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Amazon Helps Cops Set Up Package Theft Sting Operations (vice.com)
An anonymous reader quotes Motherboard:
In response to Amazon packages being stolen from people's doorsteps, police departments around the country have set up sting operations that use fake packages bugged with GPS trackers to find and arrest people who steal packages. Internal emails and documents obtained by Motherboard via a public records request show how Amazon and one police department partnered to set up one of these operations.
The documents obtained by Motherboard -- which include an operations plan and internal emails between Amazon and the Hayward, California Police Department -- show that Amazon's "national package theft team" made several calls to the Hayward Police Department and sent the department packages, tape, and stickers that allowed the department to set up a "porch pirate" operation in November and December of 2018... Several other cities around the country -- including Aurora, Colorado; Albuquerque, New Mexico; Jersey City, New Jersey; and Hayward, California -- have also conducted porch pirate sting operations aided by Amazon. Jersey City, New Jersey -- like Hayward, California -- put GPS-tracking devices inside the dummy packages. Aurora and Albuquerque, meanwhile, used doorbell cameras from Ring -- which is owned by Amazon -- to capture video footage and surveil for theft.
The documents obtained by Motherboard -- which include an operations plan and internal emails between Amazon and the Hayward, California Police Department -- show that Amazon's "national package theft team" made several calls to the Hayward Police Department and sent the department packages, tape, and stickers that allowed the department to set up a "porch pirate" operation in November and December of 2018... Several other cities around the country -- including Aurora, Colorado; Albuquerque, New Mexico; Jersey City, New Jersey; and Hayward, California -- have also conducted porch pirate sting operations aided by Amazon. Jersey City, New Jersey -- like Hayward, California -- put GPS-tracking devices inside the dummy packages. Aurora and Albuquerque, meanwhile, used doorbell cameras from Ring -- which is owned by Amazon -- to capture video footage and surveil for theft.
is there's way more wage theft (not, "I got paid less than I deserve" but "I got paid less than I was legally owed") than robbery but we've got around 1000 cops nationwide pounding that beat and several hundred thousand on robbery.
For this you can't even argue there's the risk of violence. Package theft if done while no one is looking.
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Have the packages delivered to a drop-off point where you can pick them up later.
THIS is why my family has paid for a professional drop box for over thirty years.
We discovered that some checks delivered to our home were simply left behind the shrubs next to the front door, and had been there for two weeks, since we don't usually use or check the front door.
It's a touch over $200/year, and totally worth every penny.
In Poland, we have a dense network of "packomates" -- lock boxes that you receive a pick up code for. There's a packomate within 2-3 street segments of every place I needed a package delivered to.
Then, a competing carrier instead signed a contract with a widespread chain of convenience stores. This was spurred by the govt banning shops from being open on Sundays -- except for churches, gas stations, post offices, etc. The way the law was written, a convenience store that you can send packages to/from does count as a post office -- which, after a series of lawsuits, stuck. Other carriers followed suit and now you can pick up packages at several store chains -- as the contracts are not exclusive, effectively every of those stores serves each of the carriers, providing a very dense network.
To-door deliveries not only are ~3 times as expensive and tend to take longer, but suffer from the porch pirate issue you mention. No wonder hardly anyone uses them anymore. Problem solved.
The creatures outside looked from Alt-Right to Antifa; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
We've recently seen stories in which a Tesla had video of a man breaking the window that included his face and license plate and where video doorbells were filming those that stole them. In both of those stories, the police had little to no interest in pursuing the case.
In both cases there was also a high probability that the individuals had committed strings of those crimes. Catching the individuals could prevent a lot of theft and damage. It is very possible they have priors and could get very significant time. If not, given that they know who is doing things, they should be able to do a bit of police work and prove the pattern. Who knows, perhaps they'll have a pile of doorbells in their home ready to sell on E-Bay or a little surveillance on the car could catch them doing other drive-by Tesla break-ins.
In both of those cases, I saw many responses on comment sites with worse things that police didn't care to pursue including grand theft auto and night-time residential B&Es.
I've personally had night-time B&Es twice. In both cases I knew who did them. One was an officer and another was someone who had a restraining order against them. Both managed to leave blood evidence. In both cases, the police didn't feel the case worth the time and cost of pursuit. My interpretation was that I was not in upper class neighborhoods where these things matter.
Yet, Amazon is able to get them to spend time on package theft? Why? Are they also paying them or giving a kickback perhaps? Just because they are Amazon? Citizens don't matter but companies do? What's the deal?