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Californian fed up with stolen mail sends Apple AirTag to herself to catch thief

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Re: Californian fed up with stolen mail sends Apple AirTag to herself to catch thief

#61

Post by jonhohle »

bArray wrote: post #22
bko wrote: post #4

I've come to believe that acceptance of crime is a choice by officials. Many low level crimes I've witnessed are trivial to catch. For instance, find out where porch thieves like to hit. Plant a package there and park a patrol car there for a few hours and chances are you'll catch someone. Or put in a tracker. A cop can get a bike stolen in hours in the right neighborhoods in NYC. If a youtuber can park their car wit…

I think it's because policing in general is not at the standard it once was. Currently police are only rewarded for "big busts", but it's the smaller crimes that make all the difference to the individual. In the UK for example, only something like 4% of burglaries get investigated at all. We're talking about the police not turning up at all. A neighbour down the street had a car stolen from their drive, under no less…

Wasn’t this the broken windows philosophy that may or may not have reduced crime in NYC in the mid 90s?

It seems like cracking down on low level crime should reduce bigger crimes, but the research seems to become politicized based on who instituted the policy.

Re: Californian fed up with stolen mail sends Apple AirTag to herself to catch thief

#62

Post by 0x457 »

kayodelycaon wrote: post #35
hindsightbias wrote: post #21

Mail theft is a federal crime, why is the Sheriff involved.

Because stealing things is illegal in every state I know of.

Stealing things is illegal in every state - yes. However, stealing mail is a federal crime. There is a difference between stealing UPS package and stealing USPS package.

Re: Californian fed up with stolen mail sends Apple AirTag to herself to catch thief

#63

Post by abeppu »

newfriend wrote: post #36
NorthTheRock wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> DA refuses to prosecute crime Have there been any actual documented instances of this? I see it cited a lot, but rarely any specific names of DAs or cases attached to it, and it feels like an easy excuse for police to not even attempt to do their jobs.

read all about it https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chesa_Boudin You can disagree with me all you want, but this guy was recalled as SF DA for letting criminals go. His wikipedia enumerates several cases of him doing just that. > In March 2020, Boudin charged 20-year-old Dwayne Grayson with elder abuse after he filmed 56-year-old Jonathan Amerson in February 2020 swinging a metal bar at an elderly Asian man in Bayview–Hu…

Except that even when the DA was trying to pursue stuff, the SFPD refused to help, and forced the DA's office to do stuff like move evidence in a U-haul truck.

https://www.ksbw.com/article/sfpd-refused-to-help-stop-san-f...

Re: Californian fed up with stolen mail sends Apple AirTag to herself to catch thief

#64

Post by inquirerGeneral »

feedforward wrote: post #23
bko wrote: post #4

I've come to believe that acceptance of crime is a choice by officials. Many low level crimes I've witnessed are trivial to catch. For instance, find out where porch thieves like to hit. Plant a package there and park a patrol car there for a few hours and chances are you'll catch someone. Or put in a tracker. A cop can get a bike stolen in hours in the right neighborhoods in NYC. If a youtuber can park their car wit…

> I've come to believe that acceptance of crime is a choice by officials. Many low level crimes I've witnessed are trivial to catch. > And it's only a handful of people engaged in this low level crime. Arrest a few. And if they have a dozen prior arrests, like many of them do, keep them in jail for a while. The USA easily has the highest incarceration rate in the industrialized world, and yet Americans like this say…

America is made up of 5+ full fledged nations of people inside it with different ethnic, cultural, and genetic backgrounds. Why do you expect them to be anything like the Finns or Norwegians?

Re: Californian fed up with stolen mail sends Apple AirTag to herself to catch thief

#65

Post by jghn »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #39
pton_xd wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That doesn't pay. Pulling over a citizen with a job and citing them for speeding is a much more lucrative use of their time. Both are against the law, so they're doing their job either way. Kind of. Although as another commenter noted, I've noticed they've become strangely lax about even citing moving violations since Covid. Makes you wonder what they are even doing, then.

