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Reading this article is honestly a bit of a domestic culture shock for me, where does this guy live in The Netherlands? Here in downtown Amsterdam we called th

by avar 8y ago

Reading this article is honestly a bit of a domestic culture shock for me, where does this guy live in The Netherlands? Here in downtown Amsterdam we called the police because the rear window of someone's car had just been smashed outside our office, and the police's response was "Has anyone been hurt? Nope? Then we're not coming". Meanwhile, wherever this guy lives they're sending officers because some BMW call center calls the police in the middle of the night telling them that some car reported unspecified distress within some radius, and they sent officers to search the whole neighborhood for the car and locate the owner. I guess the next time I need police help I'll use a burner phone and tell them a BMW is in distress.

NightlyDev 8y ago
They didn't search the whole neighborhood. They got a call about a potential accident and ofc checked it out.
Dayshine 8y ago
>because some BMW call center calls the police in the middle of the night telling them that some car reported unspecified distress within some radius Isn't that much more severe than "window smashed"? It's "Burglary in process, or someone might be dying, and you haven't received a 112 so no ambulance is on the way."
- avar 8y ago
  The BMW just reported some ambiguous state of distress, whereas a person calling the police and telling them that some car has had its windows smashed in in downtown is by all reasonable criteria equivalent to a burglary in process. If someone's not stealing from that car now, they will be in 5 minutes.
  - Dayshine 8y ago
    >The BMW just reported some ambiguous state of distress It reported damage to the car severe enough to sever the door frame!!
    - ollie87 8y ago
      Exactly this, not sure what sort of speed of impact you'd have to be in with an F30 3 Series to bend the window frame significantly enough to break that wire, but you'd have to imagine very high.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
stingraycharles 8y ago
You sound frustrated, like you think it’s a bad thing that the police has time to respond to these types of incidents. When you’re not in one of the big cities, it is in fact common that police has time for this type of stuff (I live in Zeist myself and could see this type of thing happening here). I think this is rather a signal that the police in Amsterdam is underfunded, and/or the types of crimes they deal with are much more severe. Also keep in mind that it’s not a “search a whole neighborhood” situation, they got the exact GPS coordinates.
- avar 8y ago
  I think it's great that they have time to do that. I'm happy that somebody in this country has working public services. I'm just honestly surprised. I've only lived in Amsterdam inside The Netherlands and wouldn't expect the police to respond to something like that. > it’s not a “search a whole neighborhood” situation In retrospect I may have misread this: > They gave the police the exact > coordinates of my car and it only > took the surveilling car 5 minutes > to get to the car I thought they had somewhat correct coordinates, but took 5 minutes to drive around the area to locate the car, as opposed to 5 minutes from wherever they were located before. In any case, it doesn't make much difference. I think if someone called the police here in Amsterdam with the exact location of a broken-in car they'd say tough titty and have the owner show up at the closest station and file a police report.
  - ARCarr 8y ago
    Well the call center said it was a break-in or an accident. I'm sure the Amsterdam police would come if it was an accident and someone could have been injured.
    - avar 8y ago
      So all I need to do to get Amsterdam police to care about bicycle theft is to install some sort of ribbon that'll get torn off if the lock gets broken, which'll be indistinguishable from the frame getting broken in half ("an accident"). Hook that all up to a GSM modem and a call center and suddenly my local cops will care about crime.
hellofunk 8y ago
> Here in downtown Amsterdam we called the police because the rear window of someone's car had just been smashed outside our office, and the police's response was "Has anyone been hurt? Nope? Then we're not coming". Amsterdam currently has a big police shortage, that's why. It's not normal, it's just a problem in Amsterdam. https://www.dutchnews.nl/news/2018/07/amsterdam-is-not-lawless-jungle-but-it-does-need-more-police-says-new-mayor/ https://www.dutchnews.nl/news/2018/07/amsterdam-is-not-lawle...
- eecc 8y ago
  What? I though they were bored stiff. Every time anything happens - even the most insignificant accident - you’ll see a flock of police offices taping out the scene, parading numerous vehicles and generally making much ado about nothing :)
  - gerardnll 8y ago
    Well, if you're bored, one of the ways to have fun is to gather up with some friends (other officers) or staying home because you're lazy :P
- lucb1e 8y ago
