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Glitter bomb tricks parcel thieves

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711–720 of 940 posts

Re: Glitter bomb tricks parcel thieves

#711

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If your defense against theft ends up killing the thief do you think you shouldn't be liable? That depends. Are we talking about a thief who was accidentally killed in a brawl with the property owner (or the troublesome death-by-glitter scenario that some in this thread are so concerned about)? Or a property owner who subdues, binds, and executes the thief? I'm open to arguments that it should be illegal to use let…

It comes down to proportionality. I don't think anyone would disagree that generally stealing is wrong and people who do it in general deserve to face consequences. But the consequences should be proportionate to the crime. I don't think anyone deserves to die for petty theft, regardless of circumstances. It seems like you are suggesting that if someone takes a $50 package off of my front porch, and then I come outsi…

Defense is not about punishment. Thieves don’t deserve to die, but it’s okay that it’s a risk they run. As an aside, I see this all the time, usually in conversations about self-defense—“a rapist doesn’t deserve to die”; maybe not but they sure deserve to run the risk and they certainly deserve worse than their victims. At least they have a _choice_.

Re: Glitter bomb tricks parcel thieves

#712
post #689

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would get a CCW if you don't already have one.

Except he’d be dead and the perp would have 2 guns. Why is the solution to more gun violence more guns?

Not necessarily, there are instances where both perpetrator and victim are armed and the perpetrator walks away because of it.

Re: Glitter bomb tricks parcel thieves

#713

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In some areas perhaps. In my neighborhood the police respond to any property crime, and pretty fast at that. But ... maybe we are just boring. Perhaps there are some areas in the US where this is a problem, but I don't know if it's safe to generalize that the US is degrading to third-world status just yet.

Well given the police in the US works at city level, if you are in a suburb that's not "the capital city" your police might be bored enough to go for every call, things like "suspicious person walking on street"

Yep. I live in Hillsboro, a pretty quiet suburb of Portland. Police here are so bored that when a bunch of drunk teenagers were acting a fool on our street, they sent three cop cars to grab the kiddos and drive them back to their parents' houses.

Head over to Portland, and the cops are so overloaded with dealing with more serious crimes that they won't even respond to auto theft.

I would definitely call the police for package theft in my town, and I'd have a good expectation that they'd assign an officer to watch for crime patterns and get the guys.

In Portland, I'd be duplicating this guy's glitter bomb.

Re: Glitter bomb tricks parcel thieves

#714
post #308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Robbers and burglers basically have immunity now because the police is busy with... I'm not sure what.

Most departments are understaffed. Turns out all the negative press against police is having long term impacts on how many kids want to grow up and become a police officer. Also property crimes always take a backseat to more violent crimes.

Also, the background check process is intense, (and deals with the exact same understaffing problems) and it turns out that most people aren't willing to wait for nine months to get vetted for an entry-level job.

Re: Glitter bomb tricks parcel thieves

#715

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is by definition. You're simply mistaken.

No, it is not. It is in fact explicitly illegal to do a great many of things, even in defense of your own property.

It is. “Legal” != “moral”.

Re: Glitter bomb tricks parcel thieves

#717
post #612
post #590

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I completely understand. My car has been broken into multiple times. Thieves stole my wife's credit card and went on a shopping spree. The store had footage but the police refused to do anything. It could be worse course, but it's very disappointing when this happens. Not sure what your options are - move to a relatively wealthy suburb probably with a well funded police department where they might not be lazy enough…

Why do police refuse to look into it? More important cases? Not as easy to find them guilty as it seems?

You get what you measure.

What would you say is a good measure of an effective police officer?

Would you say percentage of closed cases? Because that's what leads to this.

Would you say, the number of crimes reported per capita? Because that's what leads to this.

It's unlikely you'll find these people or catch them on average. You may get them for something else and be able to close several cases at once, but the truth is you'll just never see them again. So if you take the report and open a case, your numbers look bad. Crime per capita is up, percentage of closed cases goes down.

Re: Glitter bomb tricks parcel thieves

#718

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So the thief (or whoever) can sue this person Ah, see, but lack of enforcement from the police goes both ways! If the police are unwilling to go after petty theft cases, why would they bother with the even smaller crime of "wiretapping" thieves? Is the opportunist thief likely to have the resources to go after you for this? Almost certainly not. And even then, it is additionally unlikely that a judge and jury would…

Well, it's not that simple. The thief could simply sue under private law (private law = anything that's not criminal law). Privacy violation, for example, is private law. Damage to property, is both criminal and private law. There's certainly options. Granted, the author of the video cannot be sent to jail in such a case, but it is a near-certainty that he'll have to pay. Second, I don't think the odds of the police…

> The thief could simply sue under private law.... There's certainly options

But they won't, because they are a desperate individual who is going around stealing packages from people. The kind of person who does this is very unlikely to have the money to sue someone.

They will instead just run away as they are probably just afraid of getting arrested themselves. Someone who has stolen one package has probably stolen dozens. Rationally or not, they'd probably just be afraid of getting caught for all their past thefts.

> . In reality, law is an imperfect

Indeed it is imperfect! Which is why someone who "wiretaps" desperate thiefs is almost certainly going to get away with breaking the law.

Lots of people in this thread are talking about how the police just won't care if you bring them irefutable evidence of theft. If police don't care about that, what do you think is the likelihood that they will care about illegal wiretapping of thiefs? I'd guess that the answer is "a very low likelyhood".

> In other words, only if you're sued by the public prosecutor.

But you won't be sued by a public prosecutor or targeted by the police. Because they have better things to do with their time. They aren't even going after the thieves, if you will remember!

> For one, the thief may BE a police officer

This is extremely unlikely. Instead the thief is probably going to be some desperate individual or homeless person with no ability to go after you for "wiretapping".

My whole point is that if nobody is getting arrested for the theft, the chances of the police bothering to go after people for wiretapping is even less likely. And the desperate thief won't have the money, resources, or motivation to pursue you in private court.

If it is so easy to get away with theft, then it is certainly going to be much much easier to get away with wiretapping thieves.

Re: Glitter bomb tricks parcel thieves

#719
post #613

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since the USA is a car culture, you can safely ship to work and put the packages in your car trunk after you commute. You can ship to home the low value packages and if theft isn't common enough for you and amazon will just reship you on the rare case that it gets stolen. This breaks down if you don't do car commutes although, in urban places like NYC & SF or can't ship to work.

I used to work in goods in and I would have done everything in my power to get that stopped. It was a shitty minimum wage job and my responsibilities definitely didn't stretch to doing unpaid work for multiple people on top of my shitty job. EDIT: Maybe this is just a lack of understanding of what happens in goods-in? Or working some place where your deliveries don't add much burden?

Where I work, being able to ship to the business is explicitly advertised as a job perk.

"Ship to us, and here's how to get automatic email notifications of when your package is here!"

Re: Glitter bomb tricks parcel thieves

#720
post #653

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hopefully you don't keep your wallet and keys in your car anymore! If thieves broke into my car, they'd get some old CDs, leather gloves, and a skateboard I have no emotional attachment to. Seriously people: your car is not secure storage.

Other than the particular crime, please explain how your statement is different from "If you didn't dress so provocatively, you wouldn't have been raped."

Because it's not about tempting the thieves, it's about accepting the fact that thieves exist. It's about risk mitigation.

He didn't say "Hide your stuff better", he said "Don't treat your car like secure storage".

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