Police action on anonymous tips (aka "my B.S. meter is pegged")

Factual Questions
1

This is a heartbreaking tale. Bear with me. . .

A fellah I know at work, whom I trust, was telling me how his brother’s house was broken into and robbed two months ago. In addition to some hand tools, $850 in cash, the theives stole all of the guns and accessories in the house (to the order of $8,500).

The brother had all of the serial numbers, makes, and models noted down for just such a thing, and he forwarded it to the police. A few days later, a caller left a very detailed message on the brother’s answering machine. It included exactly what was stolen, where they found the keys to the gun cabinets, and the makes, models, serial numbers, etc. of all the guns they took. The caller ended by also telling them the exact address police could find all of the guns and cash and recover all of the stolen property.

This is where it gets weird: The police told the brother they could not act on the anonymous tip because it was “unconstitutional”, and they told him that he cannont act on his own to recover his stolen stuff, because it was an anonymous tip [sub]he’d also be committing trespassing and burglary if he attempted to go, but that’s beside the point[/sub]. He told the local Barney Fifes that he didn’t care if he got the guns back, he just wanted them off the damn street, but the police again refused to act. . .

So, my B.S. meter is pegged: If the police had information through an anonymous tip where to find stolen property–stolen guns no less-- why wouldn’t they jump at the chance to go get them? What gives? :confused:

Tripler
My two cents: If they were my guns I’d say the law be damned, and I’d go get them myself.

2

So brother gives the information to the police and says it’s a tip from him. What’s the problem?

Sounds like horsecrap to me.

3

Your meter should have gone off, but before the part where the police failed to act.

Who but the thief would know the serial numbers? What theif would call the victim and have his voice recorded with this information?

I would ignore the rest of the story based upon my evaluation of the first part.

4

Hypothetically? Say it was a teenager who burglarized the house. Mom or Dad find the loot, and enough information to figure out whose stuff it is. Mom or Dad don’t want little Timmy to land in the Pink House, so they remove the loot to a third location, call the rightful owner, and tell 'em to pick up their stuff.

I know, farfetched, but that’s all I can think of.

But why would the police ever refuse to act on any anonymous tip for any reason? It just doesn’t make sense to me. . .

Tripler
Any ideas?

5

IANAL but I remember from my criminal justice class back in college that anonymous tips will be incorporated into an investigation in certain cases. For example if the police are investigating a crime and get an anonymous tip that seems credible or provides some very important information that could help solve the crime they’ll certainly keep it in mind and use it in the investigation.

Now of course the big problem mentioned was an anoymous tip had to be very specific to be credible because for some crimes you’d get lots of prank calls and false calls made.

Now, as to why they won’t use it to go seize property, IIRC anonymous tips pretty much don’t fly for a judge when it comes to issuing search warrants. And the police can only go in without a warrant when they have probable cause and I’m guessing they don’t consider an anonymous tip cause.

The instructor of my course had been a detective with one of the large cities in Florida (can’t remember exactly) for something like 30 years before retiring and teaching a criminal justice course in his spare time, so I’m guessing he knew what he was talking about to a degree.

6

Tripler, the “Pink House”? Is that where you get sent for fashion crimes?

I think you mean the “Big House.” (Or am I not up on my jailhouse slang?)

7

First off, we don’t know the police failed to act. You have to believe the first part, and I don’t.

Under the situation suggested, Dad was either with the things stolen at the time he called, handled the items one by one or made a written inventory–including the serial numbers.

Why were the serial numbers important? Won’t “Bro” believe the call if the caller had simply said “a 12-gauge shot gun”, “2 38’calibre pistols” yada yada yada and your door key was under the cat’s water bowl in back?

I can recognize bull by the smell, I don’t have to taste it.

8

If the action that your friend’s brother wanted the police to take was to go search the house where the stolen goods supposedly were, then they would have to get a search warrant. Getting a search warrant means demonstrating probable cause to a judge. I’m not a criminal lawyer, but I suspect that anonymous tips, by themselves, are generally not enough to demonstrate probable cause.

Now, I believe that the police can take other actions (that don’t implicate the Fourth Amendment) based on anonymous tips. They could go knock on the door of this house and question the owner, or stake out his house. Why they didn’t do that, I don’t know. Maybe they considered the tip bogus for some reason, or maybe they just didn’t have the resources for a big investigation.

Of course, as in any “friend of a friend” scenario, we should bear in mind that there might be more (or less) to the story than what we’ve heard.

9

There are constitutional considerations to acting on an anonymous tip. All seach warrants must be supported by “Probable Cause” that the search is likely to turn up evidence. (4th Amendment) Exactly what counts as PC and what doesn’t rise to that level isn’t always clear, but it is generally a rather high standard. Anonymous tips are by their nature less reliable than identified statements, because you cannot know what ax the tipster has to grind and whether he actually has any reason to understand what’s going on.

That said, relying on anonymous tips is not per se unconstitutional. An anonymous tip has to have more going for it to convince the authorities that it’s accurate. The classic case is one in which the tipster described a woman leaving a hotel at a certain time, putting a case in her trunk, and then driving to a certain location. When the woman did all this, the cops stopped her, searched the car, and found evidence. (I’m sure one of the less lazy lawyer Dopers will be in here any minute to look up the cite.)

Under this understanding, and taking the OP at face value, I’d say the cops might be lying down on the job. The inclusion of the serial numbers and other details makes it likely that the tipster knows something about the heist. Sure, it’s possibly someone who was familiar with the collection and is just calling the victim to mess with him, but it seems more likely (in the absence of other facts) that it’s a co-conspirator who’s gotten cold feet or is trying a double cross. To me, that suggests that there is PC here to support a search warrant. But note that 1) this ain’t my area, 2) I’m typically on the other side, anyway, and 3) I ain’t got near enough facts at my disposal to be sure.