  > It's not normal, it's just a problem in Amsterdam. Right, the two times we needed police in Limburg (Echt and Maastricht, few years apart) it didn't happen either. It had to be life-threatening and the people didn't literally shout "we'll kill you" so the police wasn't gonna bother. Meanwhile on TV they're cycling through parks to fine people some 99 euros for not having a well-behaved dog on a leash (could have used discretion there), or fining some poor dude 370 euros for standing literally 2 minutes on a disabled spot to pick someone up.
  - Freak_NL 8y ago
    Poor dude? You don't park in a disabled spot unless you have a right to be there. That should be common sense.
Johnny555 8y ago
The message received from the police was: The message they passed on was that there was either a burglary attempt or that my car was involved in an accident. They gave the police the exact coordinates of my car... So I would hope that when presented with an automated report that the car was involved in an accident along with the exact coordinates, that they would come investigate to see if the driver was injured in the accident and unable to call for help. I can believe that if someone witnessed a car break-in, that they'd give that a lower priority and if the thief is no longer there, that they wouldn't come out at all since there's not much they can do about it other than agree "Yup, someone smashed your window, now go clean your glass off the sidewalk".
- donkeyd 8y ago
  > So I would hope that when presented with an automated report that the car was involved in an accident along with the exact coordinates, that they would come investigate to see if the driver was injured in the accident and unable to call for help. Exactly this. Also, I have some family members working for the police in Dutch rural areas, at 3 am they'd happy to head out, because they're usually just waiting for something to happen.
rconti 8y ago
As an American, I'm glad I'm not the only one :) That said, I thought that car theft was all but gone in the US, at least for modern cars, whereas in Europe it still seems common. (Eg, if you follow international forums for newer car models, nobody in the US talks about theft anymore, but our European counterparts talk about these highly complex theft schemes). But then someone was posting about theft in Sacramento, so, I don't know.
- nsnick 8y ago
  I think it is easier to sell vehicles stolen in Europe. All a thief needs to do is drive the vehicle to Eastern Europe and there will be a buyer. Selling a stolen vehicle in the US is a lot more difficult.
  - rconti 8y ago
    Or getting it to Mexico, I suppose.
- avar 8y ago
  There's a huge difference between the US and EU in this regard. If I steal a car in California and try to sell it in Nevada, I can expect to be arrested. If I have a car stolen in The Netherlands and it's being sold in Romania, and I find out who's selling it and where, I'll be told that I have to travel to Romania and file report with the local police there before they'll do anything. The only inter-state enforcement we have in the EU is Interpol, which doesn't care about anything like that, they only handle the likes of violent crime. So it's kind of like expecting to recover your stolen car from Mexico or Belize, except crossing the border is a lot easier.
  - growlist 8y ago
    Interesting because stolen cars are sometimes broken for parts, but perhaps there's no profit in that in US? There was an 'OEM+' car modding craze here a few years back where certain top-end Audis were being targeted solely for their front seats, which would then be fitted to older VWs.
gst 8y ago
Several years ago someone tried to climb into our apartment window in Amsterdam (with another guy waiting with a motorbike as getaway vehicle on the street). He was standing on the windowsill and tried to break open the window (it was open but we had one of those locks that limits how far the window opens, so he didn't fit through the gap). They fled once we noticed them. When we tried to report that incident to the police their first question was: Did they manage to get into the apartment? When we said no they told us there's nothing that they can do as the people who tried to break into our apartment weren't doing anything illegal.
- Chris2048 8y ago
  Standing on someones windowsill isn't illegal?
  - blattimwind 8y ago
    He was just doing isometric exercise. Nothing illegal about exercise.
  - dx034 8y ago
    Probably trespassing but that's no reason to send officers after the event has occurred.
zdragnar 8y ago
The key point isn't the BMW, it's the unspecified distress. Lives could literally be on the line, and a fast response might make a difference.
- Scoundreller 8y ago
  Intelligent design by BMW. Keep it vague, even though it should totally be able to differentiate between a sudden G-force, a button press, or an electrical issue (wire cut), but the car/call centre doesn’t specify the exact causative issue.
  - zdragnar 8y ago
    A simpler explanation is that BMW doesn't want to be legally liable if a car crashes but the special sensor algorithm reports it as a break-in, or vice versa. After all, they're just sensors, and they're still just guessing. Far better for them to report "something is wrong" than to file a false report.
woodman 8y ago
