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Police Stations Increasingly Offer Safe Haven For Craigslist Transactions
HughPickens.com writes: Lily Hay Newman reports at Future Tense that the police department in Columbia, Missouri recently announced its lobby will be open 24/7 for people making Craigslist transactions or any type of exchange facilitated by Internet services. This follows a trend begun by police stations in Virginia Beach, East Chicago and Boca Raton. Internet listings like Craigslist are, of course, a quick and convenient way to buy, sell, barter, and generally deal with junk. But tales of Craigslist-related assaults, robberies, and murders where victims are lured to locations with the promise of a sale, aren't uncommon. Also, an item being sold could be broken or fake, and the money being used to buy it could be counterfeit.
"Transactions should not be conducted in secluded parking lots, behind a building, in a dark location especially when you're dealing with strangers. Someone you've never met before – you have no idea what their intentions are – whether they have evil intent or the best of intentions," says Officer James Cason Jr. With surveillance cameras running 24 hours a day, plus the obvious bonus of a constant police presence, meeting in the lobby of the police department can help weed out people trying to rip others off. "People with stolen items may not want to meet at the police department," says Bryana Maupin.
"Transactions should not be conducted in secluded parking lots, behind a building, in a dark location especially when you're dealing with strangers. Someone you've never met before – you have no idea what their intentions are – whether they have evil intent or the best of intentions," says Officer James Cason Jr. With surveillance cameras running 24 hours a day, plus the obvious bonus of a constant police presence, meeting in the lobby of the police department can help weed out people trying to rip others off. "People with stolen items may not want to meet at the police department," says Bryana Maupin.
Take a cut?
Didn't the police just shoot a teenager at a police station?
... for civil asset forfeiture.
"The suspect appeared to be reaching for a concealed weapon, so the endangered officer had no choice but to fill that sucker with lead ....."
Cops are hoping to catch people engaging in illegal sales, and who are actually dumb enough to take up the cops on this offer to use the parking lot as a safe haven? (If you think this isn't possible, look around for stories about idiots calling the cops because someone stole their stash, or the idiots with outstanding warrants who get lured to the police station by the PD running a raffle and claiming the person won an item they can pick up at the station.)
Cops have installed spiffy new facial recognition software in their surveillance system, and they want to start keeping track of the cash transactions that take place via CraigsList?
There is simply no way this is actually a good faith attempt to benefit the citizenry here. None.
Liberty in your lifetime
Unless you happen to be black. If so, better be careful when getting out your wallet to make a purchase.
It's great seeing the police "get it". What a great idea, I hope it takes off!
Cue 100 knee jerk conspiracy theorists that cops will go randomly hurting traders / stealing stuff / whatever.
Even if you want to look at this from an everyone's-entirely-selfish PoV (though if I thought humans were generally as bad as some people think, I'd be offing myself), this is way more efficient than actually having to go out and catch the criminals who just assaulted a Craiglist victim.
Just because the edifice is corrupt, it doesn't mean every lowly worker is evil. Otherwise you're evil too for paying your taxes so you can stay comfortably within the system when you could be on the streets.
If I'm the one buying, I ask the other dude to meet me at the police station to complete the sale. Three reasons:
1) Minimizes the chances I'll be raped, murdered, robbed, or otherwise harmed.
2) Maximizes the chances that the goods are not stolen, counterfeit, or in some way defective.
3) People with outstanding warrants or otherwise sketchy pasts will not want to meet there, and of course I don't want to do business with them because of the risks of 1 and 2, but also because I don't want to support, for instance, a drug dealer.
Of course the police benefit from having one or two absolute morons come in and sell drugs or something like that, but the public benefits hugely from this as well.
aaproximately 90% members are give BSD credit confirming the
Great idea. Working through my backlog of WIRED magazines and was only reading about the bizarre case of the Craiglist Killers last night.
http://www.wired.co.uk/magazin...
Police stations?
Damn, now I have an even greater chance of being shot while trying to buy a used smartphone.
Transactions should not be conducted in secluded parking lots, behind a building, in a dark location especially when you're dealing with strangers.
...and it's unbelievable how often people on the internet will recommend that to people asking about how to buy something on Craigslist. "Oh, well, I dunno, why don't you do it the same way that criminals in movies arrange drug deals? It seems to work OK for them most of the time."
When you buy something on Craigslist, you meet at the seller's house. You bring one person with you, but they stay in the car, ready to call 911 in case of trouble. The seller similarly has someone hide in another room ready to call 911 in case there is trouble. You go in, quickly check out the item, and assuming it is satisfactory, you pay for it with cash and leave. If you later determine the item is stolen or otherwise defective, you know where they live. The seller doesn't later determine the cash is counterfeit because he's not a fucking moron and he checked it out before he accepted it. It's that easy.
