Oddly enough, although he obviously recognized me, I had no idea who he was. No one ever said anything later like, “Sorry about that almost mugging you thing the other night,” so the identity of my would-be assailant remained a mystery to me.
No - that was merely a minor blip. The “why-I-no-longer-practice” story is longer, much more filled with melodrama, and best heard with large amounts of alcohol both for the listener and the storyteller.
When I was 16 or 17 someone stole my backpack in the library. I was in a seperate room using microfiche when it happened. The backpack was one of those big, colorful, padded, multi-accessory ones that were popular about 5 years ago. The funny thing is, they took all my books out before taking it. I really appreciated that - ordering all those books and losing all my notes in the middle of the school year would have been devastating.
So the only evidence you have of what the cop’s attitude was is what you heard about what your sister’s roomate’s dad impressions were. Maybe it was because they had no evidence and couldn’t go forward. Hearsay evidence from an anonymous third party is not something you can go to court with. The pothead may not have even remembered the correct plate. Maybe the pothead did it and was trying to implicate someone else?
My house got broken into and the cops didn’t do a damn thing about it, either, so I believe Q. N. Jones. I came home from work to find the front door open and the place turned upside down. It was obviously some punk kid(s) who did it – they didn’t take anything larger than they could carry and missed several very valuable small items. I’m fortunate for that. They get away with my cellphone, coin collection and some other odds and ends but didn’t find my jewelry, and left all the electronics and CDs.
They made and received a bunch of calls on the cellphone, and the phone company provided all the numbers to me. The cops dusted for prints and found complete ones. Follow up? Nada.
Also had my car broken into twice. That’s it for me.
Maybe maybe not. No way for you to know what kind of follow up was done. If there was no evidence or witnesses what do you think should have been done? Fingerprints do you no good unless you have fingers to match them to. It’s not magic. If the prints aren’t in the database then it doesn’t do any good. If this happened before the data was computerized then it would be even more unlikely. I’m sure you don’t know if they were even usable prints. It’s not as easy as it is on CSI. In fact it’s pretty difficult to get usable prints. Why would they take prints if they weren’t going to do anything about it? You think they just threw them out?
The police told me that they’d gotten several complete prints. I don’t necessarily expect those to be useful, but had imagined they’d tell me one way or the other. They issued a case number to me, and told me to call it with anything else that might be of use.
I called with the complete phone record of all the calls placed and received by the person who stole my phone. The vast majority of those numbers were local. I looked several of them up using a reverse directory and managed to get addresses and names. I was very tempted to call the numbers and say, “Hey, who called you at 7:08 last night?” but figured that would be counter-productive. Surely the police would do better than little ol’ me.
I called with the physical description of the person, as described by a neighbor who saw him leaving, along with said neighbor’s contact information.
I called and asked that they just call me back and let me know where things stood (even if it was just to say, “We haven’t learned anything new.”)
I never once was allowed to speak to a real person aside from one admin/receptionist type. No one ever called me back. The police never contacted the phone company. The police never contacted the neighbor.
I think it’s safe to assume that they did jackshit. I know they’ve got bigger fish to fry, and I didn’t lose many possessions, so I don’t care all that much about it.
Okay, one more tale of questionable police work to add.
Our townhouse was burgled 3 days after Christmas, during the afternoon. Two other townhouses were also broken into. We’re not wealthy, all they could take was a bunch of portable electronics, my jewelry (cubic zirconia!), my purse, and a box of stamps from my husband’s collection. He was planning to trade them with the local stamp shop.
Police were called, came and dusted, blah blah.
So dh called the stamp shop to tell him to keep an eye out – we lived in a fairly isolated town of about 37,000 (plus an equal number of college students). Stamp guy knew dh, they’d been trading for a while.
Two days later, the stamp guy calls us (dh is at work), says “I think the burglars were just here, they sold me your stamps.” Gives me this long description of their transaction & what the guys were wearing, what they looked like (“gangsta”) (I should probably note that that city is very nearly 100% white).
I called the police to tell them (“Ok, thank you; too bad he didn’t keep them in the store, that would’ve helped”). My sister and I jump in the car & drive downtown (two mile trip) to see if we can spot the “perps”. She just happens to have a video camera with her (Christmas present).
We go to the stamp store first, to verify that those were dh’s stamps he just bought – and I can’t help but notice the frickin police headquarters is right across the street from the store!!! No idea why store owner called us instead of 911.
So we pick up dh from work, he’s curious about all this falderol, and I drive to the back of the video arcade, where you just know people can buy drugs (located about 5 blocks from the police station and stamp shop). Right in front of me is this huge white Cadillac with two “gangsta” (non-white) occupants, trying to complete a transaction with the druggies sitting on the back steps. Hmmmm, that’s interesting. We followed them up the main drag, pulled alongside so my sister could videotape them from the back seat, and also recorded their license plate on film.
Next we drive to the police station & show them the tape. “Yep, that’s our guy” says the Officer. No idea how he was instantly convinced, but that’s what he said.
We go back to our place, and it is so quiet in this small town, we can literally stand in our parking lot and hear the sirens as the police pull the car over, a couple of miles away. We learned later that when the police stopped the car, they found a cancelled British postage stamp in the front seat. But did they arrest and hold them? No.
