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Glitter bomb tricks parcel thieves

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Re: Glitter bomb tricks parcel thieves

#311

Post by Latty »

weberc2 wrote: post #99
txcwpalpha wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Noone said anything about sympathy. And lack of sympathy is irrelevant to legal liability.

Ok, let me spell it out: that the law protects criminals and punishes innocent citizens in such cases is indicative of a problem with the law. And yes, defending your property from theft is categorically "innocent".

Trapping is a form of vigilantism and subject to the same problems. What happens when a little kid walking with their parents runs over and picks up the box randomly, and gets show in the eye with a paintball?

There is a reason we don't want a society where that kind of thing is OK.

Re: Glitter bomb tricks parcel thieves

#312

Post by justwalt »

PyroLagus wrote: post #88
zaarn wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personally, if I could legally, morally and practically, I'd probably use chemical deterrents like cadaverine or butter acid (though the later is possibly dangerous). Dump 100mg of cadaverine in the thiefs car and they'll never use that car again. And possibly the clothes they wore at the time. Or other chemicals. It would be most exciting to find chemicals that yield strongest short-term effects without any damaging…

If you want to be really evil, you use Thioacetone: https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2009/06/11/th... As far as I'm aware, it's the worst smelling chemical known to humans and has no damaging long term effects. You just have to be veeery careful about it unless you want to stink up the whole town by accident.

This reads like an urban legend. I’ll have to shake the rust off my OChem lab experience and try some synthesis.

Kidding of course, but I it makes wonder how easy this would be for an amateur to synthesize. The consequences being making an entire town nauseous makes this whole thing pretty enigmatic.

Re: Glitter bomb tricks parcel thieves

#313

Post by EForEndeavour »

jboy55 wrote: post #272
move-on-by wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You are dealing with people who have no qualms stealing, it's not too crazy to expect other rash and illegal acts from them. In more then one instance the thief opened the package at their house. So its fair to say he knows where they live too. Also, very clear HD video of their faces and vehicles. And there is no way all the glitter is going to get cleaned up - so more evidence of who they are. And home security c…

Sadly, a video of a random figure with face obscured throwing a rock through your car window isn't going to get the police involved. Even with a GPS location of someone you pranked with a package, if there's no evidence directly tying the two incidents, the police aren't going to waste resources doing CSI on it. They'll just write you a police report so you can get your insurance paid.

Disturbingly, the accidental message of this glitterbomb booby-trap video is that you will probably not face legal consequences for stealing packages from peoples' property in broad daylight, so even the best security cameras are effectively useless.

Re: Glitter bomb tricks parcel thieves

#314

Post by yummybear »

0898 wrote: post #96

I know I'm going to get downvoted for this, but glitter is a microplastic – I hope we'll see it being used less in the future.

I think, of course depending on country, most trash is burned. Assuming they vacuum it up and put it in the trash, the microplastic bit shouldn't be a problem, the the CO2 emission might.

Re: Glitter bomb tricks parcel thieves

#315

Post by mmcwilliams »

entity345 wrote: post #309
mmcwilliams wrote: post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In California, New York and Rhode Island it's illegal to place a hidden video camera in a place where people have a reasonable expectation of privacy. These would be considered hidden video cameras. Not sure the severity of the charges in those states, but in other jurisdictions recording audio of conversations without all-party consent violates wiretapping laws and is a felony.

Well that's quite different from putting a CCTV on your front porch... which isn't a felony.

If your intention is for someone to take the CCTV into their private car or residence, that is also very different from putting a CCTV on your porch.

I'm not saying the thieves are in the right here. Just that crimes don't usually cancel each other out.

Re: Glitter bomb tricks parcel thieves

#317

Post by TimTheTinker »

scarejunba wrote: post #300
kawfey wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I learned from Nextdoor, that a neighbor of mine put cat litter in an amazon box, and later found out her car's driver side window busted in and the litter dumped on the seat. I now just have packages sent to lockers and UPS/FedEX access points, and I know a few who have packages delivered to their office. The crappy part is that she captured clear detail of both events but police couldn't be bothered. Nest and Ring…

Maybe with ubiquitous accurate facial recognition we could name and shame these individuals. You could then be walking around and identifying criminals as you go, denying them service, food, shelter, or water. We could create isolated communities of criminals, wall off the rest of the world, and deliver ourselves from evil.

> ubiquitous accurate facial recognition

You mean like the system in China? No thanks. Never underestimate the propensity of any government to violate human rights when given the power to do so.

If a choice has to be made between the two, a government that respects human rights is far preferable to a country without crime among citizens.

Re: Glitter bomb tricks parcel thieves

#318

Post by dylan604 »

rtkwe wrote: post #274
dylan604 wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doing it casually or not doesn’t matter when your on camera. The cops won’t do anything with that evidence, so how does it matter?

Don't want people seeing you and calling the cops/following you.

This fear of the cops is only a thing if you actually believe the cops will respond. Package thieves know the average response time will give them plenty of time to get away. These types of videos just re-enforce that to any would be thief. The amount of news coverage with video evidence showing the thieves NOT getting caught does not give pause to one thinking "maybe I can get away with it too".

I know I've made lots of comments about police response in this thread, but I'm not trying to come across as too negative. However, there's a reason this type of crime is prevalent. Police cannot be everywhere all of the time. At this point in time, I personally would be more worried about the homeowner staging a trap with a shotgun rather than a glitter bomb. That would be legal in Texas.

Re: Glitter bomb tricks parcel thieves

#319

Post by learc83 »

logfromblammo wrote: post #282
learc83 wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I sat on a jury for a misdemeanor shoplifting trial. We voted to convict and he got jail time, and when I worked retail during college, misdemeanor shoplifters were almost always arrested and prosecuted when there was good evidence. I also know people working in the my county solicitor's office and a large amount of their caseload is prosecuting misdemeanor property crimes. I'm sure this varies by location, but I don…

The cops may care when someone steals from a retail business . They don't care when the same person steals from you, an individual . The reason why I know this should be self-evident. I might also mention that if you know someone in the prosecutors' office, your experience will be very different from the majority of theft victims. Cases that never get referred to the prosecutor due to lack of evidence, due to lack of…

Cops don't treat retail businesses that much different from individuals in my experience.

If you have video evidence plus a person in custody, a license plate, or an address, there's a good chance of an arrest. If all you have is a picture, then they will blow you off.

>Cases that never get referred to the prosecutor due to lack of evidence

That's most cases of misdemeanor property theft though.

No evidence, video and no idea who the person is, or a he said she said between neighbors that's probably better dealt with through a civil case.

In the vast majority of these cases the problem isn't that the police/prosecutors are being wilfully ignorant, it's that there's nothing they can realistically do.

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