"De-Policing" - Don't bother calling the police for any property crime.

[sojomojo]

"De-policing" of property crime is a trend in most large west coast cities like Seattle, Portland, San Francisco. What happened to the guy that wrote this article is very similar to what happened to me last year when I witnessed a bunch of guys prying open locked mailboxes in my neighborhood. Their car was so stuffed with stolen mail that it covered the car's back window. I called 911 and gave a description of the suspects and their car's license plate #. 911 operator said that no officers were available to respond since it wasn't considered an emergency. My response was WTF and the 911 operator got mad at me for cursing.

http://seattletimes.com/html/localne...neat02xml.html

Police allow car break-ins to become a Seattle growth industry

If your car is broken into and your stuff stolen, don’t bother calling the police. They won’t come even if you track down the thieves yourself.

By Danny Westneat Seattle Times staff columnist

What I learned last weekend: If your car gets broken into, there’s probably no point in calling the police because they won’t do anything.

This turns out to be true even if you direct police to the thieves’ van, with the perpetrators sitting in it holding your stolen stuff in plain view. The police will tell you to forget it, and call your insurance instead.

Last weekend I was at my son’s soccer game at Woodland Park in Seattle. It was pouring, so we foolishly left a purse in the car. Someone smashed the driver’s side window and snatched the purse.

Because nobody saw the crime, the police told us just to file a report online.

When I got home, my kids, savvier navigators of the modern world than I am, had already tracked the thieves down using the GPS locator of an iPhone inside the stolen purse.

“They’re at a 7-Eleven on Aurora,” my daughter announced triumphantly.

So it was that last Saturday night I found myself slouched in a car in a parking lot on Aurora, eyeing my fellow Seattleites through the fogged windows. Which one of you stole my stuff? I figured there’d be clues, like a rundown car or someone acting shifty. But nobody looked like thieves. After a while, everybody did.

When the silver minivan parked next to us drove off, we could see our iPhone moving down the street on the Find My iPhone app. So we followed it to another parking lot, and again called the police.

We reported the make and model, the license plate and the location. But the dispatcher was dismissive. Go home and file an insurance claim, she said.

One purse with 80 bucks cash and an iPhone hardly rates an all-points bulletin. But when you’ve got the thieves trapped, the police still won’t come? The dispatcher said she would try.

So we sat there, waiting, watching the van from a distance. After an hour, I got frustrated and called the stolen phone. No answer, but the van drove off. So we gave chase again.

This time the dispatcher was furious. Not with the thieves or the police who never come. With us.

“Stop following them!” she ordered. “Pull over immediately. You’re going to get yourselves shot.”

This sounded ominous, plus she refused to send a squad car except to a fixed address. So I let my stolen stuff go. Eventually an officer did come (probably because the dispatcher told him we were nuts). He was sympathetic, but when I showed him where the thieves had gone — to the Fred Meyer parking lot in Greenwood — he said he couldn’t do much.

How about you go up to the minivan, do a knock and talk, and I’ll set off the iPhone alarm, I suggested. He said I couldn’t come along due to liability — and he wouldn’t take my phone to set off the alarm himself.

Later he called and said he hadn’t seen the van. So we drove to the Fred Meyer parking lot, and sure enough, there was the van. The thieves now knew we were following them — because one held our iPhone up to us and shook it, as if to say, “Here it is, come and get it!”

I didn’t know whether to laugh or pull out a baseball bat. Fortunately for me, I did not bring a baseball bat. It was midnight. We drove home and seethed. The signal from the stolen iPhone had gone dead.

The next day when I called some glass-repair companies, no one blinked at this story. Happens every day, they said. Police never do anything. In fact, some thieves want you to track them, so they can try to sell your stolen stuff back to you. That’s how confident they are the police are no threat.

So the whole time we thought we were chasing, we were being lured.

There’s a silver lining, my glass repairman said. The glass-repair business is booming.

In the past two weeks, there were an astonishing 426 smash-and-grabs reported in Seattle. A few years back, we did a front-page story about how car prowls had become the city’s top crime, with 370 in a two-week period. My thieves — unlike me — are working in a growth industry.

Seattle police, I get that this is petty crime. It’s on me for leaving stuff in the car. There also was no proof who did the smash-and-grab, so even if you had come, it would have been tricky to charge them with anything.

But it doesn’t take a detective to see how punting an entire crime category over to the insurance industry could cause these types of nuisance crimes to spiral out of control. One warning sign: In Seattle, the more serious car thefts are up a whopping 44 percent this year versus last.

Can we at least start making these thieves feel a little heat? Especially when they’re served right up for you in a silver minivan?

Because I saw it with my own eyes out in that Fred Meyer parking lot: Right now, they’re just laughing at us.

