civilians don't have.""
I remember a time when I had a 2800$ laptop stolen a number of years ago id say around 2003. I knew who did it, I had proof of him bragging about it, and i brought this to the cops who promptly did jack shit about it. In the end I got my laptop back, and some...interest on top. the person who stole it from me? I cant be sure but I highly doubt he stole from anyone again
long story short, cops these days dont give a flying fuck about helping us with crime, all they care about is keeping the money rolling in
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
well i went over there and demanded my laptop back and i may or may not have had about 10 people with me at the time. He promptly gave me my laptop back, and he "thanked" me by also giving me his xbox and playstation, his big screen tv and car stereosystem.
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
I remember when my car was stolen right out of a mall parking lot quite a while back now. I met the police in the mall security office. They literally laughed in my face about the whole thing while taking the report. They also obviously weren't bothered with checking surveillance video since they were in the security office at the time and didn't even ask mall security about it.
My car was later found abandoned on the side of the road with the battery dead (it turned out I had a failing alternator, which may have saved me the whole car). After it was found, the officer following up was very interested in questioning _me_ about why there was a scale in the trunk (it was a broken one from the bakery I was working in at the time).
That would be the case if population and size of patrol areas wasn't increasing. Almost all cities are growing, increased population, increased density and increased size. Inflation only counts on increases in costs, not growth.
The reason cops are interested in theft is it's not as lucrative as drug crime. Most departments spend almost all their police time on drug crime because in the 80's the government relaxed seizure laws and allowed the local cops to keep any drug money and assets seized. Most police departments benefit directly from this and will spend almost all their time locating and seizing money and assets, even going as far as taking poor people's car's for buying a joint (a rather memorable cops episode).
Until we end the war on drugs and roll back all the seizure laws cops aren't going to be interested in petty crime. Before the war on drugs you could actually get the cops to investigate car theft and muggings, now they don't even care.