You would be surprised how much effort businesses put into building a relationship with local police, that is a big part of a security director's job. The more people they have on site, or the higher their inventory value, the more they are willing to spend on the local PD. I've seen areas built on company property that are effectively police sub-stations, giving cops a place to do paperwork and take a break, in order to cheaply keep them nearby. I've seen off duty cops hired for show up jobs, just to guarantee timely incident response. I've seen local PDs negotiate a fee schedule... it ain't a bribe if there is a "fee schedule". No, companies aren't doing this in order to break strikes or otherwise oppress employees - there is just a ton of risk when you concentrate hundreds of people in a small place that you're legally responsible for. I have seen some interesting results come out of it though: one holiday night a copper thief got onto the facility roof to plunder the AC units, one call from the off duty officer resulted in the immediate dispatch of a police helicopter and nearly a dozen cruisers. This is from an American perspective, but I'd be surprised if it was different anywhere else in the world.
- jacobush 8y ago
  It is different.
  - woodman 8y ago
    Where, in the Netherlands? I can't think of a way to say this that doesn't sound rude, so I'll just say it: how informed is your opinion? Roughly how big a company are we talking? Have you managed security, or managed security managers? I ask because a long time ago I worked at a multinational that had facilities all over Europe. I'd have remembered if we got pushback from local management on this matter, but then I suppose they always could have been lying about their security programs... there isn't really a good way to audit law enforcement outreach - until something goes wrong.
    - jacobush 8y ago
      In Sweden. I have worked at two of the largest companies, never seen anything like that.
endless1234 8y ago
Why should the police be sent to a smashed window? Not much they can do at that point unless you caught somebody red-handed. "Yup, that window is totally smashed. OK, just file a claim with your insurance company."
- lucb1e 8y ago
  Maybe I read too much about fooling fingerprint readers and think this is easier than it really is, but isn't it easy to check for prints in the car? In the general case, a shattered window means someone stole something and must have touched something in the car. Of course not everyone is in the database, but if they are ever caught with anything they will be.
  - usrusr 8y ago
    I suppose that cross-checking hundreds of possible prints against those of the owner and legitimate passengers would be quite a lot of effort for the slim chance of the burglar not having used gloves...
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
21 8y ago
Don't you read the news? There have recently been articles in the international press that Amsterdam is a jungle right now: > Official ombudsman, Arre Zuurmond told Dutch paper Trouw that "the city centre becomes an urban jungle at night". He added: "Criminal money flourishes, there is no authority and the police can no longer handle the situation." https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/amsterdam-tourists-warned-city-no-13000278 https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/amsterdam-tourists-...
- justin66 8y ago
  That is a British tabloid.
  - 21 8y ago
    Here, have a Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/aug/04/amsterdam-british-tourists-overwhelmed-bad-behaviour https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/aug/04/amsterdam-brit...
  - PuffinBlue 8y ago
    A most damning indictment indeed.
    - stevesimmons 8y ago
      No it is not. I was in Amsterdam last weekend, at the party mentioned at the very end of the article. Thousands of people packed into the square on a Friday evening having fun. Minimal police and security guards present. On the Saturday, hundreds of thousands of people visited Amsterdam to watch the Canal Pride on the Prinsengracht. The police reported minimal disturbances, and arrested a grand total of 25 people, 17 of which were for pickpocketing [1]. That is a substantial reduction on prior years. [1] https://www.politie.nl/nieuws/2018/augustus/6/05-zakkenrollers-minder-actief.html https://www.politie.nl/nieuws/2018/augustus/6/05-zakkenrolle...
      - PuffinBlue 8y ago
MisterTea 8y ago
> The officer I spoke to was unable to tell me which phone number or external call center it was, but that it was, in fact, a call center. The message they passed on was that there was either a burglary attempt or that my car was involved in an accident. That last bit is key: "or that my car was involved in an accident." An accident means people could be hurt which is something the police have to respond to.
Cthulhu_ 8y ago
I know the guy, he lives in Utrecht, west of the A2.
nodesocket 8y ago
> "Has anyone been hurt? Nope? Then we're not coming". Sounds like San Francisco as well. Petty crime and theft go uninvestigated and run rampant.
Scoundreller 8y ago
The BMW customer engineers are smart: perhaps by design, their system doesn’t know if someone is having a heart attack, or a broken window, so they can push the emergency services to respond quickly and find out.
jacquesm 8y ago
I had a camper stolen from in front of my house in about 30 minutes. The police never even bothered to show up and only put an alert out a good 5 hours after the theft, by which time I suspect it was either out of the country or parts in some chop shop's bins. Highly annoying. For all the cameras and tracking going on it is surprisingly ineffective to actually do something about a crime.

