9 ms·

There is significant room for private policing in this space. This past Saturday I went for my run at approximately 9:45AM, on my run I got a text from my bank

There is significant room for private policing in this space. This past Saturday I went for my run at approximately 9:45AM, on my run I got a text from my bank of suspicious activity on both my credit and debit card for a total of $1,000. When I got back to my car it all made sense as my passenger window was smashed and my “run bag” with my keys and wallet stolen. By the time I the cops got there for the report, I spoke to the bank located the time/store (footlocker) the cards were used, I had spoken with the store manager and confirmed 2 men used multiple cards that were declined and confirmed the store had video but the request must be made through HQ. The cops dont follow up on this and request the video and footlocker won’t give it to me. I know I could go to the store and grease the wheel to get a copy of the video (which I may do). It’s so crazy because no one care more than the victim of crimes to see the criminals face justice, and the technology is in place for things like stolen credit cards or stolen phones but then corporate America gets in the way. I’d love to have a public platform where victims of crimes could force corporations to playall and publish the facts of these cases and crowdsource the identity of the criminals. Any advice?

fixermark 8y ago
> I’d love to have a public platform where victims of crimes could force corporations to playall and publish the facts of these cases and crowdsource the identity of the criminals. Any advice? I believe you're thinking of the "discovery" phase of a lawsuit.
dragonwriter 8y ago
> I’d love to have a public platform where victims of crimes could force corporations to playall and publish the facts of these cases and crowdsource the identity of the criminals. Any advice? Well, it's not exactly crowdsourcing, but the “private injured parties force corporations (or anyone else) to play ball and provide factual evidence related to the identity of wrongdoers” facility exists, and is called “the civil courts”. File a John Doe lawsuit. Identify the entity in possession of evidence useful for identifying the actual perpetrator and issue a subpoena to that party for the evidence. (You might recognize this from how media companies go after copyright pirates with IP information, but the same can be done for other civil offenses, too.) You can also publish, in any medium, a request for people to voluntarily provide information for the crowdsourcing part; I'm not sure a special platform helps since you then depend on the informants not only being willing to provide info but being reachable via a dedicated purpose-specific platform, and who is going to do that in advance?
- will_brown 8y ago
  Well I did serve Footlocker notice under Florida Civil Statute to preserve the video and confirmed with the store manager the video exists and the events occurred at that store location. Before I spend a few hundred dollars more on filing a civil suit just to serve discovery on footlocker, I’d go straight to the store and pay the manager to make me a copy (save myself time and money). Either way filing a civil suit or paying of a store manager is not efficient and it’s costly. At the end of the day you are telling a criminal victim the answer is in the civil courts...which is wrong. I understand police resources, but I did the investigation for them, someone from their department just needs to send an informal email requesting the video, but they won’t. That is a problem. Say I get the video and even identify the individuals, I can give that to the police too but they don’t have to do anything with it. What then, amend the civil complaint from John Doe to said persons and get a default judgment I’ll never collect on? Rather each have a record for felony grand theft and credit card fraud and get my restitution judgment right from the criminal court.
  - dragonwriter 8y ago
