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Police allow car break-ins to become a Seattle growth industry

seattletimes.com

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Re: Police allow car break-ins to become a Seattle growth industry

#71

Post by dionidium »

panarky wrote: post #24

Take care of the small stuff and the big stuff will take care of itself. The broken windows theory is a criminological theory of the norm-setting and signaling effect of urban disorder and vandalism on additional crime and anti-social behavior. The theory states that maintaining and monitoring urban environments in a well-ordered condition may stop further vandalism and escalation into more serious crime[1]. From the…

The problem with anecdotes like in [3] is that they don't really tell us much. I visited Seattle for the first time this fall and my experience was nothing like that. I did smell Marijuana once in public, but, otherwise, the streets were quite clean and I never felt unsafe downtown at night. The homeless were prevalent, but not on the scale you see in, say, San Francisco. I certainly wouldn't use the word "shocking" to describe anything I saw.

Re: Police allow car break-ins to become a Seattle growth industry

#72

Post by donavanm »

autism_hurts wrote: post #2

Again, the police are never there to help you.

Depends on what you mean. If you're referencing that law enforcement does not have a duty to protect citizens heres a citation for others http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/28/politics/28scotus.html.

If you're saying that law enforcement will never render aid, thats prima facie incorrect.

Re: Police allow car break-ins to become a Seattle growth industry

#73

Post by wavesounds »

When this happened to my friend in Berkeley CA we called the police and after waiting almost an hour the officer that came didn't even get out of his car, he told us to file a report online. There was a security camera pointed at the lot which he said was "pointless" to try to access.

Re: Police allow car break-ins to become a Seattle growth industry

#74

Post by thesteamboat »

teddyh wrote: post #17
freditup wrote: post #4

I 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...

Sure, the problem fundamentally boils down to this: what the police think their jobs are seems to be diverging from what the public at large think on many, many issues.

Re: Police allow car break-ins to become a Seattle growth industry

#75

Post by learc83 »

jmspring wrote: post #35

Washington is a conceal carry friendly state, I wonder how reporting an attempt at a citizens arrest would have changed the situation. Here in Santa Cruz we have a very high property/lifestyle crime problem, thankfully the PD haven't given up, but the courts have made things here basically catch and release. The story basically comes down to laziness on the part of the police. Seattle doesn't have the budget problems…

>Washington is a conceal carry friendly state, I wonder how reporting an attempt at a citizens arrest would have changed the situation.

This is a terrible idea. I'm about as pro 2nd amendment as you can get, but when you carry a concealed weapon your goal should always be to avoid a confrontation, not seek one out.

Getting your back iPhone isn't a life or death situation and you shouldn't use a firearm to resolve it. Also it's very likely you're going to jail if you shoot a guy while trying to make a citizens arrest.

Re: Police allow car break-ins to become a Seattle growth industry

#76

Post by coderjames »

donavanm wrote: post #33

This is a silly op ed piece designed to generate outrage based on a single, biased, anecdotal incident. The Seattle media, from kiro to the stranger, has devolved to this on just about every issue. Whether the issue is crime, urban planning, or bike lanes its much easier to generate their pennies from outrage than actually reporting on a substantive issues. By reading these "stories" we do nothing but reinforce the n…

So police kept showing up. Did any of that policing actually solve anything? Sounds like a ridiculously high amount of crime for one person in two years.

Re: Police allow car break-ins to become a Seattle growth industry

#77

Post by jedberg »

iramiller wrote: post #47

Perhaps this is a also a growth opportunity for a private security firm. Call us, we will use our trained armed personnel to confront the suspects and return your stuff. I would hope that it would not take too many incidents of private security 'resolving' issues to see that a police force doing its job is a far more preferred solution.

I don't think it is legal to use deadly force to retrieve stolen goods, yours or anyone else's. You'd have to staff your firm with off duty cops or something to skirt that law.

Re: Police allow car break-ins to become a Seattle growth industry

#78

Post by dobbsbob »

BadassFractal wrote: post #38
panarky wrote: post #24

Take care of the small stuff and the big stuff will take care of itself. The broken windows theory is a criminological theory of the norm-setting and signaling effect of urban disorder and vandalism on additional crime and anti-social behavior. The theory states that maintaining and monitoring urban environments in a well-ordered condition may stop further vandalism and escalation into more serious crime[1]. From the…

Just yesterday in the civic center area here in SF I'm getting a sandwich and this mentally ill (or really high, or both) bum lady walks into the shop and proceeds to howl at the top of her lungs for 10 minutes, dance around the shop, kick down a bunch of seats. Right next to her is a hole in the wall punched by some other mentally infirm person that same day. Nothing. The staff is used to it, I'm used to it, the oth…

Plenty of other cities have this problem http://www.straight.com/news/714781/mental-health-arrests-va...

Severely mentally ill and violent people wandering the streets, committing rampant property crime to feed drug habits which make them even more unstable.

Re: Police allow car break-ins to become a Seattle growth industry

#79

Post by JumpCrisscross »

I used to commute between Manhattan to Stamford. A 5AM train would take me up and an 8, 9 or 10PM would haul me back. Staying awake for the duration of the return journey was rare. This led to curiosities: going to sleep in Stamford and waking up, four hours later, in Stamford again (Sartre had nothing on this fate) because you slept through arriving and then re-departing from Grand Central. Or waking up phoneless.

I lost my phone a few times. I have a habit of lolling over when dozing on trains. This encourages my polished iPhone to slip out. The Metro-North line tours a wide socioeconomic spectrum. I understand the temptation I was taunting some of my fellow passengers with.

Most of the time the opportunists were savvy enough to turn off the radio. Not always. Once I saw my phone blinking in from Rye. I stopped at their police station and showed the officer my iPad. Without question, we were on our way. The address I pinpointed resulted in a mother subjecting her son to an Inquisition. Nothing came of it. We apologised. Copper suggested we try the house across the street. Embarrassed from the last encounter, I demurred. He walked up to the door.

A young man answered and yes: he had an iPhone. A few minutes later, I was (mentally) $650 richer. (I went back to the lady at the first house with a bottle of wine and the local bookstore's encyclopaedia of steamships—he had boat models in his room).

New York City and State get a lot of shit for our police forces. And yes, we have a high frequency of idiocy. But swinging the other way, towards ineffectual policing—as Seattle appears to have—doesn't create strong societies. +1 New York.

Re: Police allow car break-ins to become a Seattle growth industry

#80

Post by donavanm »

coderjames wrote: post #76
donavanm wrote: post #33

This is a silly op ed piece designed to generate outrage based on a single, biased, anecdotal incident. The Seattle media, from kiro to the stranger, has devolved to this on just about every issue. Whether the issue is crime, urban planning, or bike lanes its much easier to generate their pennies from outrage than actually reporting on a substantive issues. By reading these "stories" we do nothing but reinforce the n…

So police kept showing up. Did any of that policing actually solve anything? Sounds like a ridiculously high amount of crime for one person in two years.

No. And even if it had led to conviction every time I personally dont believe it would have solved anything either. However the main story is explicitly about our police departments lack of "appropriate" reaction. And so my own anecdote is explicitly about response and reaction, not results.

With regards to the high crime rate maybe Im just lucky. Some of those incidents had overlap, like both my car and the neighbors. It's totaled about 5 calls in the past two years. The city of Seattle does a good job on publishing crime & emergency services data in a timely manner. You're welcome to browse from the original source or a number of third parties. For reference my neighborhood is "Beacon Hill" bordering "Rainier Valley", south of I90. http://www.seattle.gov/police/crime/onlinecrimemaps.htm

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