5 ms·

> I move outside while one cop retrieves the evidence, but the most aggressive employee followed me. He says, “All you’re doing is making enemies.” Gets closer

> I move outside while one cop retrieves the evidence, but the most aggressive employee followed me. He says, “All you’re doing is making enemies.” Gets closer to me, and pantomimes shooting me. He implies I’d get murdered if he sees me again. Police should have arrested this man.

glangdale 5y ago
Seriously. Anyone that worked up about the events is obviously running a fence operation out of the shop. As I commented on the Twitter thread, we used to have tons of break-ins in our area. Miraculously, when they closed down all the pawn shops in the area with a "relaxed" attitude to the provenance of where stuff came from, we saw almost an order of magnitude reduction in b-and-e and theft from vehicle type events. For this type of crime, you can have about as much of it as you're willing to tolerate. And closing down the operations that make it profitable to steal stuff is way simpler than chasing around perps as it's much more centralized.
- dhosek 5y ago
  You're assuming that the cops actually care about solving or preventing crimes. Look how much effort it took to get them to manage what should have been an open and shut case. There have been plenty of similar cases. I have little doubt that one or more police officers are well aware of the nature of the shop and get their own cut of the profits.
  - aerosmile 5y ago
    Occam's razor: 1. The police don't know and don't care. No surprise there. 2. The police do know (holy shit!) and also are directly involved in a criminal operation (holy double shit!).
    - runarberg 5y ago
      Off course they know, they work (and perhaps live) in the neighborhood. They know people that have had stuff stolen from them, they might have had stuff stolen from them them selfs. Now caring, that is another issue.
      - cwilkes 5y ago
        I wouldn’t say “not caring” but rather “there’s 1000 other things to do and the cop doesn’t set their own agenda”
    - dhosek 5y ago
      I've been shaken down by a cop for a bribe. I've had cops threaten me with arrest for photographing them in a 7-Eleven maskless in the middle of the pandemic. I have no trouble believing that there are plenty of cops directly involved in criminal operations. Real life cops aren't like the ones on TV.
  - bradlys 5y ago
    > I have little doubt that one or more police officers are well aware of the nature of the shop and get their own cut of the profits. I'd agree they're aware (and don't do anything for whatever reason) but I disagree your run of mill LEO is getting a cut of profits. If anyone is getting a cut, it's not your regular officers. It's whatever title you want to appoint to the person running the police force.
  - glangdale 5y ago
    I would imagine 'line' police officers are unused to the technological aspects of what's going on and are rewarded/punished for shallow productivity numbers ("arrests per day"). I don't think it's necessary to posit a 'dark movie thriller' thing where cops are on the take - from a freakin' e-bike chop shop ffs. Both Occam's Razor and Hanlon's Razor suggest that the effort involved here is a combination of laziness, unfamiliarity and institutional disincentives. That said, a higher level commander may be judged by area crime stats and frankly those guys have rocks in their heads if they aren't cleaning up the fences. A lot of jurisdictions have pretty strict laws about this sort of place being meant to know where their stock is from. If you've got the will to deal with this stuff, you roll in every few days, ask the same questions and shut the doors when the staff don't have good answers.
s5300 5y ago
>Police should have arrested this man. So, not so long back in the US, there was a car bombing (RV trailer I believe) in... Nashville I think? Was a pretty big explosion. Partner of the person who made and detonated said bomb went to the police some days (weeks?) back and literally tried to tell them "my partner made a bomb and is about to go detonate it at this place" The police, IIRC, brushed it off as a woman being crazy. The police have a history of not arresting or investigating people/things they should be. But they don't, haven't, and won't. At this point, you just have to sit back and laugh at how horribly they botch shit on a regular basis, otherwise you'll probably get quite depressed at the reality.
- derefr 5y ago
  I would be fascinated to see the relative amount of crime that would be solved if police 1. didn't bother to start any independent investigations based on their own suspicions, but instead 2. dedicated 100% of their resources to investigating inbound leads like these.
  - dhosek 5y ago
    Cops don't care about solving or preventing crime.
- joshstrange 5y ago
  If this comment bothers you then I would suggest not googling "cops ignoring serial killers" or similar. There are instances of them handing over victims of serial killers back to the killers themselves. Incompetence doesn't even begin to describe it.
someguydave 5y ago
yes it does seem like the intimidator was guilty of a crime https://newyork.public.law/laws/n.y._penal_law_section_215.15 https://newyork.public.law/laws/n.y._penal_law_section_215.1...

