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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.
Why would they? It's a lot cheaper for them to be in the building where they normally are than cleaning up after a crime has been committed. Plus it's an opportunity to look good.
A single incident can cost a lot more for them than just having an officer on hand when the transaction takes place. It's not like they're checking IDs and doing background checks here.
The point is to get them into the police station to at least weed out the career criminals that the cops already know about when possible.
... for civil asset forfeiture.
It's great seeing the police "get it". What a great idea, I hope it takes off!
meeting in the lobby of the police department can help weed out people trying to rip others off
Well yeah, it's right there in the summary. It shouldn't come as much of a surprise.
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.
There is simply no way this is actually a good faith attempt to benefit the citizenry here. None.
Just like there is simply no way that you actually post your comments in good faith, right? Because everything that everyone does is always bad, always, right?
You know the saying. When everyone around you is an asshole, you're the asshole.
Of course the cops aren't going to complain when someone so stupid as to walk into their lobby right next to a picture of them and the warrant that's out for their arrest that's posted on the wall makes it easy for them. But the idea here is to simply shut down some scam transactions before they even occur. They don't have to DO anything - just make it clear that people who are uncomfortable with a transaction with stranger are welcome to meet up in the safest place available. Just like they tell you that you any time you think you might be being pulled over by someone who's not a real cop (say, an unmarked car), you can drive to the parking lot of a police station before pulling over. That's been the policy everywhere I've lived for decades.
Your eagerness to make a safe transaction or the serendipitous arrest of a stupid known, predatory criminal a bad thing is truly bizarre. Which of those two things is not in support of "the citizenry?" Which backwards world view are you holding that makes either of those things something nefarious on the part of the local police station? Grow up.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
take off your tinfoil hat, not everything in this world is out there to screw you over. robberies, murders etc look bad on the police as well as affecting normal people. It is an intelligent move and it would be nice if we saw more of it, regardless of what good they do there will always be people like you that can't possibly fathom that not all police are corrupt.
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...
If the seller doesn't agree to meet at the stationhouse, isn't that a person the police should be investigating?
I certainly hope not!
Before seeing this article, I personally would have assumed meeting at the station house would put ourselves in the way of police officers with other important things to do, perhaps even things like saving lives, for what basically boils down to a simple craigslist purchase.
If someone else would have suggested it I would certainly be offering up other safe options to go with first, only choosing this one if literally no other options were available to not meet alone, and even then I would still feel bad for being in the way.
Now sure if I was to shoot down ALL suggestions for safe meetings, then that would and probably should be seen as shady as hell. But offering tried and true alternatives first is not something I feel should earn deeper investigation by the police or any other government agency.
"Do you have a friend or three that can come along? How about we meet at the Cinibun in blahblah mall? Or anywhere else closer to you that's in public and has a lot of people and cameras around? The police probably have lives to save and stuff, would you at least three-way call them first and ask if it's OK?"
Personally I see offering multiple ways to help reassure the other party, while also having my only one request for similar reassurance being denied, as the questionable act. Still not "investigated by the police or feds" level of questionable of course, but enough to raise my "I don't want to deal with an overly demanding buyer" counter, especially if there are other buyers in line.
Yes there is. I consider the police lazy enough that they'd do it in good faith because aside of the idiots that may come to them to get arrested instead of them having to go out and catch them, they would probably also reduce the number of cases where someone actually gets mugged, robbed or otherwise becomes victim of a crime, which would be yet another reason to leave the box of donuts and go out into the world to interview the victim and do a search of the crime scene.
Even if you don't think there are any cops left that actually want to do what is allegedly their job, there's plenty of reason for them to establish something like that without resorting to paranoid surveillance conspiracies.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Thats the problem. By the numbers the police kill an awful lot more people then strangers on craigslist; and face far fewer repercussions. And it isnt just minorities selling cigarettes, they kill white people too.
Disclaimer: That only works if you are white.
You are welcome on my lawn.
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.
Explain the logic why they should. You presented none.
First, their job is to make life safer for everyone and to prevent crime. They do that. Second, it's very little effort for them because the crooks and criminals won't come to the police station. Third, a single citizen becoming victim of a crime creates huge amounts of work for the police, so it is much more effective to prevent the crime from happening in the first place. Fourth, it makes people happy and improve their view of the police force which again makes life easier for the police.
A single incident can cost a lot more for them than just having an officer on hand when the transaction takes place. It's not like they're checking IDs and doing background checks here.
I doubt they even have an officer on hand. I live in Columbia and I know which lobby they are talking about. It's a small room at the
entrance to the police headquarters. It's basically a small concrete room with several cameras. The only thing in the room is a teller
window (which will presumably be closed) and a couple doors leading elsewhere. There is probably an alarm button too which would
definitely get someone there in a hurry (as that is their main station where they park their cars so someone is always there).
It's a good move as it basically costs them nothing. I'm actually surprised that it wasn't already open 24/7. The lobby of our post
office across the street I'm pretty sure is already open 24/7. The only real reason not to keep it open 24/7 is to prevent vandalism
but you would have to be pretty stupid to go and try to vandalize a police station full of cameras even if noone was present.
When I've done craigslist transactions, I've always met at a bank or a gas station as I know both have security cameras but if you're
really worried, the police station is better, and as the article mentions, just by the location it should reduce illegal and stolen transactions
as very few criminals would be comfortable selling something stolen in a police station.
First, their job is to make life safer for everyone and to prevent crime. They do that.
WTF? Someone actually believes this? *boggle*
I used to deliver pizza for a living. Sometimes you get mugged. Once as I returned to the store, battered and bleeding, there was a cop right there in the store, getting some free pizza.
He seemed annoyed that we interrupted his free-pizza-getting by asking him to at least write an incident report. He outright rejected the notion that the police should make the area safer, and instead chastised us for doing business in such a dangerous neighborhood. He also wrote me a ticket for something about my car. Presumably the only reason he didn't shake me down for the money I had on me was that someone else had already stole that.
0 interest in policing. 0 interest in making things safer. 0 interest in preventing crime in any way that required effort on his part. They don't do that. They take your money and extort businesses for free stuff. That's what the police do.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.