5 ms·

This stuff really was straight out of a cartoon: "Inside was a note ordering them to stuff two freezer bags with money and deposit them in a grit box—a kind of

This stuff really was straight out of a cartoon: "Inside was a note ordering them to stuff two freezer bags with money and deposit them in a grit box—a kind of bin filled with sand for de-icing roads—in Britz, a section of Berlin...At 11:07 P.M., though no one had come to the box, the motion detector squealed. When the officers opened the box, they found a gaping hole that fell deep into the sewers below. Funke had built an exact replica of a city grit box and placed it over a manhole cover, then opened the cover to retrieve the package." Reading the article, I can't help thinking what a different era it's from. The guy extorted money from department stores with bombs for years, engaged in all kinds of Pink Panther shenanigans, and when he was finally caught he got 9 years, a work release, and the career in cartooning he'd always wanted. Nowadays in the US he'd probably be shot dead within a month, or barring that end up locked away for life. There's very little sense of proportionality left in the justice system these days for those who wrong the rich.

andi999 5y ago
The era is not different. Today probably he would also only get 9 years in Germany.
- OakNinja 5y ago
  Same in Sweden.
- froh 5y ago
  different approaches to resocialisation and reduction of crime rate? I don't fully understand the real goals of the US system. very recent discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27205726 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27205726
  - bobthepanda 5y ago
    The real goals are to satisfy the belief systems of those who subscribe to “fire and brimstone”, where criminals are sinners who must be punished. It’s (sometimes) less religious in nature these days but the undercurrent has always been in the US since pre-colonial times.
    - josefx 5y ago
      It is closer to old testament style punishment in a country that pretends to be largely christian. Do they even know about that Jesus guy and the books written about him (new testament)? The amount of corruption, sheriffs getting to pocket the money for prison food, judges getting kickbacks for convictions, guaranteed prison quotas, exceptions from slavery laws, etc. don't help either.
      - TeMPOraL 5y ago
        It's way past Old Testament, and closer to the scary stories Israelites were told about what their neighboring nations are doing. Laws given/described in Old Testament were harsh, but there was a sense of proportionality in them.
        paulryanrogers 5y ago
        Take care not to romanticize the Old Testament or its laws. Plenty of genocide and wives-of-jealous-husbands-must-drink-dusty-water misogyny in there. IME the excuses made for it and cherry picking from it have only reinforced bad habits. Stuff like appeal to authority, survivorship bias, and trusting intuition over data.
    - jquery 5y ago
      Penalties in Japan and China are often worse despite no tradition of fire and brimstone. Feels like you’re just taking your own personal biases and stretching them to explain complex phenomena.
      - bobthepanda 5y ago
        Neither incarcerates anywhere near as large a proportion of their population. The US jails 631 per 100,000 compared to 121 in China and 38 in Japan. There are certainly other factors, like the presence of a large group of “othered” people with less opportunity, but there is no doubt a vengeance streak running through the American conversation on criminal punishment. > According to official ballot materials promoting the original Three Strikes law, the sentencing scheme was intended to “keep murderers, rapists, and child molesters behind bars, where they belong.” However, today, more than half of inmates sentenced under the law are serving sentences for nonviolent crimes. https://law.stanford.edu/three-strikes-project/three-strikes-basics/ https://law.stanford.edu/three-strikes-project/three-strikes...
  - djhonovak 5y ago
    >> I don't fully understand the real goals of the US system Cheap labour. The 13 amendment of the U.S. constitution prohibits slavery, except as a punishment from crime. Prison labour is a multi-billion dollar industry.
- Clewza313 5y ago
  But if he tried to pull the same tricks today, thanks to omnipresent CCTV he would be caught much faster. On the other hand, if he did the cash drops with Bitcoin instead, it would be much harder to catch him -- but there wouldn't be any Gyro Gearloose devices, so we'd never heard about it either.