    > Before I spend a few hundred dollars more on filing a civil suit just to serve discovery on footlocker, I’d go straight to the store and pay the manager to make me a copy (save myself time and money). The manager may be prohibited by policy from taking money for that purpose, and it's not exactly going to remain a secret, so the cost may not be a savings if the manager sets the bribe at a level sufficient to adequste cover his risk. But, sure, you can do that. > Say I get the video and even identify the individuals, I can give that to the police too but they don’t have to do anything with it. Correct. > What then, amend the civil complaint from John Doe to said persons Yes, that's rather the point of a John Doe suit. > and get a default judgment I’ll never collect on? Well, if you assume the defendants both won't show up and are completely judgement proof, sure, those are both potential outcomes. > Rather each have a record for felony grand theft and credit card fraud and get my restitution judgment right from the criminal court. Sure, we'd all prefer a public subsidy of litigation costs, but public law enforcement doesn't have infinite resources, so not every loss, even where a crime is involved, is going to have public resources expended on it. And you still have the same issues collecting on a restitution judgment as any other judgement, and a criminal conviction and potential incarceration of the defendant isn't going to make it more likely you'll ever be able to collect anything from them.
mrbombastic 8y ago
It sucks that criminals get away with this crap all the time and I am sorry that happened to you but do you really think releasing videos of alleged criminals to the public is a good idea? https://www.businessinsider.com/reddit-falsely-accuses-sunil-tripathi-of-boston-bombing-2013-7 https://www.businessinsider.com/reddit-falsely-accuses-sunil...
- will_brown 8y ago
  Well “alleged” is the right term but obviously there is a difference between crowdsourcing video in an attempt to find the individual(s) who placed the bombs at the Boston marathon and footlockers cctv video of two men attempting to make purchases using my credit card/debit card. Never mind the story you linked, because I don’t think it is directly applicable to these facts, but what makes releasing such video of men using my stolen credit/debit cards a bad idea?
ant_li0n 8y ago
So this is just anecdotal, but here's my 'running and car broken into story': I parked next to a busy dog park and went for my run. Came back to broken window. There was a lady there who took pictures of the perpetrators and their license plate. I filed a report with the police. Guess what the police did. That's right! Absolutely nothing. Not even swing by the people's house and ask for my shit back (I was cool with paying for the broken window, even). The idea that this kind of surveillance will be used for your benefit is simply wrong, in my opinion. It's a weapon. How does that NWA song go? The one about the police?
- dragonwriter 8y ago
  The police serve the state, whose interests may or may not coincide with the individual citizen; they don't exist to make you whole when you've lost something to wrongful acts, though they may sometimes help with that incidentally; that's primarily the role of the civil courts and private litigation.
  - ant_li0n 8y ago
    I call bullshit. This is simply a case of the police not doing their job. I filed a police report. Gave them all the necessary information they need to do their f'ing job. And it wasn't like I was talking to a homicide cop, trying to get them to investigate my car burglary. I literally spoke to the detective in charge of this sort of thing. How am I supposed to find out the people who I should take to court? I do not have access to the license plate database. I suppose I could take the city to court for... something... but we know how far that will go. That's all a moot point, though. My stuff was pawned/traded/fenced/whatever a few days after it was stolen, max. It's not like I can go through a long litigious process to retrieve the ~$500 in stuff that was taken from me.
  - CamperBob2 8y ago
    Then why am I paying their salaries?
    - dragonwriter 8y ago
Spooky23 8y ago
The cops don’t care because it’s a lot of work with little or no outcome. I had a guy steal deliveries over a period of months and was able to get the video on the TV news. The cops were awesome — they caught him and plead it to petty larceny with a $150 fine. I probably spent more money on vacation time to talk to the cops, parole officer, DA, etc.

