On Friday night I went for an evening bike ride and I found a purse near a sidewalk next to a building. I looked around and it was obvious that there were no occupants near or inside the building as the lights were off, and I saw no cars or any people in the vicinity.
My first instinct was to turn it into the police. But the exact reason I chose not to do that is because they would have asked me 101 rediculous, irrelevant and retarded personal questions completely unrelated to the found purse.
Instead I just left it there. I hope the rightful owner found it and not some douchebag stoner kids.
[quote]mazevedo wrote:
On Friday night I went for an evening bike ride and I found a purse near a sidewalk next to a building. I looked around and it was obvious that there were no occupants near or inside the building as the lights were off, and I saw no cars or any people in the vicinity.
My first instinct was to turn it into the police. But the exact reason I chose not to do that is because they would have asked me 101 rediculous, irrelevant and retarded personal questions completely unrelated to the found purse.
Instead I just left it there. I hope the rightful owner found it and not some douchebag stoner kids.[/quote]
You could have just checked to see if it held any ID and tried to return it to the owner.
The odd thing about this thread is, you post a video of a fight, and everybody’s the tough guy who would jump in to set things right. But no one wants to call the police for anything.
Why is that?
I’m not saying everybody’s wrong. Jetric9’s story is especially discouraging. But these are your police departments we’re talking about. If it’s broken you have to fix it. Things only get worse when you just throw your hands up and say “not my problem.”
[quote]Uncle Gabby wrote:
The odd thing about this thread is, you post a video of a fight, and everybody’s the tough guy who would jump in to set things right. But no one wants to call the police for anything.
Why is that?
[/quote]
1.) Retaliation
This is the primary reason there is a “stop snitchin’” rule running around.
2.) Documentation doesn’t get lost, it gets filed.
I don’t like the idea of my name being anywhere near the files of a criminal investigation regardless of the details.
You could have just checked to see if it held any ID and tried to return it to the owner. [/quote]
You are right and it did cross my mind to take the purse to the owner by checking their address on the ID.
But picture a guy riding a bike at dusk with no lights, dark clothing, and carrying a woman’s purse. I would have looked suspicious as hell and I didn’t want to risk being on the opposite side of the police report.
[quote]Professor X wrote:
Uncle Gabby wrote:
The odd thing about this thread is, you post a video of a fight, and everybody’s the tough guy who would jump in to set things right. But no one wants to call the police for anything.
Why is that?
1.) Retaliation
This is the primary reason there is a “stop snitchin’” rule running around.
2.) Documentation doesn’t get lost, it gets filed.
I don’t like the idea of my name being anywhere near the files of a criminal investigation regardless of the details.
3.) People don’t trust cops.
[/quote]
Right, which is why people need to get involved to change idiotic policies that drive people away from talking to the cops. The officer who knocked on Jetric’s door may have been a moron, or he may have been following a piss poor procedure, and that’s why people need to get involved. It might be something as simple as writing a letter to the police commisioner, the mayor, going to a city council meeting, doing something to make the system work.
[quote]anonym wrote:
Majin wrote:
[i]The problem is that the dispatcher, instead connecting him to the Fire Dept, was trying to get info out of him first(prolonging the time it takes for the FD to actually hear him out). That’s a really dumb thing to do in an emergency.
What happened later was that she must’ve realized that she fucked up and attempted, haphazardly, to remedy the situation by forwarding the number.[/i]
He wrote that he was connected immediately (the very next line) after requesting the fire department.[/quote]
I was talking about the fire dept dispatcher. She’s the one he had the actual convo with. Sorry if it wasn’t clear.
[quote]Professor X wrote:
zephead4747 wrote:
I called in a (seriously) drunk driver last night, They didn’t even ask my name, number or where I was at all.
There are only about 5 million people in the entire state of Wisconsin (where your profile says you are from). There are over 2 million people just in Houston, Tx alone (the 4th largest city in America). That may have something to do with it.
[/quote]
Interestingly enough, I was going to chime in with a story from a few years back where I had a similar experience as the Prof.
About 8pm on the Friday evening I was damn near run off the road buy about a group of Fast and Furious wannabe high school kids. I called the cops only to have them want me to drive to the cop shop and fill out a damn police report. I declined that and the dispatcher asked if I would be willing to meet with the officer on patrol in the area and give a statement. This is where I got pissed and told her that I didn’t really feel comfortable talking to the cop when he could go stop these kids before they killed someone. WTF? Why couldn’t she just tell the officer in the area to go get the fuckers and be done with it?