"Transactions should not be conducted in secluded parking lots, behind a building, in a dark location especially when you're dealing with strangers."
And they shouldn't be done in well-populated parking lots in the middle of the day. The robbers these days know that no one wants to get involved.
http://www.myfoxtwincities.com/story/19288695/victim-of-craigslist-seller-armed-robber-shares-warning
"Eventually, he went to the same St. Paul neighborhood where Bo was shot -- in fact, he was only a few blocks away from where Bo was shot when he met his robber in broad daylight with people nearby."
It's been 2 hours, 31 minutes since you last successfully posted a comment.
Really slashdot? Anonymous posting is that much of a problem?
I bet most of the criminals involved in Craigs List crime are black...
Or at least, far higher than their percentage of the population would suggest, if they were no more criminal than whites...
Still, we can't allow white people to simply live around their own kind. Wouldn't that be just awful. For all the non-whites and Jews, who leech off us, while screaming 'racist' in our faces every day. What joy.
They see a white person committing a crime, they let him off with a warning if not outright ignoring him.
They see a black person committing a crime, they arrest him if not outright shoot him.
That's why black crime rates are so much higher.
This is great. This is the sort of thing a safety force should be doing. I hope more police organizations will consider actually providing useful public services like this!
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
Such police guarded "flee market" is only necessary if you have to assume that it is very common that people try to rip you off.
How broken must a country be that the police has to provide something like that? That implies that you generally cannot trust anybody (beside the police). For a society which requires cooperation and trustworthiness to function, this is a big crisis. And you should fix it. However, it might be helpful that the police tries to provide grounds where such trust can be developed, again.
As we a ruining Europe right now. This is also a warning sign that when we fuck up our countries (as we are currently doing) we will also end up with a society where no one trusts no one.
http://www.wsaz.com/home/headlines/Georgia-Couple-Killed-Via-Craigslist-Helped-WV-Community-290293701.html
MINGO COUNTY, W.Va. (WSAZ) -- Funeral arraignments have been made for the Georgia couple, lured by a Craigslist ad, and murdered.
I'm not sure I'd be comfortable doing it in the police station lobby.
I wonder if there will unintended consequences.
You can't easily sell large items in the cop shop lobby.
If you owned a vehicle large enough to haul them and were willing to put up with the headache of having to lather, rinse, repeat in dealing with the usual cast of Craigslist tire-kickers and last-minute hagglers and their manifold gimmicks for trying to pay less than the previously agreed price you maybe could haul the items to the cop shop and use their premises for the exchange.
But I'd wager most people can't or won't -- I've sold furniture, TVs and exercise equipment on Craigslist I either couldn't haul myself or didn't want to load/unload. And Craigslist seems to be the home of all manner of flakes and last-second hagglers who swear up and down on the phone they want to buy your item for an agreed price but then never show up, show up and gripe about trivialities ("In your 4 pictures, the black paint on this wicker chair was a different black") or try to re-negotiate on the spot (knowing someone wants rid of something, or trying games like "I miscounted my cash, I'm $x short, is that OK?"). So even if you DID haul it, you might haul it multiple times as you fend off cheapskates, low-grade swindlers, no shows, etc.
Anyway, perhaps an unintended consequence is that maybe the thieves and cheats now move more exclusively to ripping off large item sellers in their homes and just avoid small item sales that may happen in a cop shop.
In the Los Angeles area, child custody swaps are handled like this. When there is an unhappy divorce arrangement the courts have a room at local police stations set up for multiple family child visitation exchanges. Moms and children on one side of the room and Dads on the other. Then the children walk across the room.
Had the buyer meet me in the lobby of my bank, transaction was in cash. Called my insurance agency before the guy test drove the car and had him leave the money with me. When the deal was done I deposited the cash, sent a CYA email to the insurance agency cancelling as of that time and date, went out, pulled the tags, tossed the dude the keys. Sketchily, he whipped out some Delaware tags (we were not in Delaware and he said he was from a different state but this was not my problem) and drove away. Seemed like a pretty safe way to do business.
I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
Obviously, some people have a different definition of "uncommon" than I do.
Not a bad idea. Probably saves a lot of aggravation and cuts down on the number of investigations.
I only please one person per day. Today is not your day. Tomorrow isn't looking good either. - Scott Adams
Man, this comments section is depressing.
"If you'd feel more comfortable buying your iPod at our Police Station go ahead."
"Thanks - As a teenage girl, that does make me feel more comfortable."
