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Not all tracking is bad, after all. A while ago, my friend's bag got stolen at a coffee shop. The security camera showed an old woman who just picked up his ba
by behnamoh 4y ago
Not all tracking is bad, after all.
A while ago, my friend's bag got stolen at a coffee shop. The security camera showed an old woman who just picked up his bag and left. The shop owner and the police didn't cooperate. At this point you might be waiting for something about AirTags saving my friend's ass, but nope, he didn't have one in the bag and his stuff is forever gone.
Moral of the story: Beware of the seemingly harmless people in public.
- geoffeg 4y agoA friend had his laptop and bag stolen from only a few feet behind him at a coffee shop. He had his back to the table he was using for only a minute or two as he placed an order from the counter. There were a few other people in the shop and no one remembers seeing anything.
- cmeacham98 4y ago> The shop owner and the police didn't cooperate. It sounds like they did cooperate, given that you know what was on the security footage? What else could they have done?
- xeromal 4y agoWorking with indifferent police is frustrating. If they really cared, they would interview other stores, pull footage, try to find her going to her car/home.
- Invictus0 4y ago
- TaylorAlexander 4y agoYou mean the thing we did not do?
- dymk 4y agohttps://komonews.com/news/local/seattle-police-budget-shrinks-after-city-councils-final-approval https://komonews.com/news/local/seattle-police-budget-shrink...
- powerhour 4y agoDid you read the article? It doesn't sound like the police were defunded, they weren't even using the budget they had: > The budget includes funds for 1357 officers and SPD says right now, there are 1,120 officers on the force—which leaves 237 open jobs.
- dymk 4y ago> The Seattle Police Department’s budget shrunk after a final vote from the City Council. > In 2021 budget was $363 million and in 2020 is was $401.8 million.
- s5300 4y agoWhen did the police get defunded? Pretty sure current admin only gave them oodles more funding.
- Krisjohn 4y ago
- mehphp 4y agoDo you honestly think police have the resources to track every stolen item like this?
- lotsofpulp 4y agoHence the utility of AirTags.
- mmmpop 4y ago
- xeromal 4y agoI would say it depends on the area. Small town? I'm sure they would if they're not lazy. Big city, yeah, they have better things to do. I've been salty about police since my car was destroyed in a hit and run and I had to crawl out the window and wait for police to respond for an hour. They didn't even bother to talk to witnesses or attempt to find the guy. LAPD folks.
- google234123 4y agoWhy is a bug city any different than a small town? If there aren’t enough police then we should hire more. Let’s stop effectively legalizing entire classes of crime.
- xeromal 4y agoI'm in agreeance with you. Not sure how though. The LAPD spends billions of dollars and still can't have a presence like a small town.
- google234123 4y agoI personally think a lot of these very democrat states have an issue with WAY over paying public employees. (Sorry, don’t have the time to get the data right now)
- cmeacham98 4y agoSorry, to be clear, I meant the shop owner, not the police.
- koheripbal 4y agoThey aren't indifferent - they are trying to service multiple calls per day so unless you have specific actionable intel on where the stolen item is, then it's a total waste of time for them to canvas the neighborhood looking for your sack.
- dijonman2 4y agoWhile this anecdote portrays tracking in a positive light let’s not forget the abuses that can occur. The real problem is that police have given up on fighting crime. The public outrage against the police hasn’t helped. When it comes to collecting taxes, however, there seems to be no problem with enforcement.
- bsder 4y ago> The real problem is that police have given up on fighting crime. The real problem is that the police never were about fighting crime for the masses. The police were always about fighting crime for the rich. This occasionally resulted in fighting crime for the masses but also occasionally resulted in oppressing the masses themselves.
- RcouF1uZ4gsC 4y ago> The police were always about fighting crime for the rich. If you are inside a Starbucks, ordering latte’s and working on an expensive laptop, you are rich.
- Haegin 4y agoNo you're not. A fairy high proportion of the poplulation can afford the small luxury of $10 to take a company laptop to a coffeeshop and buy an overpriced drink. When we're talking about who the police are fighting crime for, rich is the 1-2%.
- stephen_g 4y agoThe people the parent poster is talking about is more the "donates at least tens of thousands of dollars to local politicians' re-election funds every election" rich, not "can afford fancy coffee regularly" rich...
