Car prowl reports are generated by social networks in Seattle. Everything from Facebook groups to community based Twitter accounts and blogs. Most everyone here knows that the Police will do nothing so they have turned to a method that basically tells people when prowl rates are up in their neighborhood. I guess at least then they might have a chance to look up their insurance policy info ahead of potential breakin activity.
Police allow car break-ins to become a Seattle growth industry
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Re: Police allow car break-ins to become a Seattle growth industry
#12Again, the police are never there to help you.
I disagree, and I don't think hyperbole furthers the discussion. I've been helped by police in many cities (in America and elsewhere) on several occasions. I've also witnessed harassment, abuse of power, and indifference- fortunately less so than the former.
Re: Police allow car break-ins to become a Seattle growth industry
#13While a sad and interesting story, why is this on HN?
Re: Police allow car break-ins to become a Seattle growth industry
#14I don't understand this story. Why wouldn't the police do anything? If I'm an officer who's motivated by helping others, it's a clear way to do that. If I'm motivated by a desire for justice, easy way to promote that. If I'm motivated by power, I can go take down the thieves and bring them down a notch. Perhaps one explanation is that the police get enough zany people calling in about enough zany things that they don…
I have a friend who works in the records department of the San Mateo shariff's office. She's on the graveyard shift, which is slow , and they're constantly getting crazy calls about all manner of things. It wouldn't surprise me if there were policies or protocols around when reported information is considered actionable considering all the silly stories I've heard about loonies calling the local PD.
Long ago, living with my brother in an Atlanta suburb, his car was broken into and the stereo was stolen overnight.
Before we even woke up in the morning, the police were knocking at our door.
They'd caught the thieves, sitting in some office park parking lot at night with all their loot. The cops didn't know what they were up to, just that they were where no one was supposed to be, so they pulled up to talk to them. They arrested them and made them ride in the police car showing where they'd stolen everything from. All before my brother even knew it was stolen.
They were convicted, my brother got his stereo back, and restitution checks that totaled more than the damage to his car.
Life in suburbia does have benefits.
Re: Police allow car break-ins to become a Seattle growth industry
#15I really hate to see blind hatred for the police on HN. It's a tough goddamn job, people, made all the more so by political pressure to improve statistics. As pointed out elsewhere in this thread, police are forced to focus on serious crimes and solvable crimes and avoid minor and unsolvable crimes. Nobody wants it to work that way, but departments are hammered when they bring down crime stats.
This story is pretty outrageous, but I understand why cops are leery of having citizens pursue and enforce vigilante justice. This could EASILY have led to a shootout. I have no explanation or excuse why the cops refused to investigate the caller's lead -- and maybe there is no reasonable explanation -- but I'd rather give them the benefit of the doubt than insist "police are never there to help you."
Re: Police allow car break-ins to become a Seattle growth industry
#16Its a stereotypical urban vs suburban vs rural thing. Its only new in the sense of it being hip to live in urban areas. Always been this way.
There has always been a different social contract between the cops and each social class. The cops have no idea why an urban person is calling them because if they're upper class they are rich so they don't care and a normal personal assistant isn't going to go all batman and hunt down thieves, and if they're poor then they have their own ethnic / gang type of ways to fix this in addition to deep seated victim shaming (she was asking for it, what kind of idiot leaves her purse in a car in an urban area, etc). The urban cops just don't know what to think about middle class people, or middle class outlooks on policing.
In the burbs they'd do exactly what the author was expecting, dispatch a squad, take care of business. In a rural area they wouldn't have a crime like this, but something similar would be handled like the burb example. There's a social contract and developed protocols and expectations and it would all be OK.
Not saying its right or wrong, just saying its a fact that pioneers skeletons always end up having arrows sticking outta their backs.
Re: Police allow car break-ins to become a Seattle growth industry
#17I don't understand this story. Why wouldn't the police do anything? If I'm an officer who's motivated by helping others, it's a clear way to do that. If I'm motivated by a desire for justice, easy way to promote that. If I'm motivated by power, I can go take down the thieves and bring them down a notch. Perhaps one explanation is that the police get enough zany people calling in about enough zany things that they don…
The police are motivated by being safe – actually dealing with criminals is dangerous, so the police are motivated to avoid them.
http://www.cracked.com/article_21830_cops-wont-help-you-7-th...
Re: Police allow car break-ins to become a Seattle growth industry
#18While a sad and interesting story, why is this on HN?
Probably the same reason it's making the rounds on Facebook at the moment. All else equal, this kind of website tends towards resharing/retweeting/upvoting identitiarian, political, and outrage type stories. The management does make an admirable effort to nudge it away from that, so a somewhat lower percentage of HN stories are in that category, but it's still quite a lot of them. (Also, it hits the "things of concern to affluent white American urbanites living in the U.S.'s somewhat dysfunctional cities" category, which is somewhat overrepresented here.)
Re: Police allow car break-ins to become a Seattle growth industry
#19If it were a celebrity or any other high-profile citizen, you know they would bring out the SWAT team and the criminals would be locked up for 20 years.
But, when it's a "nobody important" tax paying citizen, then go f-yourself.
Congrats goes out to everyone who voted in the current representatives.
Wonderful job.
Re: Police allow car break-ins to become a Seattle growth industry
#20Again, the police are never there to help you.
I disagree, and I don't think hyperbole furthers the discussion. I've been helped by police in many cities (in America and elsewhere) on several occasions. I've also witnessed harassment, abuse of power, and indifference- fortunately less so than the former.
The above commenter stated "The police are never there to help you". as in, that it is not their purpose. Although I have no doubt you have encountered some police that went above and beyond their job description to help you, this does not change the fact that helping you is not their job, or purpose.