FASCISTS!!!
facial recognition from the camera feeds
license plate reading in the parking lots and street
requiring serial/vin (and etc) numbers of items with them
testing currency, backpacks for drugs
scanning contents of electronic storage
random searches and frisks
all for our protection, of course
Some kind of private security company that has a 24/7 lobby. If you don't use their people in any way it's free.. if you want to check the money is real, their expert charges a fee. If you want a secured trade of some kind, costs money.
I wonder if it would make a profit :) could be a new franchise
I park right in front of Starbucks and meet prospective sellers or buyers inside. If I'm buying an item, they have to bring it inside with them. No "it's in the car a couple blocks over down this alley". I get there a little early to case the joint and get a coffee. Adjust for items that can't easily be carried into Starbucks. (No, you park right here. I'm not going to park down that alley.)
I've had zero issues so far. Where I think people get into trouble is when they want the sale so badly that they can be talked into doing stupid things. Like meeting alone in unsecure locations.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
This venue is not recommend for commercial transactions initiated through the "personals" section of Craigslist.
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
Well, it's about time.
I pay taxes for these buildings and get no use from them. The only cops I see are in their patrol cars.
This is an appropriate use of public facilities. Hopefully, they have AC outlets and free WiFi for testing.
One good result will be people who are intimidated by the police to see them as helpers. It could help change the views of citizens and officers for the good.
Friend to avoid accusations/complications every week, during custody transfers of the children, kids spend a week with mom, then a week with dad, repeat. he started meeting out in the police parking lot, under camera eyes and police driving in and out and being in building.
Think things have cooled down and they no longer do it, but its a great idea for people who have raw feelings. Fear of domestic abuse/ wrongful accusations. Or simply stopping a shouting match in front of kids before it starts.
Virginia Beach, VA has followed suit. We have had a lot of CL-related crimes in the region.
Who are you Hugh Pickens?
And are you any relation to Slim?
On the few chances when I've needed a police officer, I made the mistake of going to my local police station. The only one there seemed to be the dispatcher. The officers are all out on the road making their presence known.
It at least protects the parties from possible physical harm. But it's still quite possible to get taken for a ride--in a police station.
Even when doing business with someone you don't know, it's possible to look for, and read, clues as to the kind of person you are dealing with. Do they call back when promised? Do you notice any "little lies"? Does the story change over time?
I've bought personal vehicles on Craigslist for years, and there are a lot of good clues. For example, when you ask whether the car is still for sale, and they answer "Which one?" you know you're talking to a dealer, not an individual. Ask lots of questions, then mention that you will be pulling the CarFax report, and watch what happens. If they start changing the story, walk away! Clues as simple as how the person dresses can tell you a lot about what kind of person they are.
No system is perfect, but it's important to do your homework, even if you are meeting in a police station.
Bart and Caltrain stations in broad daylight have always worked well for me. Same goes for major public transit facilities in any city. Granted my transactions tend to be limited to computer hardware and automobiles.
Don't think I'd feel comfortable meeting someone at a pig fortress, just to buy/sell a laptop. Adds unnecessary risk to otherwise routine business.
It's partly your responsibility because you didn't take appropriate precautions.
If the simple precautions which can prevent becoming a victim are not obvious to
you, then you should avoid buying and selling stuff on Craigslist.
;
I once had a CB radio stolen out of my car, while it was in my *driveway*. Called the cops and they didn't even want to be bothered.... Could barely get the guy to write a report, and he sure as heck didn't want to waste time checking for fingerprints or any of that.
During a messy divorce, many years later, my ex and some of her friends/relatives ransacked the house while I was out. Came home to find the front door wide open with the A/C running full blast in the middle of summer, and pretty much everything gone from the house that wasn't nailed down. The cops were called immediately. They just laughed at me and walked around whistling and making comments about how "She sure screwed him over good, didn't she?" Nothing useful was done.
So when my portable GPS was stolen out of my truck in a smash and grab several years ago (all while I was picking up a to-go food order from a Chipotle), I didn't expect the cops to be of any help whatsoever. Surprisingly, an officer showed up who was friendly and eager to try to help out. He got out a whole fingerprint kit and went over all the possible places the thief might have touched the truck, took a detailed report, and gave me several contact numbers to reach him or other officers about the case. They never did recover the GPS ... but I was truly impressed that they actually did their job trying to help.
So yeah, results vary. By and large, the police disappoint me -- but I'll give credit where it's due.
So you can buy your guns across the street from the police station, and then do some test firing at the police station. Sounds like a good idea.
The enforcement of sales tax on high-value items.
I hadn't heard about this, and I live here. Nice. I wonder if there will be officers there, though, considering accident reports have to be filed online if nobody was hurt, presumably to save on staff costs.