  - arrrg 5y ago
    Surveillance cameras, especially overlooking public spaces, aren’t that common in Germany. Probably more common than they were thirty years ago but also not a constant presence. Any kind of private person or company cannot install cameras looking into public spaces at all (and yes, that includes Ring doorbells that can see the street or even just part of the sidewalk). While many of those illegal uses might fly under the radar the general ban of those uses also means that they are relatively rare and not something just anyone would do. Public institutions can install cameras seeing public spaces but they are limited by law (there needs to be a valid obvious reason for the camera to be there and the use needs to be proportionate), so blanket complete coverage of public spaces is just not happening (yeah, public institutions can probably find a bullshit excuse for any place but the culture these laws create mean that cameras are just used a lot less). Cameras in general are where you would expect them to be (e.g. around high profile government buildings), not in some random street somewhere.
    - tzekid 5y ago
      You need to visit Frankfurt. Here are CCTV cams all around public spaces and they installed even more cameras in the past two years or so...
  - st_goliath 5y ago
    > On the other hand, if he did the cash drops with Bitcoin instead, ... Actually, the most recent episode of "Aktenzeichen XY ... ungelöst"[0] (a German TV show that is basically the same as "Crimewatch" or "America's Most Wanted", but predating both of them) mentioned such a case [1]. Some guy in Berlin sent bombs via mail back in 2017/2018 and demanded a ransom paid in Bitcoin. They didn't explain the details, but apparently police did trace a transaction to that wallet back to some Bitcoin vending machine and got a nice picture from there. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aktenzeichen_XY_…_ungelöst https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aktenzeichen_XY_…_ungelöst [1] https://wikixy.de/Sendung_vom_12.05.2021#Die_Studiof.C3.A4lle_der_Sendung https://wikixy.de/Sendung_vom_12.05.2021#Die_Studiof.C3.A4ll...
why55 5y ago
Here is one recent one who wasn't doing it for profit: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austin_serial_bombings https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austin_serial_bombings he wasn't killed by the police (directly) and he killed some people. The story of Dagobert wouldn't be as amusing if people died, but he did hurt people and caused psychological harm. Real people worked in those stores and other stores like them. The legal system has very little to do with justice, but I have no sympathy for someone placing explosives and hurting people, no matter the remorse.
- crumpled 5y ago
  I respect your moral stance. It's hard to compare the serial bombings in your link to the Dagoberto ones. The Austin ones all seem to be attempted murders, not extortion of large companies. I suppose that could mean the Austin bomber should actually be more likely to be killed by police. But, another big difference is that the Austin bomber wasn't humiliating the police the way Dagobert was. Hard to speculate how it would go down, but I doubt the police would blast down a high profile suspect. The higher your profile, the more professional and high ranking your adversaries are going to be.
- spoonjim 5y ago
  That’s a violent murderer, not a good comparison. Colton Harris Moore may be a better analogue: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colton_Harris_Moore https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colton_Harris_Moore
marsven_422 5y ago
No, if you bomb the White House you get to be the leader of BLM.
st_goliath 5y ago
> This stuff really was straight out of a cartoon: > ... > ...motion detector squealed. When the officers opened the box, they found a gaping hole... That line immediately had me thinking of the movie "Speed", but funny enough, this story actually pre-dates the movie by roughly 2 years. But it does make me wonder if they had the same source of inspiration.
- jihadjihad 5y ago
  I was thinking of that exact sequence in Speed as I read the article. I guess instead of a frustrated artist, Dennis Hopper's character was a frustrated ex-cop, so it kind of fits.

