5 ms·

Coincidentally, I was able to return four peoples' IDs and other cards just this afternoon. Yesterday I was walking in East Oakland and found a pile of credit c

by es-hn 7y ago

Coincidentally, I was able to return four peoples' IDs and other cards just this afternoon. Yesterday I was walking in East Oakland and found a pile of credit cards, debit cards, and IDs. Oakland Police Department wouldn't take them so I brought them home and started googling names and addresses. Of the four IDs I found three belonged to adults; the third was a state ID for a minor related to one of the adults. I was able to find a contact number for all three, via relatives, and had reached them all by afternoon. I learned that the person who'd dumped the cards had committed a series of car break-ins in San Jose yesterday morning and had fled to Oakland. They stole purses, laptops, and an iPhone. I wish OPD had taken an interest in the theft or at least in returning the stolen property.

djrogers 7y ago
> wish OPD had taken an interest in the theft Sadly, in California most theft is merely a misdemeanor, and busy PDs do not have time to chase down criminals to give them a ticket.
- bradlys 7y ago
  > Sadly, in California most theft is merely a misdemeanor, and busy PDs do not have time to chase down criminals to give them a ticket. But they sure do like camping out all the time to give people speeding and parking tickets. Priorities!
  - magduf 7y ago
    Why should the OPD bother chasing down purse thieves? How are they going to make money for the city by doing that, when they can go after people for speeding and parking violations instead and make lots of money?
    - PopeDotNinja 7y ago
      Are you being serious? I can't tell.
      - bradlys 7y ago
        I don't know why the guy is getting downvoted. It's a known city for having rather unpleasant police. Most of my friends who live in Oakland have really unpleasant experiences with their officers. https://www.ktvu.com/news/oakland-police-average-30-million-a-year-in-overtime-one-officer-racked-up-nearly-2-5m-in-5-years https://www.ktvu.com/news/oakland-police-average-30-million-... I tell them: At least it's not Vallejo. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/jun/12/willie-mccoy-shooting-vallejo-police-55-shots https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/jun/12/willie-mccoy...
      - magduf 7y ago
        https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/tripping/wp/2018/06/05/lawsuit-shows-how-traffic-tickets-and-other-municipal-fines-may-skew-justice/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/tripping/wp/2018/06/05/l... Fines are how many cities stay solvent. The job of police in America, therefore, is not to keep the peace and provide justice, it's to be tax collectors for the city.
  - superkuh 7y ago
    Speeding tickets make sense. They're putting people's lives in danger by speeding. Driving is the most dangerous thing most people do regularly. Having a set of predictable behaviors saves a lot of lives. People who think that think they're "great drivers" or "everyone else is doing it" violate those norms and create risk.
    - bradlys 7y ago
      > Speeding tickets make sense. They're putting people's lives in danger by speeding. Driving is the most dangerous thing most people do regularly. Having a set of predictable behaviors saves a lot of lives. People who think that think they're "great drivers" or "everyone else is doing it" violate those norms and create risk. Speed at which you drive has very little to do with your predictability. "Oh, no, Betty is driving 5 mph faster than me. I'll never know what she'll do next!" Even if you try to give an example of someone coming up on your left at a 50+mph difference, it's not an issue if you signal and look in your rear view mirror to make sure it's clear. Most people just don't do either.