Danny Westneat’s column appears Wednesday and Sunday. Reach him at 206-464-2086 or dwestneat@seattletimes.com

[Karl_Hungus]

Cops will bust you when you roll through a stop sign on an empty road at 3 am, but they can't be bothered to arrest criminals breaking into cars ... even when they are caught red-handed.

[sumolgi]

The DOJ filed a pretty sad report on them and their union is suing rather than work to fix the problems too. Welcome to the the NW...

[NorwichGrad]

It's all part of the plan.

Life, liberty and property are unalienable rights. The Bill of Rights protect these individual rights, while marxist ideologies attack them. Marinate your anus with tobasco sauce, America. Statist socilaists are in control.

[discdoggie]

There is a trend of police being trained to enter every situation as if they're likely to be shot and killed.


When a car is broken into, even if you can't get police to come, you still have to go file a report.

I know someone who had her pain medication stolen out of her car and the doctor wouldn't write a new Rx untile she presented a police report

[Brackneyc]

There is a trend of police being trained to enter every situation as if they're likely to be shot and killed.


When a car is broken into, even if you can't get police to come, you still have to go file a report.

I know someone who had her pain medication stolen out of her car and the doctor wouldn't write a new Rx untile she presented a police report

They could send any joker to write a report. If there isn't going to be an actual investigation, they might as well put the form online. Isn't that how everything is done anymore.

Fwiw, I have had things stolen, including a van and a dirtbike. Both were recovered by the police. The van was abandoned, and a kid was caught riding the db on the local hs baseball field. Got lucky I guess.

[DuracellBunny]

The UK is seeing a big shift towards policing being done from a comfortable chair in the police station. Internet "crimes" are a hot ticket right now, as they require less work. If somebody gets punched by a stranger, nothing much will happen and even if a prosecution takes place the punishment will be a slap on the wrist. If a stranger threatens to punch them on the internet, the police are more likely to "investigate" and if they are convicted (under the malicious communications act), they will probably receive a tougher sentence than if they had actually punched the person.

Police forces suffer from the KPI culture that is destroying the civilised world. Producing the KPI is now the main goal of many jobs, the police included. Car crime is a low chance of success for a lot of time spent and it doesn't look good on their figures, so they look for easier pickings.

[adamsz]

Just another reason I have little to no faith in LEO.

[mcbourque]

FWIW people die everyday from shootings in Seattle. Had a shooting last night at UW, my kid school was in lockdown on Friday and let's not talk about Marysville last week with all the following threats that came later. My kids schools are in lockdown at least 5 times a year.

When my husband had a self-inflicted axe injury, the EMT walked into our house thinking they were going in an axe murderer situation because we had one of them downtown a few months before.

I don't know how big our police force in Seattke is, but I'd rather have them deal with life and death situation than deal with stolen purses from cars.

And yes the Seattle police came to arrest the meth dealer/robber that live next to my house when he showed up at his dad and a neighbor tipped the police (3 police cars - done swiftly - 5-10 min they were here)

When I lived in the suburb of RI, the biggest crime was kids stealing kegs from restaurants.

Life is just different in a big city. The police here gets killed giving speeding ticket - give them a break!

(And stop using them to promote your writing on bb.com - looks like click bait to me.)

[ArchAngel'73]

I dunno man...
what if that cop pursued that van, knocked and talked but there's 4 gangbangers in that van having a good time and ready to work.
In the parking lot of 7-11, where kids are getting slurpees and such...you're inviting a fire fight and risking not only the police officer's life but those innocents around.

The police may not spray and pray but gangbangers sure do and they DGAF who they hit as long as the job gets done.

I wouldn't be so quick to slough off your police force as lazy.

[Brackneyc]

I dunno man...
what if that cop pursued that van, knocked and talked but there's 4 gangbangers in that van having a good time and ready to work.
In the parking lot of 7-11, where kids are getting slurpees and such...you're inviting a fire fight and risking not only the police officer's life but those innocents around.

The police may not spray and pray but gangbangers sure do and they DGAF who they hit as long as the job gets done.

I wouldn't be so quick to slough off your police force as lazy.

In either scenario (cops do, or not do something), the public pays. Yet, if we choose to defend ourselves on some level, we become the bad guy.

Insurance is not a defense.

[ArchAngel'73]

In either scenario (cops do, or not do something), the public pays. Yet, if we choose to defend ourselves on some level, we become the bad guy.

Insurance is not a defense.

If I was a cop...I wouldn't risk my life to protect your property (no offense brah) for $60k/year (or less).
I would risk my life to save your life and the lives in the city I had chosen to protect...but not for property.

