OP is also raising the point that because only the police have the ability to retrieve Nest footage that pertains to them but is not owned by them, access to that data is gated by the police, who may not use that access evenly.
Coming from a small-ish area, how does this happen? Do they say "no" and then offer you the door, or how does it normally go? I assume it could be a manpower issue, if it is a city with more pressing issues, or a city without a detective unit maybe, but outright saying no is hard to justify. I can't imagine a situation that would make it normal to just say no with a straight face.
Manpower seems the most likely explanation. I have a friend who works in a bike shop. Recently, the shop was broken into and $20K+ worth of high end bikes were stolen, plus a fair amount of damage to the shop.
The next day, they found someone offering to sell the same bikes online (in the same geographical area even). They gave this info to the police, basically "hey here is someone trying to sell known stolen property" and the police told them to try and set up a meeting with the sellers themselves! Called back a week later, still had not even
assigned a detective.
$20k is not pocket change, so it does make me wonder exactly what kinds of property crimes they do investigate, if any.
I have heard that in some cases telling the insurance company that nothing is being done might get some movement, but I'm not really sure what they could do that you can't. Call the Chief of Police?
It's not a coincidence cops spend a large portion of their time busting consensual drug users and enforcing traffic laws (while armed to the teeth). That's where the money is. Helping find my stolen computer is way more difficult and provides the department with nothing of value.
This is especially true in jurisdictions where private prisons operate. Very (too) often the people who own the prisons and profit off of them have close ties to people of authority and power in local government. If you are skeptical, consider: otherwise the prison contract would have gone to someone else with closer ties or more leverage.
Corruption is rampant in the "developed" world but we just use different words for it.
I had not considered this hypothesis. I think my area may be small enough where it's not just a crime against me, but a crime against the community. For what it's worth, I hope your situation gets better. That has to be unsettling.
I live in Chicago. It’s not uncommon for police to just not show up when you call in a non violent property crime. If that happens you can go to the station and fill out a report but they won’t actually do any investigating. Sometimes they’ll be honest and say this isn’t going to go anywhere, but usually you’ll just get ghosted.
Here in Boulder most property crimes are ignored by the police. They'll file a report to give to your insurance company, but they'll flat out tell you that they're not going to do anything.
I think it's a few things contributing to it. First is not having enough man power. And also a lot of stuff isn't worth the expense of investigating. A stolen laptop, phone, or bike just isn't worth the cost of detectives hunting it down. $20k of police work to get a $1000 laptop doesn't make much sense.
And yet they choose to go after people for $20 worth of weed, coke, MDMA, etc. It's not about cost, it's about police discretion when it comes to the crimes they choose to investigate or the laws they choose to enforce.
> I assume it could be a manpower issue, if it is a city with more pressing issues, or a city without a detective unit maybe, but outright saying no is hard to justify.
Why would they need to justify anything? They have no one to answer to. Look at groups like the Uvalde police who are internationally known fuckups at this point and they’re still just throwing other people under the bus left and right in response. The police only do their job when they feel like it and that’s usually never unless it’s writing down that they went to guard a construction site for the overtime pay.
They get more state funding, grants and incentives for focusing on things like drug crimes. Enforcement and investigation of crimes are completely at their discretion, so they choose to go after "sexier" and "fun" crimes and criminals.
Hmm, I think you're right. I was confused by the phrase "warrant or no", thinking it meant hedora had tried to get data both with and without a warrant and neither worked.
OP is also raising the point that because only the police have the ability to retrieve Nest footage that pertains to them but is not owned by them, access to that data is gated by the police, who may not use that access evenly.
Coming from a small-ish area, how does this happen? Do they say "no" and then offer you the door, or how does it normally go? I assume it could be a manpower issue, if it is a city with more pressing issues, or a city without a detective unit maybe, but outright saying no is hard to justify. I can't imagine a situation that would make it normal to just say no with a straight face.
Manpower seems the most likely explanation. I have a friend who works in a bike shop. Recently, the shop was broken into and $20K+ worth of high end bikes were stolen, plus a fair amount of damage to the shop.
The next day, they found someone offering to sell the same bikes online (in the same geographical area even). They gave this info to the police, basically "hey here is someone trying to sell known stolen property" and the police told them to try and set up a meeting with the sellers themselves! Called back a week later, still had not even assigned a detective.
$20k is not pocket change, so it does make me wonder exactly what kinds of property crimes they do investigate, if any.
I have heard that in some cases telling the insurance company that nothing is being done might get some movement, but I'm not really sure what they could do that you can't. Call the Chief of Police?
1 reply →
It's not a coincidence cops spend a large portion of their time busting consensual drug users and enforcing traffic laws (while armed to the teeth). That's where the money is. Helping find my stolen computer is way more difficult and provides the department with nothing of value.
This is especially true in jurisdictions where private prisons operate. Very (too) often the people who own the prisons and profit off of them have close ties to people of authority and power in local government. If you are skeptical, consider: otherwise the prison contract would have gone to someone else with closer ties or more leverage.
Corruption is rampant in the "developed" world but we just use different words for it.
I had not considered this hypothesis. I think my area may be small enough where it's not just a crime against me, but a crime against the community. For what it's worth, I hope your situation gets better. That has to be unsettling.
6 replies →
I live in Chicago. It’s not uncommon for police to just not show up when you call in a non violent property crime. If that happens you can go to the station and fill out a report but they won’t actually do any investigating. Sometimes they’ll be honest and say this isn’t going to go anywhere, but usually you’ll just get ghosted.
Here in Boulder most property crimes are ignored by the police. They'll file a report to give to your insurance company, but they'll flat out tell you that they're not going to do anything.
I think it's a few things contributing to it. First is not having enough man power. And also a lot of stuff isn't worth the expense of investigating. A stolen laptop, phone, or bike just isn't worth the cost of detectives hunting it down. $20k of police work to get a $1000 laptop doesn't make much sense.
And yet they choose to go after people for $20 worth of weed, coke, MDMA, etc. It's not about cost, it's about police discretion when it comes to the crimes they choose to investigate or the laws they choose to enforce.
7 replies →
> I assume it could be a manpower issue, if it is a city with more pressing issues, or a city without a detective unit maybe, but outright saying no is hard to justify.
Why would they need to justify anything? They have no one to answer to. Look at groups like the Uvalde police who are internationally known fuckups at this point and they’re still just throwing other people under the bus left and right in response. The police only do their job when they feel like it and that’s usually never unless it’s writing down that they went to guard a construction site for the overtime pay.
They get more state funding, grants and incentives for focusing on things like drug crimes. Enforcement and investigation of crimes are completely at their discretion, so they choose to go after "sexier" and "fun" crimes and criminals.
Hmm, I think you're right. I was confused by the phrase "warrant or no", thinking it meant hedora had tried to get data both with and without a warrant and neither worked.