The Current FReepathon Pays For The Current Quarters Expenses?
Call the shift supervisor and complain, and demand they send somebody over to lift the prints.
Had the same thing happen to a friend, police told her if the items show up they might catch the burglar. Police are useless, she went out to pawn shops and found a lot of her things. She was able to retrieve some items but without police help whatsoever.
THEN call the mayor and your city councilman. Anybody in an elected position that you know, get on them (what are we paying taxes for, etc. etc.)
This is a case of the squeaky wheel.
And they can still get good prints off the glass if you haven't touched it. Leave it alone.
Fingerprinting is expensive in terms of time to capture and analyze the latents. Sure, on TV they take prints and get a match by the second commercial break, but reality is a little different.
Nobody hurt, relatively small amount stolen, cops not interested. I’ve been there. In fact I’ve had several instances where the cops did not care to do too much investigation.
If someone were hurt or a gun stolen, you’d see more interest.
For teh Craigslist, call, get to see the laptop, get the serial number. If you have the serial number written down, hand it to the seller as you pick up the laptop and ask him to read it off!
Pretend to be interested in the laptop and arrange to meet the guy somewhere and examine the computer. If it’s the same one... well I dunno. Get his picture somehow and ask for a name when you meet him.
Maybe the Keystone cops could do SOMETHING with a picture and a name (or alias)??
Take the laptop and tell him you know its stolen and the owner is your friend.
It’s quite possible the local TV stations have “action lines” or some such named service to root out fraud and bad service. Get one of those working on it and it’s likely the threat of public exposure will get some results.
Life ain’t a cop show where the forensics lab comes running to the scene of every burglary. In fact I suspect dusting for prints is pretty rare short of murder investigations.
The Current FReepathon Pays For The Current Quarters Expenses?
Robbers frequently return a second time to get items they did not get the first time. They already know the house and the layout and where the stuff they want is. You should get an alarm and cameras. You can buy both and install them yourself for under $200 at COSTCO. Lowes has a good system also. Put the recorder where he can’t get it; the attic perhaps.
If you can’t get to it today buy a sign reading “ALARMED! 24 hour video surveillance.” Hang up a fake camera. You’ve probably got a week to 10 days.
As for the cops, they’re useless. They’re really in the revenue (ticketing) business; not crime. They only really investigate murders and then only if it’s somebody relatively important. This is why serial killers can knock off 10 hookers and nobody notices they’re all killed with the same MO.
check out the laptop, get the address and name, run the name and background with an identity search etc
You are lucky, an officer showed up.
Years ago when my home was broken into and a TV and VCR was taken all that happen was I got a package in the mail and a form to fill out. (This was back in the late 1980s when VCRs were fairly new and expensive).
As previous posters have noted, the police really are not going to do much. They collect data and if they happen to catch someone they will pin your crime on them and then it all gets plea bargained away.
You can complain as some FReepers suggest, but be prepared for retaliation. Parking and code enforcement may be to the letter all of a sudden, and the stop sign at the end of your block may get it's own individual patrol car sitting there to guard it from theft.
Don't you dare touch their pensions.
Last year or so mine and my wifes vans were broken into. It was the third or fourth time over the years. This time both passenger side windows busted out of our vehicles. Theives got nothing. Called police and they would not send anyone out. They took a statement from my wife ( who called the police ) over the phone and when it got to me I told them to pound sand. If they wouldn`t send anyone out it wasn`t doing me any good to give them a “statement”. I installed flood lights the following week that light up the driveway and the street in front of my house. Never a problem since...
the facts are that very few burglaries are solved by investigation at the home or business. Fingerprints aren’t always readable and may not be checked unless the city has some very expensive auto-comparison compututers like you see on the cop shows and CSI. In most cases it ain’t happening.
Professional burglars know the ropes and wear rubber gloves which just leave a smear. And very few people have all the necesssary serial numbers to identify their stolen items. It sounds like your friend has no way to identify her laptop except by Brand and Model. typical of all of us who think it won’t happen to them so the burglary detail can’t even locate it at a pawn shop if they make the rounds with lists of stolen items.
Some cities have realized that their police can be better used in other ways than doing ‘investigations’ that aren’t going to produce anything. (traffic ticket patrol makes a very nice profit for the city) They will only take a phone report for your insurance company purposes.
Either it is or it isn't.......which is it??????
The next time make sure the burglary happens when the cops are on overtime. Then you should get better services.
I am sorry Feline_AIDS... but first things first. Did the burglar have a key? How did he/they get into the home? My first concern would be to prevent any future burglaries or something more dangerous. Can I recommend that your friend get his/her locks changed immediately. I just don’t want your friend focusing on stolen property rather than his or her own life.
My Mom’s house got burgled several mos ago. There was one print on the outside of her window. After some hemming and hawing around they actually sent the print guy out to the house. Several weeks later a detective called to say that the print belonged to a known criminal. They have since arrested the guy and he is out on bail awaiting trial. I would call and demand a print team. Chances are the prints belong to some felon who is in the computer and they might catch him.