by avar 8y ago

NightlyDev 8y ago

They didn't search the whole neighborhood. They got a call about a potential accident and ofc checked it out.

Dayshine 8y ago

>because some BMW call center calls the police in the middle of the night telling them that some car reported unspecified distress within some radius Isn't that much more severe than "window smashed"? It's "Burglary in process, or someone might be dying, and you haven't received a 112 so no ambulance is on the way."

avar 8y ago
The BMW just reported some ambiguous state of distress, whereas a person calling the police and telling them that some car has had its windows smashed in in downtown is by all reasonable criteria equivalent to a burglary in process. If someone's not stealing from that car now, they will be in 5 minutes.
- Dayshine 8y ago
  >The BMW just reported some ambiguous state of distress It reported damage to the car severe enough to sever the door frame!!
  - ollie87 8y ago
    Exactly this, not sure what sort of speed of impact you'd have to be in with an F30 3 Series to bend the window frame significantly enough to break that wire, but you'd have to imagine very high.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

stingraycharles 8y ago

You sound frustrated, like you think it’s a bad thing that the police has time to respond to these types of incidents. When you’re not in one of the big cities, it is in fact common that police has time for this type of stuff (I live in Zeist myself and could see this type of thing happening here). I think this is rather a signal that the police in Amsterdam is underfunded, and/or the types of crimes they deal with are much more severe. Also keep in mind that it’s not a “search a whole neighborhood” situation, they got the exact GPS coordinates.

avar 8y ago
I think it's great that they have time to do that. I'm happy that somebody in this country has working public services. I'm just honestly surprised. I've only lived in Amsterdam inside The Netherlands and wouldn't expect the police to respond to something like that. > it’s not a “search a whole neighborhood” situation In retrospect I may have misread this: > They gave the police the exact > coordinates of my car and it only > took the surveilling car 5 minutes > to get to the car I thought they had somewhat correct coordinates, but took 5 minutes to drive around the area to locate the car, as opposed to 5 minutes from wherever they were located before. In any case, it doesn't make much difference. I think if someone called the police here in Amsterdam with the exact location of a broken-in car they'd say tough titty and have the owner show up at the closest station and file a police report.
- ARCarr 8y ago
  Well the call center said it was a break-in or an accident. I'm sure the Amsterdam police would come if it was an accident and someone could have been injured.
  - avar 8y ago
    So all I need to do to get Amsterdam police to care about bicycle theft is to install some sort of ribbon that'll get torn off if the lock gets broken, which'll be indistinguishable from the frame getting broken in half ("an accident"). Hook that all up to a GSM modem and a call center and suddenly my local cops will care about crime.

hellofunk 8y ago

> Here in downtown Amsterdam we called the police because the rear window of someone's car had just been smashed outside our office, and the police's response was "Has anyone been hurt? Nope? Then we're not coming". Amsterdam currently has a big police shortage, that's why. It's not normal, it's just a problem in Amsterdam. https://www.dutchnews.nl/news/2018/07/amsterdam-is-not-lawless-jungle-but-it-does-need-more-police-says-new-mayor/ https://www.dutchnews.nl/news/2018/07/amsterdam-is-not-lawle...

eecc 8y ago
What? I though they were bored stiff. Every time anything happens - even the most insignificant accident - you’ll see a flock of police offices taping out the scene, parading numerous vehicles and generally making much ado about nothing :)
- gerardnll 8y ago
  Well, if you're bored, one of the ways to have fun is to gather up with some friends (other officers) or staying home because you're lazy :P
lucb1e 8y ago
> It's not normal, it's just a problem in Amsterdam. Right, the two times we needed police in Limburg (Echt and Maastricht, few years apart) it didn't happen either. It had to be life-threatening and the people didn't literally shout "we'll kill you" so the police wasn't gonna bother. Meanwhile on TV they're cycling through parks to fine people some 99 euros for not having a well-behaved dog on a leash (could have used discretion there), or fining some poor dude 370 euros for standing literally 2 minutes on a disabled spot to pick someone up.
- Freak_NL 8y ago
  Poor dude? You don't park in a disabled spot unless you have a right to be there. That should be common sense.