A solution to this whole situation would require diminished freedoms of the people to solve the problems at their roots and I don't see that happening over there.

[Edman316]

It's all part of the plan.

Life, liberty and property are unalienable rights. The Bill of Rights protect these individual rights, while marxist ideologies attack them. Marinate your anus with tobasco sauce, America. Statist socilaists are in control.

Sure, that must be why US corparations are raking in record profits and paying the lowest taxes in history.

Sociaslists are not in control.

The corporations and rich are in control.

[Phattso]

Personally, I would not call 911 for property crimes, unless the perpetrators were on the property. 911 is for life and death or accidents, etc.

For property crimes, I would just call the police department and ask their advice or go there to file a report.

[Phattso]

Sure, that must be why US corparations are raking in record profits and paying the lowest taxes in history.

Sociaslists are not in control.

The corporations and rich run every bit of our country for profit.

Wow. MSNBC has you hook, line and sinker. US corporations pay the highest corporate tax in the world. That is why some of the larger corporations went through the inversions. Also, why corporate tax reform is on the agenda soon in Congress.

You are incredibly misinformed.

BTW, what is so wrong with making a profit and providing jobs???

[Brackneyc]

If I was a cop...I wouldn't risk my life to protect your property (no offense brah) for $60k/year (or less).
I would risk my life to save your life and the lives in the city I had chosen to protect...but not for property.

A solution to this whole situation would require diminished freedoms of the people to solve the problems at their roots and I don't see that happening over there.

If they won't question a car with a few tough kids in it, then wtf do we need them for?

The criminals are in charge.

[Chowboy]

If I was a cop...I wouldn't risk my life to protect your property (no offense brah) for $60k/year (or less).
I would risk my life to save your life and the lives in the city I had chosen to protect...but not for property.

A solution to this whole situation would require diminished freedoms of the people to solve the problems at their roots and I don't see that happening over there.

"To protect and serve"....selectively and at their discretion

[NorwichGrad]

Sure, that must be why US corparations are raking in record profits and paying the lowest taxes in history.

Sociaslists are not in control.

The corporations and rich are in control.

You actually believe US corporations pay the lowest taxes?

Socialists are in control, and so are some (some, and not all) too big to fail corporations who made special deals with the government, are in control..

Not all corporations are scum.. Most actually thrived and profited through good old free market enterprise.

Throw the darts at corporations, just make sure you throw the darts at the right ones.

[NorwichGrad]

If I was a cop...I wouldn't risk my life to protect your property (no offense brah) for $60k/year (or less).
I would risk my life to save your life and the lives in the city I had chosen to protect...but not for property.

A solution to this whole situation would require diminished freedoms of the people to solve the problems at their roots and I don't see that happening over there.

AA,

Sometimes I forget you are Canadian, because you know a $hitload more about the American culture and history than most Americans. It just proves that Canada has superior educational system that us down here..

I usually agree with you, but I gotta share with you the reason why properties must be protected.

The reason is individual rights, like we right wingers always preach..

Societies come first before the state. Let's say there are a bunch of people in society, and each has something unique to contribute to society. Material goods and ideas are shared, and eventually society blossoms. As a result of production, wealth is created. So now they have properties. How do these individuals protect their properties? They do so through agreement in a "monopoly of force." Police are created so that there is order within society, so that criminals will be discouraged to steal from others. Militaries are also created through this monopoly of force, so that other countries will not plunder the wealth created within the rich society. In a nutshell, the sole purpose of government is internal and external defense.. That's it..

Properties are the fruit of one's labor, and one's ideas. This is why in the beginning of America, only property owners were allowed to vote, as you are aware. Modern day socialists will say it's because of racism blah, blah, blah.. The reason why only property owner were allowed to vote in the beginning was simply because if they fukk up and put a $hithead in office like most politicians today, property owners had A LOT TO LOSE if they made bad decisions.

This is why life, liberty and pursuit of happiness/ protection of property are such important rights to preserve.. And the beauty of this concept is that it's not only an American thing.. It is a mankind thing.. As you know, the Founders did not declare to England that 'Americans are free.' They declared that MEN (including women, of course) are free. "MEN" meaning all mankind.

It's sad how you as a Canadian, and me as a Naturalized American from a third-world country whose English is only his third tongue, know more than most US-born liberals.

[discdoggie]

I don't know how big our police force in Seattke is, but I'd rather have them deal with life and death situation than deal with stolen purses from cars.
)

We should be able to depend on police for any and all crimes.


I'm getting sick of turning on the television and hearing another civilian or family pet has been killed because an officer "felt threatened."

Don't even get me started on the rapes and sexual assaults.