> Pulling over a citizen with a job and citing them for speeding is a much more lucrative use of their time The solution may be in segregating the police from the traffic cops. Policework is dangerous and specialised. Its officers need a lot of training and good pay. Traffic cops are basically humans trained to be cameras, inasmuchas 90% of what they do can be automated.

> Policework is dangerous

Not nearly as much as people believe. Most lists of dangerous jobs in the US have police below jobs most people consider to be pretty mundane. For instance, this list [1] ranks it at #22. Below occupations like "garbage collector" and "crossing guard"

[1] https://www.ishn.com/articles/112748-top-25-most-dangerous-j...

Re: Californian fed up with stolen mail sends Apple AirTag to herself to catch thief

#66

Post by ben_w »

bko wrote: post #4

I've come to believe that acceptance of crime is a choice by officials. Many low level crimes I've witnessed are trivial to catch. For instance, find out where porch thieves like to hit. Plant a package there and park a patrol car there for a few hours and chances are you'll catch someone. Or put in a tracker. A cop can get a bike stolen in hours in the right neighborhoods in NYC. If a youtuber can park their car wit…

> And it's only a handful of people engaged in this low level crime. Arrest a few. And if they have a dozen prior arrests, like many of them do, keep them in jail for a while. And if they're doing anti-social crimes like punching random women in the street, remove them from society and let them cool off for a few years (it's almost always 18-29 yos).

I think you're underestimating how much crime there is and how many people do it.

The number of heroin users in the UK is about 3x that nation's entire prison population, for example.

Re: Californian fed up with stolen mail sends Apple AirTag to herself to catch thief

#67

Post by ericmcer »

bko wrote: post #4

I've come to believe that acceptance of crime is a choice by officials. Many low level crimes I've witnessed are trivial to catch. For instance, find out where porch thieves like to hit. Plant a package there and park a patrol car there for a few hours and chances are you'll catch someone. Or put in a tracker. A cop can get a bike stolen in hours in the right neighborhoods in NYC. If a youtuber can park their car wit…

I think you are right that it is a small number of people committing these low level crimes repeatedly and they are causing huge amounts of unrest and unhappiness.

In the Bay Area I bet arresting ~100 individuals would send the number of car break ins, shoplifting and muggings sharply down. It is crazy that we let a tiny group make literally millions of people live defensively because we are unwilling to arrest them.

Re: Californian fed up with stolen mail sends Apple AirTag to herself to catch thief

#68

Post by bsimpson »

slayed0 wrote: post #3
everybodyknows wrote: post #2

> stolen out of her mailbox at the Los Alamos Post Office All the P.O. mailboxes I've ever seen have locks. What's going on? Was the thief actually a USPS employee?

I had the exact same question. This seems like a much bigger crime than the story is letting on. Also, shouldn't this be handled at least jointly by a federal agency? I didn't see any mention of federal charges.

I feel like fucking with the Post Office is one of those things that sounds minor but can be a big fucking deal. Your petty theft just became a literal federal case, complete with a police force whose whole job is to protect the integrity of the mail.

Re: Californian fed up with stolen mail sends Apple AirTag to herself to catch thief

#69

Post by bayofpigs »

bko wrote: post #4

I've come to believe that acceptance of crime is a choice by officials. Many low level crimes I've witnessed are trivial to catch. For instance, find out where porch thieves like to hit. Plant a package there and park a patrol car there for a few hours and chances are you'll catch someone. Or put in a tracker. A cop can get a bike stolen in hours in the right neighborhoods in NYC. If a youtuber can park their car wit…

[dead]

Re: Californian fed up with stolen mail sends Apple AirTag to herself to catch thief

#70

Post by xsmasher »

ProllyInfamous wrote: post #30
everybodyknows wrote: post #2

> stolen out of her mailbox at the Los Alamos Post Office All the P.O. mailboxes I've ever seen have locks. What's going on? Was the thief actually a USPS employee?

The "key" which opens the entire PO Box "front" is extremely easy to obtain; and if you don't have one, a crowbar/lockpicks [used just once] will simultaneously open entire ~250 box panels.

I know many apartment building mailboxes have a front key, but shouldn't PO Boxes at the post office be filled from the BACK?
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