The crappy part is that she captured clear detail of both events but police couldn't be bothered. Nest and Ring have been doing their part to fight back, allowing people to publicly post and set up neighborhood watches against porch pirates et al, but there's still a ways to go before security camera footage can be sent to the PD and automatically identify the offender via facial analysis.

Perhaps there are some areas in the US where this is a problem, but I don't know if it's safe to generalize that the US is degrading to third-world status just yet.

My dad used to say "there's few things more dangerous in the suburbs than a bored cop".

Been involved in some of those interactions while walking home in my own neighborhood. They're not pleasant. One involved handcuffs and a 30 minute sit on the curb while my backpack was searched. Yes I'm referring to these past incidents in plural for a reason. No, the complaints to the city and precinct didn't do anything.

I have lived some places where the police culture was more toxic, definitely.

I'm not going to go on some kind of "all cops are bastards" bend here, cause that's not the case and this isn't the forum for it, but I've had more bad experiences with the police than good ones.

None of them resulted in an arrest or charges filed (this is excluding moving violations because death, taxes and speeding tickets; I was a 23 year old driving a Mustang lol) since none of the interactions involved me doing anything illegal. After a few experiences like that you learn to keep an eye on a police officer when you see one, but there's no urge to make your presence overtly known to them either.

Head over to Portland, and the cops are so overloaded with dealing with more serious crimes that they won't even respond to auto theft.

I would definitely call the police for package theft in my town, and I'd have a good expectation that they'd assign an officer to watch for crime patterns and get the guys.

In Portland, I'd be duplicating this guy's glitter bomb.

Also property crimes always take a backseat to more violent crimes.

Robbers and burglars usually get attention.

Petty theft that does not involve robbery or burglary doesn't, but there is a world of difference between the three crimes.

Some areas even murder is 60%.

A healthy society keeps people from committing crimes, not a giant police force.

They're too busy training on their new hand-me-down military gear. Local cops need tanks to keep you safe, citizen.

The police exist to maintain order on behalf of the State, the civil justice system exists to mediate property disputes between people. There is sometimes some synergy between the functions, but they are very different.

Be careful what you wish for. I don't want the police to be able to perform accurate facial recognition at the kind of scale you're talking about, even if that would make it harder for thieves to steal packages.

Amazon is helping cities and counties implement Rekognition systems fairly cheap with cameras tied to criminal databases. It's happening. They've done it in Washington County, OR, Orlando, FL, and others [1]. Amazon is also teaming up with law enforcement to install Ring doorbells with cameras (Amazon owns them) hooked up to the same type of system.[2] Palantir Systems (CIA backed) have done similar in NYC[3] and even doing PREDICTIVE crime analysis in New Orleans[4] and Chicago [5]. In the case of New Orleans, the public and city counsel was not even made aware. Only the mayor knew. Yes, be very, very careful what you wish for.

[1] https://aws.amazon.com/rekognition/customers/

[2] https://qz.com/1495241/amazon-has-a-clever-way-to-catch-pack...

[3] https://gizmodo.com/how-palantir-is-taking-over-new-york-cit...

[4] https://www.theverge.com/2018/2/27/17054740/palantir-predict...

[5] https://www.theverge.com/2016/8/19/12552384/chicago-heat-lis...

Twice I have emailed the police and CC the Mayor of my city. I got a sorry can we meet in person response in an hour. The Sargent on Call was eating humble pie when he was called in and got chewed out by the Mayor and the Police. (Story a neighbor I don't know was physically assaulted by his girlfriend and she ripped his shirt and scratched him up. I stopped him from destroying her and going to jail. I called the police and no one came. We walked over to the station with 3 police cars sitting outside and were turned away.)

[0]: https://pe.usps.com/text/pub28/28c2_033.htm [1]: https://www.techjunkie.com/how-to-use-usps-general-delivery-... [2]: https://pe.usps.com/text/dmm300/508.htm#ep1052038

Have we learned nothing from Reddit circa 2013?

The system takes a cut.

Crowd-sourced bounty-hunting.

Of course, once it becomes a cash transaction you're dealing with dispute resolution. "I said it was Fred" "It wasn't Fred" "Yes it was! Pay me!".

Good.

I'm against theft, and also against Police and facial analysis mixing.

You mean like the system in China? No thanks. Never underestimate the propensity of any government to violate human rights when given the power to do so.

If a choice has to be made between the two, a government that respects human rights is far preferable to a country without crime among citizens.

Have these people been convicted of crimes?

Because if they haven't, then yes, actually you are absolutely advocating restricting freedoms, and stumbling dangerously close to advocating redlining which has been illegal in the US for decades.

Edit:

Pardon my double post, I think a page got stuck loading on me somewhere.

A word of advice then: best state that immediately from the very beginning next time, instead of equivocating your way around the point for days. The minute you start talking about "curtailing freedom" there is one inextricable link that conjures in the mind from this type of language: the state.

Backing off it once the horse has been beaten into putty to say "oh I wasn't talking about the state" just looks like you're doing all of this for sport and not attempting to hold an actual meaningful position before finding a convenient escape hatch out of the discussion.

Have you never dealt with an HOA in your life? Have you never known someone who has?

I believe we need more defense in depth. We need our human rights to be protected by every level of government and informally by society itself.

It is a story as old as time.

In more then one instance the thief opened the package at their house. So its fair to say he knows where they live too. Also, very clear HD video of their faces and vehicles. And there is no way all the glitter is going to get cleaned up - so more evidence of who they are. And home security cameras with more images of them. Not to say these idiots are smart enough to let things be at this point - but if they do retaliate, there is a very high chance they would be caught.