Even if the police honestly think there isn’t PC here for a warrant, this seems like strong enough evidence to make this address and its inhabitants the subject of some investigation. The cops can investigate anyone they want at any time; they need PC only for a warrant, but if they want to stake the guy’s house out, there’s no evidentiary showing necessary.

Of course, the cope could just by lying to the victim. This is not uncommon. They may have reason to believe he’s involved, or that he’s been duped by a friend to whom he’ll innocently pass on information about the status of the investigation. Cops do not work for victims, they work for the State, and they should not be divulging information to anyone if it might hurt their investigation, regardless of the moral right the victim has to that information. Just because the cops tell the victim they’re not pursuing certain leads, it doesn’t necessarily mean they’re telling the truth.

–Cliffy

10

What I don’t get is how long was that answering machine message? If the caller left that much detail, including serial numbers, it must have been several minutes. I think most machines would have already cut off. So I’m also suspicious of the original story.

11

http://www.canadiancorrections.com/davidsonctyjailsc.jpg

12

Cliffy and everyone else, thanks for the heads up–especially the detailed ones. I didn’t think about the probable cause item, nor how the police tend to filter out the anonymous tips versus the legitimate ones. But I would agree with you that anything that detailed, which would correspond with the list the brother had, would be more than enough for grounds for a warrant.

And stuyguy, it’s an oft-used term from the Arcata Eye Police Logs [sub]Look at Dec 14th, 7:41 AM[/sub]

Tripler
I am not a lawyer, but I used to play one on T.V.

13

I would believe it. I had something similar happen.

In short, I accidentally left my checkbook at a restaurant table. As soon as I walked outside the restaurant, I remembered that I forgot it and it was gone. Got a call a few days later from a guy. Turns our the waiter stole my checkbook and was writing bad checks, and his landlord somehow found some of my check receipts and called me.

Long story short, I filed a police report, gave the police all the information, the thief’s home address, work address, and I even called the restaurant and found his work hours. I even had the found check receipts for evidence. To top it all off, the thief also had other warrants our for his arrest. The police knew all of this.

They did nothing, and a few weeks later the thief skipped town. It really made it clear how useful our police department is in cases like this.

14

The problem is, generally an anonymous tip standing alone won’t be enough to support a probable cause finding. Establishing the informers veracity, relaibility, and the basis of their knowledge are highly relevant (although not dispositive) to a magistrate’s probable cause finding, and if all there is is an anonymous informant’s assertion that Citizen Joe Questionable has stolen property in his house, a warrant either won’t issue or won’t hold up in court.

However, independent investigation by the police can corroborate an anonymous tip and reach the level of probable cause needed for a warrant to issue. Say, for example, the police get an anonymous letter giving very specific info that Citizen and Mrs. Questionable are flying and driving to Florida on such and such dates at such and such times and going to such and such motel to smuggle marijuana, and independent police investigation corroborates that the Questionables are making trips to Florida under those circumstances. Now that the anonymous tip has been corroborated, the police have probable cause to ask a magistrate to issue a valid warrant (on preview, Cliffy has beaten me to most of this, but I’ll be the slightly less lazy lawyer of which he speaks–the facts come from the SCOTUS case of Illinois v. Gates, 462 U.S. 213 (1982)).

So that may be what’s up with the police in your friend’s brother’s whatever’s case. The anonymous tip probably isn’t enough for them to act on at this point, but they may be working on corroborating the tip so that they can, and may even be lying about it so that they don’t tip their hand. That’s another reason not to go busting down doors because you think they police aren’t doing their jobs; it may be that they just can’t move on the guy yet, and you wouldn’t want to screw it up for them when they can.

15

If nothing else, I give you more reasons to bash Texas.

We have a pretty common “public service” around most cities (not sure about other states, but I guess it must be pretty rare since nobody else has mentioned it) called Crime Stoppers. It is based on nothing BUT anonymous tips, and if your tip leads to an arrest and conviction, you win money! And the person you accuse never knows who accused them. Forth Amendment??

Here is a webpage of the Arlington, TX PD soliciting anonymous tips.

A Google search for “Crime Stoppers” will probably turn up many more.

So the OP may have been fed some BS, but anonymous tips are not universally thrown out by all law enforcement.

And sorry if everybody knows about Crime Stoppers and all, but the anonymous nature of it, and never knowing who made the tip just rile me no end. I always thought I had the right to face my accuser…

16

Toldja. :wink:

–Cliffy

17

Sounds fishy, fishy, fishy!

  1. The police have already been given the list.
  2. An anonymous caller leaves an identical list on an answering machine?
  3. Renegade cop? or What else?
  4. Don’t act on anonymous tips?
  5. Fishy smell stinks!
18

I assume Crime Stoppers is the same down there as it is up here - a way for the police to get leads to a crime that has been committed, I fail to see what is wrong with the anonymous nature of it; the whole point is that people will come forward without fear of they themselves becoming victims of a retaliatory crime.

19

Utter horseshit. The serial numbers nonsense is what gives it away. It makes no sense for a caller to leave a message any more detailed than “You can pick your stuff up at this place. Bye.”

20

For the sake of argument, I’ll assume that the original story is true. If so, then I think the cops are being lazy. I’m in Washington, which may be the most restrictive state in the US for privacy protection. Even so, I think I could get a search warrant based on that information. At very least, I would give it a try and not just dismiss the information out of hand. Let a Judge shoot it down, not me.

As for Crime Stoppers, they do rely on anonymous tips. However, that information is just to point the investigation in the right direction. It would be pretty much impossible to make a valid arrest based on an anoymous tip, but you can start there and then develop probable cause.