      - perl4ever 7y ago
        "Even if you try to give an example of someone coming up on your left at a 50+mph difference" 70 mph in a school zone? Not an issue if you just look both ways before crossing the street! Seriously (not that you sound very serious) every morning, I make a left turn out of my development onto a nominally 30 mph road where people go 40-45, and it's impossible to see very far to the left before pulling out. Given normal speeds, it is possible to make the turn before the oncoming car if they are just out of sight. So if anyone is ever going 80 there at the wrong moment, it will be impossible to avoid them and probably lethal to one or both of us.
        bradlys 7y ago
        My example was mainly on a straight road because it's easy to understand. It applies to curvy roads where you won't see ahead too though. As someone driving, you should never drive faster than what you can see ahead and be able to stop in time. I kind of imagine what I'd like to call a "meteor" incident. Would I be able to stop in time if a meteor randomly crashed just outside of my vision ahead in a turn? If not - probably going too fast. (It's not uncommon to meet a "meteor" in the form of a car) One could call that "speeding" but that's not what it is colloquially. (Speeding to most is going 1+mph over the posted limit) If the visibility is good, there's nothing wrong with going faster. Aggressive speed limits make more sense to be followed when there's very limited visibility, high chance of stops, people crossing the road, intersections, etc. But if visibility is good, I don't see it making a difference much in what speed you're going.
- sjf 7y ago
  I've reported felony theft twice in Oakland and never even got a response from OPD.
droithomme 7y ago
> I wish OPD had taken an interest in the theft Been there, in a different city, a few times. Police are somehow in collusion with the crime syndicate. Don't trust police. Ever. All police are corrupt and can not be trusted. Are there exceptions? Only to the extent they don't actively commit crimes but stay silent and refuse to go against their criminal "brothers in blue". Which makes them complicit as well. As I just said, all police are corrupt. Including anyone replying to this to tell me they are the one exception.
- magduf 7y ago
  You mean "American police". Don't lump all police worldwide in with them.
  - droithomme 7y ago
    The context is American police. Difference between American and foreign police is American police will shoot you for sport. Foreign police just want a bribe.
  - jki275 7y ago
    No, that applies pretty much everywhere except Japan.
- dang 7y ago
  "Eschew flamebait. Don't introduce flamewar topics unless you have something genuinely new to say. Avoid unrelated controversies and generic tangents." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
es-hn 7y ago
Update for anyone who's interested: After OPD refused the IDs/cards I contacted a handful of local news outlets and explained the situation. One of them, ABC 7, began reaching out, possibly incessantly, to the media relations office at OPD. By 4:30 PM today I had a text from one of the ABC 7 producers telling me the OPD media relations officer wanted to get in touch and including her desk phone number. When I spoke with her she apologized, acknowledged that procedure had not been followed, and told me they were in touch with SJPD regarding the break-ins. She also told me she would follow up with OPD leadership. Not sure how applicable this strategy would be in other communities/countries but it appears to have worked for me. I'll also note that I reached out to the mayor's office before contacting news orgs and got no response.
- tripzilch 7y ago
  Sounds like the same strategy you need for when your Google account gets banned.