[quote]analog_kid wrote:
Professor X wrote:
zephead4747 wrote:
I called in a (seriously) drunk driver last night, They didn’t even ask my name, number or where I was at all.
There are only about 5 million people in the entire state of Wisconsin (where your profile says you are from). There are over 2 million people just in Houston, Tx alone (the 4th largest city in America). That may have something to do with it.
Interestingly enough, I was going to chime in with a story from a few years back where I had a similar experience as the Prof.
About 8pm on the Friday evening I was damn near run off the road buy about a group of Fast and Furious wannabe high school kids. I called the cops only to have them want me to drive to the cop shop and fill out a damn police report. I declined that and the dispatcher asked if I would be willing to meet with the officer on patrol in the area and give a statement. This is where I got pissed and told her that I didn’t really feel comfortable talking to the cop when he could go stop these kids before they killed someone. WTF? Why couldn’t she just tell the officer in the area to go get the fuckers and be done with it?
[/quote]
Don’t you understand that it is vitally important for them to report your heigh, weight and date of birth first?
Yeah police reports are fucking retarded.
Also…last time I had my stereo stolen out of my car I called the cops and only asked if any suspects had been arrested the previous night with stolen stereo equipment. I made it clear that I only wanted to file a report if her answer had been “yes”, because the probability of them having my stereo would make it worth my time. Otherwise “okay thanks, good bye”.
I think their inquiry as to who you were is total bullshit. It offers no help to the situation, not to mention you did provide all of the necessary information they needed. I hope you continue to deny their request for your identity since it bears nothing to the situation. Maybe they wanted to know more, but then again, they don’t need a name for that.
If this comes up again in the future, I hope your reply to that question is…“My name is Professor X.”
[quote]mazevedo wrote:
analog_kid wrote:
Professor X wrote:
zephead4747 wrote:
Also…last time I had my stereo stolen out of my car I called the cops and only asked if any suspects had been arrested the previous night with stolen stereo equipment. I made it clear that I only wanted to file a report if her answer had been “yes”, because the probability of them having my stereo would make it worth my time. Otherwise “okay thanks, good bye”.[/quote]
Interesting idea. How did that pan out for you, I never thought of that.
Your choice of words is telling. Like me, I suspect you’ve had some interactions with law enforcement when you did nothing wrong.
I avoid police at all costs, and if I saw a crime, I would do what I could to stop it. But I would not hang around to be a witness. Police are looking to close cases, and it’s nothing for them to lay the blame at an innocent man’s feet.
That said, you weren’t being investigated. They wanted your name because they would have wanted to follow up with you. Do an interview. What did you see? Anything suspicious? Any cars? Anyone running by?
But when you’re had the police come at you for no good reason, a interacting with them is not something we look forward to doing.
OTOH, ad thinkers, we should seek to eliminate prejudice and bias. If a white woman gets suspicious of every black person because she was mugged by a black guy once; is that a good thing?
I am generally free of gender, race, and sexual-identity biases. But I have a horrible anti-police bias. Working on it, though.
I can understand where you are coming from C-Law, because I have had less than favorable interactions with law enforcement. Because of this, I can see that the system is far from perfect and would only step in when I felt it was necessary.
In Prof X’s case, he did what a responsible person would do, and also was smart enough to protect himself from what could have been an unfair situation. I hope everyone knows that law enforcement will not inform you of your rights, and can impose different tactics to make you incriminate yourself. When in doubt, plead the 5th, its why it was made.
If you continually have bad interactions with a particular group of people, in this case, law enforcement, then developing a bias towards that group is normal and rational. That is, it’s normal if you’re not deliberately doing something to provoke a bad interaction with that group of people. People mentally pick out patterns and form heuristics based on those patterns.
[quote]MaximusB wrote:
I can understand where you are coming from C-Law, because I have had less than favorable interactions with law enforcement. Because of this, I can see that the system is far from perfect and would only step in when I felt it was necessary.
In Prof X’s case, he did what a responsible person would do, and also was smart enough to protect himself from what could have been an unfair situation. I hope everyone knows that law enforcement will not inform you of your rights, and can impose different tactics to make you incriminate yourself. When in doubt, plead the 5th, its why it was made. [/quote]
Bingo. They don’t care about you. They care about closing a case.