glangdale 5y ago

Seriously. Anyone that worked up about the events is obviously running a fence operation out of the shop. As I commented on the Twitter thread, we used to have tons of break-ins in our area. Miraculously, when they closed down all the pawn shops in the area with a "relaxed" attitude to the provenance of where stuff came from, we saw almost an order of magnitude reduction in b-and-e and theft from vehicle type events. For this type of crime, you can have about as much of it as you're willing to tolerate. And closing down the operations that make it profitable to steal stuff is way simpler than chasing around perps as it's much more centralized.

dhosek 5y ago
You're assuming that the cops actually care about solving or preventing crimes. Look how much effort it took to get them to manage what should have been an open and shut case. There have been plenty of similar cases. I have little doubt that one or more police officers are well aware of the nature of the shop and get their own cut of the profits.
- aerosmile 5y ago
  Occam's razor: 1. The police don't know and don't care. No surprise there. 2. The police do know (holy shit!) and also are directly involved in a criminal operation (holy double shit!).
  - runarberg 5y ago
    Off course they know, they work (and perhaps live) in the neighborhood. They know people that have had stuff stolen from them, they might have had stuff stolen from them them selfs. Now caring, that is another issue.
    - cwilkes 5y ago
      I wouldn’t say “not caring” but rather “there’s 1000 other things to do and the cop doesn’t set their own agenda”
  - dhosek 5y ago
    I've been shaken down by a cop for a bribe. I've had cops threaten me with arrest for photographing them in a 7-Eleven maskless in the middle of the pandemic. I have no trouble believing that there are plenty of cops directly involved in criminal operations. Real life cops aren't like the ones on TV.
- bradlys 5y ago
  > I have little doubt that one or more police officers are well aware of the nature of the shop and get their own cut of the profits. I'd agree they're aware (and don't do anything for whatever reason) but I disagree your run of mill LEO is getting a cut of profits. If anyone is getting a cut, it's not your regular officers. It's whatever title you want to appoint to the person running the police force.
- glangdale 5y ago
  I would imagine 'line' police officers are unused to the technological aspects of what's going on and are rewarded/punished for shallow productivity numbers ("arrests per day"). I don't think it's necessary to posit a 'dark movie thriller' thing where cops are on the take - from a freakin' e-bike chop shop ffs. Both Occam's Razor and Hanlon's Razor suggest that the effort involved here is a combination of laziness, unfamiliarity and institutional disincentives. That said, a higher level commander may be judged by area crime stats and frankly those guys have rocks in their heads if they aren't cleaning up the fences. A lot of jurisdictions have pretty strict laws about this sort of place being meant to know where their stock is from. If you've got the will to deal with this stuff, you roll in every few days, ask the same questions and shut the doors when the staff don't have good answers.

s5300 5y ago

>Police should have arrested this man. So, not so long back in the US, there was a car bombing (RV trailer I believe) in... Nashville I think? Was a pretty big explosion. Partner of the person who made and detonated said bomb went to the police some days (weeks?) back and literally tried to tell them "my partner made a bomb and is about to go detonate it at this place" The police, IIRC, brushed it off as a woman being crazy. The police have a history of not arresting or investigating people/things they should be. But they don't, haven't, and won't. At this point, you just have to sit back and laugh at how horribly they botch shit on a regular basis, otherwise you'll probably get quite depressed at the reality.

derefr 5y ago
I would be fascinated to see the relative amount of crime that would be solved if police 1. didn't bother to start any independent investigations based on their own suspicions, but instead 2. dedicated 100% of their resources to investigating inbound leads like these.
- dhosek 5y ago
  Cops don't care about solving or preventing crime.
joshstrange 5y ago
If this comment bothers you then I would suggest not googling "cops ignoring serial killers" or similar. There are instances of them handing over victims of serial killers back to the killers themselves. Incompetence doesn't even begin to describe it.

someguydave 5y ago

yes it does seem like the intimidator was guilty of a crime https://newyork.public.law/laws/n.y._penal_law_section_215.15 https://newyork.public.law/laws/n.y._penal_law_section_215.1...