Ah Richard,
That story was so damn familiar. In my poorer days, I lived in a low
rent district of Boston (Mass) with my wife to be called Sommerville. The
place was
a cold water flat and the building had a large unpaved parking lot.
Every other day for a few weeks an unidentified car appeared about 4 pm
and 3 guys came between 4 and 4:20 to strip the car of tires, radios,
and other goodies. After awhile of watching this, I could tell the
foreign car and started calling the local gendarmes. They never came in
time. One Friday night I got fed up and called the local mayor of the
town. His answer was to call the State Police because the changing of the
shift occured between 4 and 4:20 every day and he said that no one would
ever come in time. They just would not break their routine.
I got so good at identifying stolen cars that I called the Stateys about
a Ford Thunderbird and was told it hadn't been reported stolen. About an
hour later, someone from the State Police called me to tell me it had
been reported stolen and where was its remains.
How about taking pictures and contacting the news paper?
Regards,
Bill
'76B
. On Wed, 6 Dec 2000,
Richard Spurling wrote:
> > Despite a witness having previously reported the theft and the police
> > having a good idea who it was, about 6-12 months after the incident, the
> > police notified me that they had been unable to do anything. And they
> wonder
> > why people don't have much confidence in the police any more....
>
> I too worry about the amount of revenue raising our police (Adelaide now)
> are forced to do as opposed to real police work. My wife recently had a
> puppy stolen from her pet shop. The next day, the same people tried the
> same scam at a different pet shop, only this shop had been warned by my
> wife. The shop keeper rang the police to tell them when the crooks would
> arrive to collect the puppy. The police turned up in a clearly marked
> police car, which they parked immediately in front of the shop's door - not
> wanting to be obvious or anything. They waited ten minutes, then left
> because it was the end of their shift. The crooks turned up five minutes
> later. The shop owner rang the emergency number - it rang out. She rang the
> police directly, it took a patrol 45 mins to get there, by which time the
> crooks had long gone, without the puppy. We reckon the cops didn't want to
> catch the crooks and get caught up in all that paperwork at the end of
> their shift. Incidentally, we were at a trade show last night and were
> talking to a different pet shop owner again. Sure enough, our stolen puppy
> had been sold to this shop the same day it was pinched from us.
>
> Sadly, this sort of experience is very common nowadays. The police are very
> busy running around with speed cameras and doing other things that increase
> revenue, but normal policing is neglected, due largely to low numbers.
> However, the above story goes beyond lack of numbers, it was just very
> slack policing.
>
> Cheers
> Richard
> 76 B
>
> =================================
> Anne and Richard Spurling
> http://www.geocities.com/twisted-lines
> =================================
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