andi999 5y ago

The era is not different. Today probably he would also only get 9 years in Germany.

OakNinja 5y ago
Same in Sweden.
froh 5y ago
different approaches to resocialisation and reduction of crime rate? I don't fully understand the real goals of the US system. very recent discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27205726 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27205726
- bobthepanda 5y ago
  The real goals are to satisfy the belief systems of those who subscribe to “fire and brimstone”, where criminals are sinners who must be punished. It’s (sometimes) less religious in nature these days but the undercurrent has always been in the US since pre-colonial times.
  - josefx 5y ago
    It is closer to old testament style punishment in a country that pretends to be largely christian. Do they even know about that Jesus guy and the books written about him (new testament)? The amount of corruption, sheriffs getting to pocket the money for prison food, judges getting kickbacks for convictions, guaranteed prison quotas, exceptions from slavery laws, etc. don't help either.
    - TeMPOraL 5y ago
      It's way past Old Testament, and closer to the scary stories Israelites were told about what their neighboring nations are doing. Laws given/described in Old Testament were harsh, but there was a sense of proportionality in them.
      - paulryanrogers 5y ago
        Take care not to romanticize the Old Testament or its laws. Plenty of genocide and wives-of-jealous-husbands-must-drink-dusty-water misogyny in there. IME the excuses made for it and cherry picking from it have only reinforced bad habits. Stuff like appeal to authority, survivorship bias, and trusting intuition over data.
  - jquery 5y ago
    Penalties in Japan and China are often worse despite no tradition of fire and brimstone. Feels like you’re just taking your own personal biases and stretching them to explain complex phenomena.
    - bobthepanda 5y ago
      Neither incarcerates anywhere near as large a proportion of their population. The US jails 631 per 100,000 compared to 121 in China and 38 in Japan. There are certainly other factors, like the presence of a large group of “othered” people with less opportunity, but there is no doubt a vengeance streak running through the American conversation on criminal punishment. > According to official ballot materials promoting the original Three Strikes law, the sentencing scheme was intended to “keep murderers, rapists, and child molesters behind bars, where they belong.” However, today, more than half of inmates sentenced under the law are serving sentences for nonviolent crimes. https://law.stanford.edu/three-strikes-project/three-strikes-basics/ https://law.stanford.edu/three-strikes-project/three-strikes...
- djhonovak 5y ago
  >> I don't fully understand the real goals of the US system Cheap labour. The 13 amendment of the U.S. constitution prohibits slavery, except as a punishment from crime. Prison labour is a multi-billion dollar industry.
Clewza313 5y ago
But if he tried to pull the same tricks today, thanks to omnipresent CCTV he would be caught much faster. On the other hand, if he did the cash drops with Bitcoin instead, it would be much harder to catch him -- but there wouldn't be any Gyro Gearloose devices, so we'd never heard about it either.
- arrrg 5y ago
  Surveillance cameras, especially overlooking public spaces, aren’t that common in Germany. Probably more common than they were thirty years ago but also not a constant presence. Any kind of private person or company cannot install cameras looking into public spaces at all (and yes, that includes Ring doorbells that can see the street or even just part of the sidewalk). While many of those illegal uses might fly under the radar the general ban of those uses also means that they are relatively rare and not something just anyone would do. Public institutions can install cameras seeing public spaces but they are limited by law (there needs to be a valid obvious reason for the camera to be there and the use needs to be proportionate), so blanket complete coverage of public spaces is just not happening (yeah, public institutions can probably find a bullshit excuse for any place but the culture these laws create mean that cameras are just used a lot less). Cameras in general are where you would expect them to be (e.g. around high profile government buildings), not in some random street somewhere.
  - tzekid 5y ago
    You need to visit Frankfurt. Here are CCTV cams all around public spaces and they installed even more cameras in the past two years or so...
- st_goliath 5y ago
  > On the other hand, if he did the cash drops with Bitcoin instead, ... Actually, the most recent episode of "Aktenzeichen XY ... ungelöst"[0] (a German TV show that is basically the same as "Crimewatch" or "America's Most Wanted", but predating both of them) mentioned such a case [1]. Some guy in Berlin sent bombs via mail back in 2017/2018 and demanded a ransom paid in Bitcoin. They didn't explain the details, but apparently police did trace a transaction to that wallet back to some Bitcoin vending machine and got a nice picture from there. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aktenzeichen_XY_…_ungelöst https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aktenzeichen_XY_…_ungelöst [1] https://wikixy.de/Sendung_vom_12.05.2021#Die_Studiof.C3.A4lle_der_Sendung https://wikixy.de/Sendung_vom_12.05.2021#Die_Studiof.C3.A4ll...

why55 5y ago

Here is one recent one who wasn't doing it for profit: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austin_serial_bombings https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austin_serial_bombings he wasn't killed by the police (directly) and he killed some people. The story of Dagobert wouldn't be as amusing if people died, but he did hurt people and caused psychological harm. Real people worked in those stores and other stores like them. The legal system has very little to do with justice, but I have no sympathy for someone placing explosives and hurting people, no matter the remorse.

crumpled 5y ago
I respect your moral stance. It's hard to compare the serial bombings in your link to the Dagoberto ones. The Austin ones all seem to be attempted murders, not extortion of large companies. I suppose that could mean the Austin bomber should actually be more likely to be killed by police. But, another big difference is that the Austin bomber wasn't humiliating the police the way Dagobert was. Hard to speculate how it would go down, but I doubt the police would blast down a high profile suspect. The higher your profile, the more professional and high ranking your adversaries are going to be.
spoonjim 5y ago
That’s a violent murderer, not a good comparison. Colton Harris Moore may be a better analogue: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colton_Harris_Moore https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colton_Harris_Moore

marsven_422 5y ago

No, if you bomb the White House you get to be the leader of BLM.

st_goliath 5y ago

> This stuff really was straight out of a cartoon: > ... > ...motion detector squealed. When the officers opened the box, they found a gaping hole... That line immediately had me thinking of the movie "Speed", but funny enough, this story actually pre-dates the movie by roughly 2 years. But it does make me wonder if they had the same source of inspiration.

jihadjihad 5y ago
I was thinking of that exact sequence in Speed as I read the article. I guess instead of a frustrated artist, Dennis Hopper's character was a frustrated ex-cop, so it kind of fits.