Apparently the police have advised Toronto residents to leave keys near the front doors of their homes so car thieves have easier access to them. Presumably to prevent violence from armed criminals who have already committed a home invasion.
Story here [Toronto City News]. According to the article, car theft is up 25%, and home invasions 400%.
So I’m curious how Dopers feel about this and have some questions:
If the police warned you of roving bands of home invaders seeking car keys, would you take this advice about making your car easier for them to steal?
If not, what would you do in this situation?
Any ideas why home invasions/auto theft has risen so dramatically there?
My answers:
Not only no, but hell no. The chances of lowlifes successfully breaking in and leaving with my truck are somewhere south of zero. I’m not making it convenient for them, no matter what the cops say.
The same thing I do now, drop the keys in the faraday box. Assuming this is a legit warning from local police, I’d skip taking the dog for walks and stay inside with the doors locked. Otherwise, not much change.
My link has the same text about “better ways” to prevent these thefts/invasions, with the garden variety advice on cameras, lights, social media etc. But they don’t seem to have actually “reversed” their recommendation about leaving keys available at the front door.
I posted about this incident because I find it appalling that a police force is essentially informing criminals where to expect items when they break in.
I’ve always left my Jeep Wrangler soft-tops unlocked. There is nothing worth taking, it’s a standard transmission, and I’d rather someone just open the door versus slicing their way in with a knife, ruining the top.
I was discussing this very topic the other day with my wife, as she’d had a colleague who suffered just this fate – thieves broke into his kitchen, were spooked by his (very small) dog, took the car keys and took his car. We agreed that leaving the keys in an obvious place was sensible because we are two women at home, and don’t particularly want thieves roaming around our house at night looking for our car keys.
The car is worth considerably less than our personal safety, and it’s insured anyway.
No. I would be incensed that law enforcement officers have essentially give up and allowed roving bands of barbarians to plunder as they will. This is the kind of thing I expect from a failed state not a Canadian provence.
I would reinforce my home to make it more difficult to break into and make sure I was prepared to respond to any home invasion with deadly force.
For starters, it appears as though law enforcement doesn’t have any interest in doing anything about it.
(Link changed from Serious Eats tahdig recipe to what I actually wanted to use. A car is stolen every forty minutes in Toronto and some reportedly do end up in the Middle East.)
On a related topic, what’s the law(s) in Ontario with regards to using lethal force against a home intruder?
I believe for most (all?) states in the U.S., it is not illegal for an owner or occupant to use lethal force against someone breaking into their home while they (owner/occupant) are also inside.
I live in a rural part of the Midwest. Just about everyone around here is armed-to-the-teeth. A person would have to be nuts to break into a home around here, especially if the homeowner is inside. (I also think this is a significant deterrent. I can’t even recall a local news story where someone broke into an occupied home.)
Leaving your keys in your (locked) house isn’t exactly leaving the keys in ignition.
Strikes me there’s a number of posters in this thread who feel very confident about resisting a burglary, even considering ‘deadly force’. Is it really worth violence to protect a lump of metal? Maybe I just don’t understand men.
We live in Pennsylvania in Armstrong County, which ranks fourth in the nation in the percentage of homes that report gun ownership. You’d have to be a bit crazy to break into a home around here.
They’re basically saying it wasn’t their recommendation to begin with , but a recommendation by an individual well-meaning officer. Whether that’s true or not , I couldn’t say - it wouldn’t be unheard of for a government agency to throw an employee under the bus but it also happens that government employees say things that their employer wouldn’t agree with.
I am not a lawyer, but generally Canadian law does not seem that accepting of using lethal force on intruders. You can use a “reasonable” amount of force on someone actively committing a crime, and the right to self-defence is well established. I believe shopkeepers and others who have used lethal force have often faced lengthy court battles. Someone more learned may expand on this.
I don’t really care that much about any car I’ve ever owned. I’ve had one car stolen, only to be returned a few hours later, and my truck was broken into multiple times while sitting in my driveway in Little Rock. While annoying, it didn’t make me particularly angry as I considered it an event on par with hail damage or some other annoyance. I certainly wouldn’t go out of my way to fight someone breaking in my car.
My attitude towards a home intrusion is quite a bit different. My home is as close to a sacred space as I have. It’s my haven, the ultimate safe space where I can just relax. While I don’t particularly care much about my car, I do very much care about my home. Anyone who breaks into my home is a threat, and I am far more willing to use violence to protect my home than I might be in other situations.
And critically its from the police not the government. This is a point that came up in the thread about crime in SF. The problem isn’t liberal government causing dystopian anarchy where no one is safe, its the police reacting to liberal measures on incarceration etc, by basically going on strike and saying “we aren’t gonna help you, you libtards made this mess, you are on your own”.