I have never in my life have felt the need for a firearm. But the way things are going, I'd feel safer having my own gun and protecting myself vs calling law enforcement if an intruder ever broke into my home.

[mcbourque]

I have never in my life have felt the need for a firearm. But the way things are going, I'd feel safer having my own gun and protecting myself vs calling law enforcement if an intruder ever broke into my home.

I hear you there. The last couple of weeks have gotten me really depressed and ramped up.

[NorwichGrad]

We should be able to depend on police for any and all crimes.


I'm getting sick of turning on the television and hearing another civilian or family pet has been killed because an officer "felt threatened."

Don't even get me started on the rapes and sexual assaults.

I have never in my life have felt the need for a firearm. But the way things are going, I'd feel safer having my own gun and protecting myself vs calling law enforcement if an intruder ever broke into my home.

I hear you there. The last couple of weeks have gotten me really depressed and ramped up.

Ladies,

You have the right to self-preservation. Go get a couple of pistols and maybe a carbine.. Learn to protect yourselves and your loved ones. Don't be afraid of guns. They are only tools..

I can see you two fine ladies in this gal's high heels:

[discdoggie]

Ladies,

You have the right to self-preservation. Go get a couple of pistols and maybe a carbine.. Learn to protect yourselves and your loved ones. Don't be afraid of guns. They are only tools..

I can see you two fine ladies in this gal's high heels:

Hahaha.


I've only begun to feel this way lately. I don't anymore trust a cop to protect my family and me and disarm the bad guy.

Anymore they bust in and shoot to kill at anything, including infants and family pets.


If you have a suicidal loved one, do NOT call 911. Apparently a 95 pound teenaged girl with a steak knife pointed at herself makes TWO cops "fear for their lives" and spray her with bullets.

[anonymous]

Definitely true here in the SF east bay, our neighbor was robbed at gunpoint in broad daylight in a CVS parking lot, then pistol whipped by one of the attackers. She got their licence plate even, guess what - the police didn't care.

Too busy generating revenue writing up traffic infraction tickets.

Pro tip - A guaranteed way to get them to come during a burglary or home invasion is to tell the operator that you have a gun. They'll be there as fast as they possibly can, sadly.

Edit - no one is robbing my car when I go out for a grocery run at night with Bubba the rottie sitting in it

[V-240]

It's getting so bad in the town I just moved away from that the police dept created a free app to quickly file police reports for petty crime, vandalism, car break-ins, etc.

They won't come out unless there are shots fired.

[GERMANSAUSAGE]

Insurance hates him

[Requitor]

If I was a cop...I wouldn't risk my life to protect your property (no offense brah) for $60k/year (or less).
I would risk my life to save your life and the lives in the city I had chosen to protect...but not for property.

A solution to this whole situation would require diminished freedoms of the people to solve the problems at their roots and I don't see that happening over there.

AA is correct here. Cops carry guns to protect themselves, not you. The actual job of a police officer is to detain, investigate, and apprehend, not serve and protect. If you were ever mugged, attacked, raped, robbed, or knew someone who was murdered, where were the cops? If you cannot protect yourself or your loved ones don't expect police officers to do it. They try to maintain the peace, there-by allowing a society based on the rule of law to function. It is a thankless, hard, very necessary job. I don't like them personally, but I can respect the job they have to do.

[Brackneyc]

AA is correct here. Cops carry guns to protect themselves, not you. The actual job of a police officer is to detain, investigate, and apprehend, not serve and protect. If you were ever mugged, attacked, raped, robbed, or knew someone who was murdered, where were the cops? If you cannot protect yourself or your loved ones don't expect police officers to do it. They try to maintain the peace, there-by allowing a society based on the rule of law to function. It is a thankless, hard, very necessary job. I don't like them personally, but I can respect the job they have to do.

Am I allowed to defend my loved ones the same way a cop can defend himself?

The answer is no.

[Requitor]

Am I allowed to defend my loved ones the same way a cop can defend himself?

The answer is no.

Well, it's yes, if you mean when a police officer is defending himself from being attacked. But obviously no, if you mean when a police officer is allowed to use deadly force while preforming his duties as an officer. And anyway, use a taser instead of a gun when defending you and yours, no messy deaths and watching them twitch and lose bowel control is one of the funniest things I have ever seen in my life.

[GDPONE]

Well, it's yes, if you mean when a police officer is defending himself from being attacked. But obviously no, if you mean when a police officer is allowed to use deadly force while preforming his duties as an officer. And anyway, use a taser instead of a gun when defending you and yours, no messy deaths and watching them twitch and lose bowel control is one of the funniest things I have ever seen in my life.

**** outta here *******. I will laugh and find it funny when that taser isnt enough to save your life and youre the one with unloaded bowels on the floor.