by es-hn 7y ago

djrogers 7y ago

> wish OPD had taken an interest in the theft Sadly, in California most theft is merely a misdemeanor, and busy PDs do not have time to chase down criminals to give them a ticket.

bradlys 7y ago
> Sadly, in California most theft is merely a misdemeanor, and busy PDs do not have time to chase down criminals to give them a ticket. But they sure do like camping out all the time to give people speeding and parking tickets. Priorities!
- magduf 7y ago
  Why should the OPD bother chasing down purse thieves? How are they going to make money for the city by doing that, when they can go after people for speeding and parking violations instead and make lots of money?
  - PopeDotNinja 7y ago
    Are you being serious? I can't tell.
    - bradlys 7y ago
      I don't know why the guy is getting downvoted. It's a known city for having rather unpleasant police. Most of my friends who live in Oakland have really unpleasant experiences with their officers. https://www.ktvu.com/news/oakland-police-average-30-million-a-year-in-overtime-one-officer-racked-up-nearly-2-5m-in-5-years https://www.ktvu.com/news/oakland-police-average-30-million-... I tell them: At least it's not Vallejo. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/jun/12/willie-mccoy-shooting-vallejo-police-55-shots https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/jun/12/willie-mccoy...
    - magduf 7y ago
      https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/tripping/wp/2018/06/05/lawsuit-shows-how-traffic-tickets-and-other-municipal-fines-may-skew-justice/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/tripping/wp/2018/06/05/l... Fines are how many cities stay solvent. The job of police in America, therefore, is not to keep the peace and provide justice, it's to be tax collectors for the city.
- superkuh 7y ago
  Speeding tickets make sense. They're putting people's lives in danger by speeding. Driving is the most dangerous thing most people do regularly. Having a set of predictable behaviors saves a lot of lives. People who think that think they're "great drivers" or "everyone else is doing it" violate those norms and create risk.
  - bradlys 7y ago
    > Speeding tickets make sense. They're putting people's lives in danger by speeding. Driving is the most dangerous thing most people do regularly. Having a set of predictable behaviors saves a lot of lives. People who think that think they're "great drivers" or "everyone else is doing it" violate those norms and create risk. Speed at which you drive has very little to do with your predictability. "Oh, no, Betty is driving 5 mph faster than me. I'll never know what she'll do next!" Even if you try to give an example of someone coming up on your left at a 50+mph difference, it's not an issue if you signal and look in your rear view mirror to make sure it's clear. Most people just don't do either.
    - perl4ever 7y ago
      "Even if you try to give an example of someone coming up on your left at a 50+mph difference" 70 mph in a school zone? Not an issue if you just look both ways before crossing the street! Seriously (not that you sound very serious) every morning, I make a left turn out of my development onto a nominally 30 mph road where people go 40-45, and it's impossible to see very far to the left before pulling out. Given normal speeds, it is possible to make the turn before the oncoming car if they are just out of sight. So if anyone is ever going 80 there at the wrong moment, it will be impossible to avoid them and probably lethal to one or both of us.
      - bradlys 7y ago
        My example was mainly on a straight road because it's easy to understand. It applies to curvy roads where you won't see ahead too though. As someone driving, you should never drive faster than what you can see ahead and be able to stop in time. I kind of imagine what I'd like to call a "meteor" incident. Would I be able to stop in time if a meteor randomly crashed just outside of my vision ahead in a turn? If not - probably going too fast. (It's not uncommon to meet a "meteor" in the form of a car) One could call that "speeding" but that's not what it is colloquially. (Speeding to most is going 1+mph over the posted limit) If the visibility is good, there's nothing wrong with going faster. Aggressive speed limits make more sense to be followed when there's very limited visibility, high chance of stops, people crossing the road, intersections, etc. But if visibility is good, I don't see it making a difference much in what speed you're going.
sjf 7y ago
I've reported felony theft twice in Oakland and never even got a response from OPD.

droithomme 7y ago

> I wish OPD had taken an interest in the theft Been there, in a different city, a few times. Police are somehow in collusion with the crime syndicate. Don't trust police. Ever. All police are corrupt and can not be trusted. Are there exceptions? Only to the extent they don't actively commit crimes but stay silent and refuse to go against their criminal "brothers in blue". Which makes them complicit as well. As I just said, all police are corrupt. Including anyone replying to this to tell me they are the one exception.

magduf 7y ago
You mean "American police". Don't lump all police worldwide in with them.
- droithomme 7y ago
  The context is American police. Difference between American and foreign police is American police will shoot you for sport. Foreign police just want a bribe.
- jki275 7y ago
  No, that applies pretty much everywhere except Japan.
dang 7y ago
"Eschew flamebait. Don't introduce flamewar topics unless you have something genuinely new to say. Avoid unrelated controversies and generic tangents." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

es-hn 7y ago

Update for anyone who's interested: After OPD refused the IDs/cards I contacted a handful of local news outlets and explained the situation. One of them, ABC 7, began reaching out, possibly incessantly, to the media relations office at OPD. By 4:30 PM today I had a text from one of the ABC 7 producers telling me the OPD media relations officer wanted to get in touch and including her desk phone number. When I spoke with her she apologized, acknowledged that procedure had not been followed, and told me they were in touch with SJPD regarding the break-ins. She also told me she would follow up with OPD leadership. Not sure how applicable this strategy would be in other communities/countries but it appears to have worked for me. I'll also note that I reached out to the mayor's office before contacting news orgs and got no response.

tripzilch 7y ago
Sounds like the same strategy you need for when your Google account gets banned.