As for your comments about liability. Yeah, that sounds entirely plausible.

One thing I hadn't thought of though, is that these items might just be accumulating in someone's horde. Filling up some house or rental storage.

The police are a business and if there's not money to be had (traffic citations, parking tickets, etc.), or violent crime happening, you are the lowest possible priority. Source: personal experience + have worked with a couple of police depts many years back (not as a LEO). The only exception here is if you're a reasonable sized business - they tend to take cases like retail/corporate break-in seriously.

TLDR: Agree. People wouldn't do this if there were a real legal cost.

[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/sessi...

If you look into civil forfeiture it's a racket... and directly infringes on our rights. Even in cases where there is NO wrongdoing you usually have to go through lengthy processes in order to get your property back, and even then you're considered lucky to get the majority of it back (if at all).

Effectively you are guilty until proven innocent with stuff like this on the books. I just find it funny that the same people who yell about "freedom" and "liberty" in this country are the ones who glorify the police as if they can do no wrong.

This is the problem.

Unless you're a career criminal who doesn't mind incidental murder charges, just write it off FFS.

On the other, glitter is actually quite polluting, so my preference would be some means of spraying the thief with brightly coloured dye.

Eh, somewhere in between. Back when I lived in Oakland (where there was/is a serious package theft problem) everyone in the neighborhood knew who stole folks’ deliveries (camera systems are basically free these days). It happened daily and the cops were too busy fending off corruption and sex trafficking scandals to give a damn. 20% of the time it was some high schooler and you would yell at their parents and get your shit back. 80% of the time it was semi-organized teams of people from a few towns over who would roll up to the end of the street in plate-less cars and drop a couple dudes off on foot. Dudes on foot would walk down the street and grab packages off people’s porches while the car would drive up to the next intersection. Dudes hop in the car, car hits the freeway and is in another city (and soon County) in no time.

Definitely intentional crimes (these things take planning, including networks to fence the stolen goods), but if you yell at them they just move on the next house without retailiating. The second you start harrasing people and causing a ruckus the police have fewer excuses to ignore the issue, and your easy source of cash is gone.

One could argue that so called 'hard-core' criminals were once and in some cases still are opportunists, even if the outcomes of their crimes might or might not be more severe than stealing an Amazon package from someone's door step.

That aside though, I'm curious:

What makes you think an opportunist who clearly has the time and means to swipe packages from someone's door while they're at work wouldn't take similar time and opportunity to conduct other forms of petty deviance like vandalizing the car of someone who blasted them with glitter? They clearly have no qualm or compunction with theft, is avenge-fueled-vandalism that far up the logic latter to next steps?

So that the unwitting landlord can be penalised as well?

And you know were they live also. One side has much more to lose than the other. The guy can exert devastating social damage in the life of the thieves just showing the videos in their street, to their landlord, or filtering it to a friend in the same school, not to mention uploading them to internet. Their faces are clearly seen on film stealing. Their address is known. In some cases even their cars are known also.

The logical step for a smart thief would be to move to easier targets and avoid bothering a guy able to spend six entire months building a very complicated plot to seek exact revenge.

But hope your enemy doesn't have a porch camera...

Just not sure I'd trust them them to decide that exacting revenge on me for setting off a glitter and stink bomb in their car/house would have a negative expected value?

he has also inspired people to make their own booby traps.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attractive_nuisance_doctrine

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occupiers%27_liability_in_Engl...

"Camera surveillance of a location where the public has access. Permission 8 § Camera surveillance is required for a surveillance camera to be posted so that it can be directed to a place where the public has access."

Swedish: http://rkrattsbaser.gov.se/sfst?bet=2013:460 (poor) translation: https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=sv&tl=en&u=h...

(In separate guidelines it explicitly mentions the case of home cameras covering public area).

I'm not saying the thieves are in the right here. Just that crimes don't usually cancel each other out.

What I'm saying is; the thief broke a law but the person making the recordings could have also broken laws as well. Two wrongs don't make a right, and all that. Just seems like a good gag for YouTube but a bad practice to encourage.

Thief: Your honor, this man illegally recorded me in my home without my consent.

Judge: You mean the package you stole recorded you for the purpose of identifying you as the thief?

Thief: ...

Judge: Get the hell out of my court room.

Even in two-party consent states, I can't envision any situation in which a person would actually be punished for recording in this way. Remember that laws are meant to be interpreted by a judge or jury in the context of the alleged crime, not applied to every situation where they can possibly fit.

Someone STEALS that device and moves it. The device's owner isn't breaking any law.

You are looking for problems where there are none.

Which pretty clearly doesn't apply to out in the open in the middle of a public street.

I'm also not sure that creating a hoax device with the intention of surreptitiously recording individuals that also damages their property and releases a chemical agent would be considered strictly "a security camera".

There can likely be no expectation of privacy trespassing on someone else's property.

but, for the package. Can you have an expectation of privacy when opening an unknown-thing? The device isn't recording until it is opened. I could see logical arguments on both sides. But, since the audio/visual recording doesn't start until they open the thing it might be on the safe-side of wiretap laws?

Recording audio without two-party consent in my state is illegal and only just recently were there any court cases where recording police officers without their knowledge wasn't prosecuted as wiretapping.

Booby traps causing injury are illegal everywhere.

Calling a smell a "chemical agent" is just inflammatory. Everything is a chemical, sure, but there is no chemical reaction involved here. Would you call perfume a "chemical agent"? It's just something that smells bad.

The only danger would seem to be getting glitter in their eyes.

If someone designed a trap to spray perfume on an unsuspecting person, I would describe it similarly.