A few days later, these same clowns tried to sell our neighbor’s notebook computer at a store up the street. Why these idiots didn’t get out of town is beyond me. That store owner called the police and somehow managed to have the criminals and police in the same place at the same time. Which is why we got a bunch (but not all) of our stuff back.
I actually felt sorry for one of the crooks, turned out it was a 20-yr-old kid and his career criminal Uncle (who was nutty as a shithouse rat). I think their sleazy girlfriends were in on it, too - something about the way they trashed our bedroom & threw my underwear around. I’m not sure two people would’ve bothered being that thorough, especially with other homes to rob.
Mostly I was grateful that I didn’t walk in on them – my Mom and I were out running around and I almost stopped back home to put my lunch leftovers in the fridge, right at the time they were there. They had a crowbar.
Yes. I’m not an idiot. I know that there are other possible reasons that nothing happened on the case. But it’s unlikely given that:
I know the roommate’s dad, he is a good guy and is friendly with law enforcement in general. He is not the type to be predisposed to think badly of the police.
The things he reported the cop saying were clearly rude and dismissive. He didn’t say they had no luck with it–he said he didn’t have time for it, and indicated that it was not an important case. (Wish I could remember the exact wording, but I don’t.)
This wasn’t an isolated incident. It eventually came out in the papers (in small blurb-type articles) that a long string of burglaries of this type had occurred and it was believed that they were done by the same person. As far as we know, no arrests were ever made.
The pothead was, despite the stereotype, a pretty with-it sort of guy, and was very sure of what he saw.
My dad has a friend on that town’s police force. This cop was unsurprised at the story and has plenty of other stories to back up his conclusion that the police in this town are mismanaged. He thinks they have screwed up priorities because the then-president of the university made her name on a crackdown on college drinking. The current president has continued that focus. The mandate from the top is that drinking crimes are the number one priority, and the only other crimes that have succeeded in getting the proper attention have been major violent crimes, which happen rarely.
If you’re trying to dismiss my complaints as those of an irrational cop-hater, you’re wrong. I still give the police in that town the benefit of the doubt, though they’ve demonstrated on several notable occasions that they might not deserve it.
BTW, I’m a lawyer. I know damned well that hearsay evidence from a third party (mind you, a third party willing to testify, just not willing to get himself arrested in the process) can be part of the probable cause for a warrant, particularly when it’s this clear and convincing.
Even if the witness had the plates partly wrong, it was an uncommon vehicle.
You seem predisposed to believe that the police never fail to follow up on cases to the fullest extent possible. Are you in law enforcement yourself? Because you sound bitter and overly defensive.
My family is friendly with several people in law enforcement, including one of the top three guys in the state patrol. All of them readily admit that tons of stuff falls through the cracks because of laziness and/or politics.
My workplace has shoplifters come in at various times, and someone took a baseball bat to our window one night; my school got broken into and vandalized one time (spraypaint over the blackboards, smashed glass, I think a couple of computers went missing).
The worst thing that ever happened to me, personally: I had my wallet pickpocketed, with about $120 in cash inside–it was for my graduation dress.
Brain fart. This isn’t hearsay evidence. It’s eyewitness testimony.
It is sad to see so many report rape. One of my sisters was raped twice, same guy, knife and club, she was not lucky nor could she ‘shrug’ it off. The ‘perp’ told the judge before he was allowed bail that if they turned him lose, he would ‘do’ her again. We did not find this out until after he was captured the second time. I think they arrested him the second time because of the negative press they were getting. Justice was not done in any case.
Many other things over the years to me and my family ( blood) and my wife and kids. All types of things, violent and not, guns and knives, etc.
Then in 1991 my daughter was murdered. (18) Her known killer still is a free man. ( Crooked DA’s and politics) Never arrested. ( The police worked a few days on it and then the DA and the politics got it shut down. One cop had nuff balls to at least tell me what was going on, )
Out of all the things that have happened over the years, one conviction on an embezzlement charge against an employee of my Dad’s and the arrest of my sisters rapist, those were the extent of the police doing anything.
I have lost all that I will lose. No more, not a stamp, not a life, not anything in-between. I have thought it all out. I know the amount of effort society and the police will make. Everything is prepared. “make my day.”
The only place police do anything is on TV.
I know some good cops. Sadly they are so few that they are effectively hamstrung by the many that are not good nor honest.
Damn. I don’t even know what to say about that. Just damn.
I haven’t had too much crime happen to me. I’ve had a number of bicycles stolen over the years. I got outnumbered and beat up a lot in middle school, but never suffered any major injuries. Someone broke the mirror off my car last year, and someone stole my identity the year before that. I don’t know if those people were caught, but after some rigamarole I at least got back most of the monetary value. That’s about it I think.
I’m so sorry for your loss. How awful that your family has been so frequently targeted by criminals.
GunsNSpot, I’m so very, very sorry.
Thanks, time does make a difference but as you can surmise, it just does not go away totally. I know it has distorted my views but I still get real tired of the Pollyanna attitude from those that have no clue.