Johnny555 8y ago

The message received from the police was: The message they passed on was that there was either a burglary attempt or that my car was involved in an accident. They gave the police the exact coordinates of my car... So I would hope that when presented with an automated report that the car was involved in an accident along with the exact coordinates, that they would come investigate to see if the driver was injured in the accident and unable to call for help. I can believe that if someone witnessed a car break-in, that they'd give that a lower priority and if the thief is no longer there, that they wouldn't come out at all since there's not much they can do about it other than agree "Yup, someone smashed your window, now go clean your glass off the sidewalk".

donkeyd 8y ago
> So I would hope that when presented with an automated report that the car was involved in an accident along with the exact coordinates, that they would come investigate to see if the driver was injured in the accident and unable to call for help. Exactly this. Also, I have some family members working for the police in Dutch rural areas, at 3 am they'd happy to head out, because they're usually just waiting for something to happen.

rconti 8y ago

As an American, I'm glad I'm not the only one :) That said, I thought that car theft was all but gone in the US, at least for modern cars, whereas in Europe it still seems common. (Eg, if you follow international forums for newer car models, nobody in the US talks about theft anymore, but our European counterparts talk about these highly complex theft schemes). But then someone was posting about theft in Sacramento, so, I don't know.

nsnick 8y ago
I think it is easier to sell vehicles stolen in Europe. All a thief needs to do is drive the vehicle to Eastern Europe and there will be a buyer. Selling a stolen vehicle in the US is a lot more difficult.
- rconti 8y ago
  Or getting it to Mexico, I suppose.
avar 8y ago
There's a huge difference between the US and EU in this regard. If I steal a car in California and try to sell it in Nevada, I can expect to be arrested. If I have a car stolen in The Netherlands and it's being sold in Romania, and I find out who's selling it and where, I'll be told that I have to travel to Romania and file report with the local police there before they'll do anything. The only inter-state enforcement we have in the EU is Interpol, which doesn't care about anything like that, they only handle the likes of violent crime. So it's kind of like expecting to recover your stolen car from Mexico or Belize, except crossing the border is a lot easier.
- growlist 8y ago
  Interesting because stolen cars are sometimes broken for parts, but perhaps there's no profit in that in US? There was an 'OEM+' car modding craze here a few years back where certain top-end Audis were being targeted solely for their front seats, which would then be fitted to older VWs.

gst 8y ago

Several years ago someone tried to climb into our apartment window in Amsterdam (with another guy waiting with a motorbike as getaway vehicle on the street). He was standing on the windowsill and tried to break open the window (it was open but we had one of those locks that limits how far the window opens, so he didn't fit through the gap). They fled once we noticed them. When we tried to report that incident to the police their first question was: Did they manage to get into the apartment? When we said no they told us there's nothing that they can do as the people who tried to break into our apartment weren't doing anything illegal.

Chris2048 8y ago
Standing on someones windowsill isn't illegal?
- blattimwind 8y ago
  He was just doing isometric exercise. Nothing illegal about exercise.
- dx034 8y ago
  Probably trespassing but that's no reason to send officers after the event has occurred.

zdragnar 8y ago

The key point isn't the BMW, it's the unspecified distress. Lives could literally be on the line, and a fast response might make a difference.

Scoundreller 8y ago
Intelligent design by BMW. Keep it vague, even though it should totally be able to differentiate between a sudden G-force, a button press, or an electrical issue (wire cut), but the car/call centre doesn’t specify the exact causative issue.
- zdragnar 8y ago
  A simpler explanation is that BMW doesn't want to be legally liable if a car crashes but the special sensor algorithm reports it as a break-in, or vice versa. After all, they're just sensors, and they're still just guessing. Far better for them to report "something is wrong" than to file a false report.