fixermark 8y ago

dragonwriter 8y ago

> I’d love to have a public platform where victims of crimes could force corporations to playall and publish the facts of these cases and crowdsource the identity of the criminals. Any advice? Well, it's not exactly crowdsourcing, but the “private injured parties force corporations (or anyone else) to play ball and provide factual evidence related to the identity of wrongdoers” facility exists, and is called “the civil courts”. File a John Doe lawsuit. Identify the entity in possession of evidence useful for identifying the actual perpetrator and issue a subpoena to that party for the evidence. (You might recognize this from how media companies go after copyright pirates with IP information, but the same can be done for other civil offenses, too.) You can also publish, in any medium, a request for people to voluntarily provide information for the crowdsourcing part; I'm not sure a special platform helps since you then depend on the informants not only being willing to provide info but being reachable via a dedicated purpose-specific platform, and who is going to do that in advance?

will_brown 8y ago
Well I did serve Footlocker notice under Florida Civil Statute to preserve the video and confirmed with the store manager the video exists and the events occurred at that store location. Before I spend a few hundred dollars more on filing a civil suit just to serve discovery on footlocker, I’d go straight to the store and pay the manager to make me a copy (save myself time and money). Either way filing a civil suit or paying of a store manager is not efficient and it’s costly. At the end of the day you are telling a criminal victim the answer is in the civil courts...which is wrong. I understand police resources, but I did the investigation for them, someone from their department just needs to send an informal email requesting the video, but they won’t. That is a problem. Say I get the video and even identify the individuals, I can give that to the police too but they don’t have to do anything with it. What then, amend the civil complaint from John Doe to said persons and get a default judgment I’ll never collect on? Rather each have a record for felony grand theft and credit card fraud and get my restitution judgment right from the criminal court.
- dragonwriter 8y ago
  > Before I spend a few hundred dollars more on filing a civil suit just to serve discovery on footlocker, I’d go straight to the store and pay the manager to make me a copy (save myself time and money). The manager may be prohibited by policy from taking money for that purpose, and it's not exactly going to remain a secret, so the cost may not be a savings if the manager sets the bribe at a level sufficient to adequste cover his risk. But, sure, you can do that. > Say I get the video and even identify the individuals, I can give that to the police too but they don’t have to do anything with it. Correct. > What then, amend the civil complaint from John Doe to said persons Yes, that's rather the point of a John Doe suit. > and get a default judgment I’ll never collect on? Well, if you assume the defendants both won't show up and are completely judgement proof, sure, those are both potential outcomes. > Rather each have a record for felony grand theft and credit card fraud and get my restitution judgment right from the criminal court. Sure, we'd all prefer a public subsidy of litigation costs, but public law enforcement doesn't have infinite resources, so not every loss, even where a crime is involved, is going to have public resources expended on it. And you still have the same issues collecting on a restitution judgment as any other judgement, and a criminal conviction and potential incarceration of the defendant isn't going to make it more likely you'll ever be able to collect anything from them.

mrbombastic 8y ago

It sucks that criminals get away with this crap all the time and I am sorry that happened to you but do you really think releasing videos of alleged criminals to the public is a good idea? https://www.businessinsider.com/reddit-falsely-accuses-sunil-tripathi-of-boston-bombing-2013-7 https://www.businessinsider.com/reddit-falsely-accuses-sunil...

will_brown 8y ago
Well “alleged” is the right term but obviously there is a difference between crowdsourcing video in an attempt to find the individual(s) who placed the bombs at the Boston marathon and footlockers cctv video of two men attempting to make purchases using my credit card/debit card. Never mind the story you linked, because I don’t think it is directly applicable to these facts, but what makes releasing such video of men using my stolen credit/debit cards a bad idea?

ant_li0n 8y ago

So this is just anecdotal, but here's my 'running and car broken into story': I parked next to a busy dog park and went for my run. Came back to broken window. There was a lady there who took pictures of the perpetrators and their license plate. I filed a report with the police. Guess what the police did. That's right! Absolutely nothing. Not even swing by the people's house and ask for my shit back (I was cool with paying for the broken window, even). The idea that this kind of surveillance will be used for your benefit is simply wrong, in my opinion. It's a weapon. How does that NWA song go? The one about the police?

dragonwriter 8y ago
The police serve the state, whose interests may or may not coincide with the individual citizen; they don't exist to make you whole when you've lost something to wrongful acts, though they may sometimes help with that incidentally; that's primarily the role of the civil courts and private litigation.
- ant_li0n 8y ago
  I call bullshit. This is simply a case of the police not doing their job. I filed a police report. Gave them all the necessary information they need to do their f'ing job. And it wasn't like I was talking to a homicide cop, trying to get them to investigate my car burglary. I literally spoke to the detective in charge of this sort of thing. How am I supposed to find out the people who I should take to court? I do not have access to the license plate database. I suppose I could take the city to court for... something... but we know how far that will go. That's all a moot point, though. My stuff was pawned/traded/fenced/whatever a few days after it was stolen, max. It's not like I can go through a long litigious process to retrieve the ~$500 in stuff that was taken from me.
- CamperBob2 8y ago
  Then why am I paying their salaries?
  - dragonwriter 8y ago

Spooky23 8y ago

The cops don’t care because it’s a lot of work with little or no outcome. I had a guy steal deliveries over a period of months and was able to get the video on the TV news. The cops were awesome — they caught him and plead it to petty larceny with a $150 fine. I probably spent more money on vacation time to talk to the cops, parole officer, DA, etc.