My car was stolen about a year ago. The police took down the information and did nothing. A week later, a neighbor a handful of blocks away saw it sitting on the side of the street and called the police.
My car was stolen once. It was found parked in the local mall's parking garage several weeks later. It was only found because mall security noticed it had been parked in the same spot for more than a month and reported it to the police. I was covered in the nastiest black dust from all the exhaust.
The car I replaced it with was stolen as well. It was parked behind a local grocery store. Again it was not found by police, it was reported by the store for being parked in a loading zone. I was told I had 20 minutes to come get it or it would be impounded.
I was at home alone with an infant at the time. I couldn't even call an Uber or anything because the only car seat I had was in the stolen car. The officer was extremely unsympathetic.
In a sense that's the good outcome-- mine was found in Arizona, already burnt out. But also, cops didn't ACCUSE me of anything, so I just had to take the check from the insurance company and buy a new van.
The cop called me in the middle of the day and said that if I wasn’t able to pick it up in ten minutes, they would have it towed and I’d have to pay to get it back.
They also wanted to get my DNA so they could run DNA results on the car in case the criminal ever came into their custody.
It might have been twenty minutes: I’m not sure of the exact time I was given, but it’s small enough that I looked up the distance between where the car was and where I was and figured I had to ride my bike over (since I didn’t have a car) rather than walk.
It’s actually INCREDIBLY normal. Here’s a Reddit thread of people saying the same thing, and this is just Denver. I was lucky to get a chance to get it before impounding.
When my car was stolen the thieves dumped its contents in a municipal waste area. Included some stuff that had my info so I got a call that I'd be arrested and fined for littering if I didn't come out and clean it all up that day. Car stolen? Why would we care? (1/2)
Small consolation: one of the things they dumped was the registration, so when the car was found several weeks later and 3 states away, I could prove it was mine. (2/2)
After my car was recovered and towed I asked the cop if it was drivable from the tow yard and he said yes. What he didn't say was the ignition had been popped and the battery was stolen. Other than that, perfectly drivable though
They very obviously did not care at all about the crime because they didn’t even look inside the car. Because if they did they would have found a large bag of hard drugs the criminals left behind.
My car got stolen while I was out of town. The kids who'd taken (and destroyed it) were silly enough to flag down a deputy on a back road in the middle of the night and suggest he check it out.
My coworker’s Tesla was stolen from the dealership while in for service. He could see where it was from the app but police refused to go get it and told him not to do anything. He had to get the news involved before anyone helped. Then Tesla tried to make him pay to fix the damage.
I've had two breakins over the years, one severe (lost two very expensive computers), one less so. In both cases, the cops acted like it was very rude of me to involve them, and made it quite clear nothing was going to be done.
2/2
Cops care about theft if you're rich, but rich people can also afford PIs. The rest of us can't. So, in essence, police are an upwards form of wealth redistribution, taxing the poor and middle class to provide a government service to the wealthy, who could afford to pay for it themselves.
My former supervisor had a similar situation, the cops caught the guys who stole the car. Gave him fifteen minutes to get to it on the side of the road. He made it but barely.
My car was stolen, found, and towed into the impound lot. I never knew they found it until I got a bill for "storage" from the lot, a month or so later.
When my wallet was stolen, all the police did was a report for my credit card company. Despite the restaurant manager pulling & saving security tapes for them because it was known amongst west metro restaurants, a gang was making a scene in multiple restaurants while their friends picked pockets.
Comments
So we can't actually say they do *nothing*.
A couple of days later the police called him to say that they had good news and bad news.
The good news was that they had found it.
The bad news was that it was on fire so he’d better get down quickly.
They also wanted to get my DNA so they could run DNA results on the car in case the criminal ever came into their custody.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Denver/comments/snoapt/despite_having_their_stolen_cars_located_victims/
If they even looked once they would have found it. Instead they cased her immense legal stress.
Granted she is also white. So she felt safe calling the cops. If she wasn't? Your method is likely the safer path to go.
Otherwise...
1/2
Cops care about theft if you're rich, but rich people can also afford PIs. The rest of us can't. So, in essence, police are an upwards form of wealth redistribution, taxing the poor and middle class to provide a government service to the wealthy, who could afford to pay for it themselves.