woodman 8y ago

You would be surprised how much effort businesses put into building a relationship with local police, that is a big part of a security director's job. The more people they have on site, or the higher their inventory value, the more they are willing to spend on the local PD. I've seen areas built on company property that are effectively police sub-stations, giving cops a place to do paperwork and take a break, in order to cheaply keep them nearby. I've seen off duty cops hired for show up jobs, just to guarantee timely incident response. I've seen local PDs negotiate a fee schedule... it ain't a bribe if there is a "fee schedule". No, companies aren't doing this in order to break strikes or otherwise oppress employees - there is just a ton of risk when you concentrate hundreds of people in a small place that you're legally responsible for. I have seen some interesting results come out of it though: one holiday night a copper thief got onto the facility roof to plunder the AC units, one call from the off duty officer resulted in the immediate dispatch of a police helicopter and nearly a dozen cruisers. This is from an American perspective, but I'd be surprised if it was different anywhere else in the world.

jacobush 8y ago
It is different.
- woodman 8y ago
  Where, in the Netherlands? I can't think of a way to say this that doesn't sound rude, so I'll just say it: how informed is your opinion? Roughly how big a company are we talking? Have you managed security, or managed security managers? I ask because a long time ago I worked at a multinational that had facilities all over Europe. I'd have remembered if we got pushback from local management on this matter, but then I suppose they always could have been lying about their security programs... there isn't really a good way to audit law enforcement outreach - until something goes wrong.
  - jacobush 8y ago
    In Sweden. I have worked at two of the largest companies, never seen anything like that.

endless1234 8y ago

Why should the police be sent to a smashed window? Not much they can do at that point unless you caught somebody red-handed. "Yup, that window is totally smashed. OK, just file a claim with your insurance company."

lucb1e 8y ago
Maybe I read too much about fooling fingerprint readers and think this is easier than it really is, but isn't it easy to check for prints in the car? In the general case, a shattered window means someone stole something and must have touched something in the car. Of course not everyone is in the database, but if they are ever caught with anything they will be.
- usrusr 8y ago
  I suppose that cross-checking hundreds of possible prints against those of the owner and legitimate passengers would be quite a lot of effort for the slim chance of the burglar not having used gloves...
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

21 8y ago

Don't you read the news? There have recently been articles in the international press that Amsterdam is a jungle right now: > Official ombudsman, Arre Zuurmond told Dutch paper Trouw that "the city centre becomes an urban jungle at night". He added: "Criminal money flourishes, there is no authority and the police can no longer handle the situation." https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/amsterdam-tourists-warned-city-no-13000278 https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/amsterdam-tourists-...

justin66 8y ago
That is a British tabloid.
- 21 8y ago
  Here, have a Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/aug/04/amsterdam-british-tourists-overwhelmed-bad-behaviour https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/aug/04/amsterdam-brit...
- PuffinBlue 8y ago
  A most damning indictment indeed.
  - stevesimmons 8y ago
    No it is not. I was in Amsterdam last weekend, at the party mentioned at the very end of the article. Thousands of people packed into the square on a Friday evening having fun. Minimal police and security guards present. On the Saturday, hundreds of thousands of people visited Amsterdam to watch the Canal Pride on the Prinsengracht. The police reported minimal disturbances, and arrested a grand total of 25 people, 17 of which were for pickpocketing [1]. That is a substantial reduction on prior years. [1] https://www.politie.nl/nieuws/2018/augustus/6/05-zakkenrollers-minder-actief.html https://www.politie.nl/nieuws/2018/augustus/6/05-zakkenrolle...
    - PuffinBlue 8y ago

MisterTea 8y ago

> The officer I spoke to was unable to tell me which phone number or external call center it was, but that it was, in fact, a call center. The message they passed on was that there was either a burglary attempt or that my car was involved in an accident. That last bit is key: "or that my car was involved in an accident." An accident means people could be hurt which is something the police have to respond to.

Cthulhu_ 8y ago

I know the guy, he lives in Utrecht, west of the A2.

nodesocket 8y ago

> "Has anyone been hurt? Nope? Then we're not coming". Sounds like San Francisco as well. Petty crime and theft go uninvestigated and run rampant.

Scoundreller 8y ago

The BMW customer engineers are smart: perhaps by design, their system doesn’t know if someone is having a heart attack, or a broken window, so they can push the emergency services to respond quickly and find out.

jacquesm 8y ago

I had a camper stolen from in front of my house in about 30 minutes. The police never even bothered to show up and only put an alert out a good 5 hours after the theft, by which time I suspect it was either out of the country or parts in some chop shop's bins. Highly annoying. For all the cameras and tracking going on it is surprisingly ineffective to actually do something about a crime.