- jbm 4y ago> The real problem is that the police never were about fighting crime for the masses. The police were always about fighting crime for the rich. The police intervening in a domestic violence situation is not beneficial to the rich.
- tjpnz 4y agoWhy does having an AirTag in the bag mean your friend gets his stuff back? This sounds incredibly optimistic.
- missedthecue 4y agoThey can track it to an address. Usually the police are "no help" because 6 seconds of 180p black and white security camera footage is very little to go on. If you can tell them that your airtag is inside 45 Elm Rd., they can knock on the door.
- tjpnz 4y agoAssuming the police are able/willing to follow this up what happens if there's no answer at 45 Elm Rd or they deny all knowledge?
- Gigachad 4y agoThere are some stories of this going wrong the other way. Police showing up and insisting that you stole a device because the not super accurate location was reported at their address.
- kshacker 4y agoWe even had a similar incident reported today in our nextdoor neighborhood. Someone knocked on the door at 1 AM asking for airpods since they were showing up at that location. Wifi based locationing does not work well all the time. However, airtags work better than that since if it is within a few feet, you can get a directional view on your phone and could easily confirm if they are nearby. Also they sound loud enough that if you can get close by (inside the house), you can not miss the sound.
- yardstick 4y agoCould they enter under some probable cause criteria given the location of the device is reasonably known to be inside the property?
- throwaway81523 4y ago> A while ago, my friend's bag got stolen at a coffee shop. Traveller tip: loop the bag's shoulder strap around your leg when sitting down at a table in places like that. Extra credit: reinforce the strap with a steel cable so it's harder to cut. I do #1 but not #2. Definite benefit of #1 is that it's saved me from forgetting to take the bag with me.
- theshrike79 4y agoOh, and never ever do #2 if you're visiting a country where drive-by purse snatching is a thing. When two dudes drive by you on a scooter and one grabs your purse, you kinda want the strap to snap or you'll have a bad time.
- witheld 4y agoReplace the steel cable with one of those extendable pet leashes
- m_mueller 4y agoI'd not recommend this in general, no matter where. A friend of mine got robbed in Zurich, Switzerland (with crime rate way below most US cities). Because she wore her bag diagonally across shoulder they beat her up till they could grab it and she ended up in the hospital :(. Health > belongings, always.
- bencollier49 4y agoPolice in the UK recommend leaving your car keys somewhere obvious downstairs in your house for similar reasons.
- brigandish 4y agoI once met a fellow traveller with a huge scrape going down her shoulder and arm. What you describe had happened to her in Malaysia and she'd been dragged along the floor a way.
- brigandish 4y ago
- yawnxyz 4y agoA friend of mine tagged the bag with an Airtag, knew where the bag was, and the Calgary police still didn't cooperate. They didn't want to track down the bag and worse, told him they'd arrest him if he'd tried to steal / get the bag back.
- jxi 4y agoCanadian police… Only there to arrest the productive citizens.
- voakbasda 4y agoHow does that not make the police actively complicit in the theft?
- barry-cotter 4y agoIf private citizens can’t launch prosecutions it doesn’t matter what the law says.
- genocidicbunny 4y agoMoral of the story: skip the police and do it yourself.
- stainforth 4y agoI guarantee you though that if it was the cops property they would knock on someones door
- jiveturkey 4y agoMake up some name. Call the police. Tell them someone stole your bag (give your self description), and that you are going to steal it back. When they ask who you are, use the made up name. When they ask where you are, give them the airtag location. Stand by and watch them get arrested.
- joshstrange 4y agoThe police are so incompetent it's not even funny. You can serve all the info they need on a silver platter and they won't move a muscle. I once had a friend who was being harrassed (keyed car, 100's of calls and texts per day, guy would text info that could have only been known by stalking them) and the police refused to do anything at all. We knew who was behind it and the anonymous call/text apps the harasser was using had an abuse@servicename.com email for police to use. They flat out refused to do anything at all. We were able to get my friend's number blacklisted from a number of these services on our own but the harasser would just find a new service and start over again. In the end the harassment stopped only after another friend confronted the harasser, called the most recent number, had the guy's phone start ringing, and told them stop. First it was incredibly dangerous to confront someone like this and I guess we were lucky he backed off since even with that "proof" the cops wouldn't have raised a finger.
- colecut 4y agoDo you think having an airtag would have convinced the police to cooperate? If not, what then?