Sorry, but my property just isn’t worth the risk. It’s replaceable, I’m not.
https://www.nbcchicago.com/news/local/police-believe-carjack...
Now I'd totally hop in and drive off if it's left unattended at the curb or whatever though. Just be quick, bring friends, and avoid confrontation.
The tricky part is figuring out if the thief is in this "many" or not. Good luck, since you can only choose wrong once! Don't forget, they know where you live!
Despite what cops would have you believe, criminals aren't dumb. Most will recognize that it would be a bad idea to bring cops to the place they are apparently holding stolen cars. So if they know you brought an unknown number of witnesses prepared to call 911, they will probably back off. After all, it's pretty easy to get away with property crime if you stay off the radar.
My car was stolen. I made a police report. It later turned up with some heroin in it. I called the police again. They thanked me, took the heroin as evidence, and went along their way.
However, if you’re mixed up in illegal activity then yeah it might look bad.
I see you haven't had much experience with American police.
Yeah, I’d say us middle-aged white dudes have it pretty easy.
That sounds somewhat like pre-emptive victim blaming but essentially you have to play mind games if you step to a criminal so if you do it wrong that's kind of on you.
My inkling, as a former lawyer, is that this would not be theft if you didn't know the item was there. Crimes require a certain mental state, and theft typically requires that you be aware that you're taking a thing that doesn't belong to you. If you leave a restaurant and unknowingly take someone else's umbrella from the bin instead of your own, you cannot be found guilty of theft.
If you do know the items are there, you could be found guilty. Of course, the practical reality is that you don't want to give a criminal any reason to come back to your house, hunting for his belongings.
Not theft, but still conversion. The thief could sue you for the value of the items. When a car is repossessed the chattels (personal items) have to be returned to avoid liability. There is case law establishing that if you tell the repo agent you have stuff in the trunk and he drives off anyway, that's prima facie conversion (monetary liability) regardless of whether they try to return the items later.
There is one wrinkle in the intent issue, which is that you may not have had intent to take the item when you drove off, but if you later discover it and didn't give it back, you might form the requisite intent at that time. All in all, this sounds like a good law school exam question!
1: https://california-business-lawyer-corporate-lawyer.com/cali...
It seems extremely unlikely that the simple repossession of a car with personal property is conversion given that roughly 100% of all repos will have at least some personal property within.
It’s clear they are obligated to return it to you, but your argument here doesn’t sound right.
Even more to the point, driving your own car is not stealing it, either.
Personally, if found stuff that wasn't mine, it'd get pitched to a dumpster.
Or even much worse, and you get blamed for the item and go to prison.
Once you found the backpack, you would have to return it to the thief for it not to be theft.
Hopefully you wouldn't get prosecuted, but you are then at the whim of the prosecutor. If the thief calls it in you've created a bad situation. I was in jail and saw weird crimes like this. A guy bought some dope for $40 from a dealer, but only handed him $20 and ran off with the dope. The dealer called 911 and reported the stolen merch. The buyer was in jail with me. WTF.
After your car is stolen and the AirTag is separated from your phone, you have ~12 hours before it starts randomly beeping every time it detects motion, alerting the thief to its presence. Or if the thief has an iPhone they'll get a notification that "An AirTag is traveling with you" soon after they steal it.
AirTags are great but sadly I feel like they're not great for this use case. Though definitely better than nothing. (IMHO there's a fundamental conflict between preventing stalking and tracking stolen goods. The result is they're not great for either use case)
Tracking a stole vehicle is definitely one of the best use for an Airtag. If someone steals your car, any guy with an Apple product around the street is helping you to find it.
IMO in the near future car manufacturers will integrate Find My technology into the car electronics, just as some of them already do with Apple car keys.
> If it's stolen, just go get it back when it's safe to do so.
I'm more doubtful on this. Better to let the police handle such potentially dangerous situations.
This really varies widely by location.
The local police in my sleepy suburb will go full DEFCON 1 if they know a stolen car is in the area. They don't have a lot to do...
It might be worth seeing what the locals are or aren't willing to do.
Your entire recommendation to "steal it back" is predicated on knowing when it's "safe" to get your stolen car in procession by criminals. Yeah, you're not going to know that.
Maybe. We have car theft crime rings where I'm from and I doubt they document the home of ever car they steal, since they will do several a night and have been operating for a few years now.
Many will wring their hands over taking direct action, but I can speak from experience, the police and legal system don't give a damn about you or your possessions. I would absolutely be willing to risk it rather than go through the hassle of buying a new car right now.
If you show up to retrieve your stolen property chances are 99 out of 100 times you'll get it handed back without much of a question. They are just as scared as you randomly showing up and tracking them down as you are of them. You are not acting the part, and your actions are dangerous and abnormal - even most predators pause in such situations, and most criminals are not predators but opportunists.
Most cases. Obviously it's not the safest thing in the world, and if you're not comfortable with confrontation I wouldn't recommend it.
I'm financially well off enough now where I'd likely let pretty much all my physical possessions walk without recourse (what will happen if you just report to police). It's not worth the risk:reward benefit any longer.
However there were times in my life where I absolutely took matters into my own hands and collected stolen property that was critical to my livelihood and too expensive to replace. It was surprisingly easy every time. There were times way in my past I would have defended certain property with my life if it came to it, since losing it was nearly the same thing.
Every US state has slightly different laws about open carry and concealed carry laws in public. They also have different rules about self-defense.
There was a case recently where a guy sat in his own garage with a shotgun (due to some recent burglaries) and shot an intruder. He was charged with murder. I think because 1) it was pre-meditated (he expected an intruder and intended to kill them), 2) his life was not in imminent danger (the intruder had no weapons) 3) he made no attempt to de-escalate the situation and did not fire a warning shot or tell the person to leave.
I think California is like this where you are obligated to not be the aggressor, even on your own property, and must make attempts at a non-lethal de-escalation if your life is not in immediate danger. But then there are states where you can "stand your ground" in public and defend your property with lethal force. So, it all depends on local laws.
Displaying the weapon is the only "warning" allowed -- and even that is only legal if you have an Open Carry license or if you are responding to a threat.
It’s a big issue with the war on drugs and other criminalized industries, where a lot of violence occurs because they can’t call the cops.
Keep an extra key for your car at home and put an Airtag in your car. If it's stolen, just go get it back when it's safe to do so.
Calling the police in most American cities won't get you far. They usually can't pursue a speeding car anymore, and by the time they get to your parked car it'll probably have moved. Their hands are tied by a lot of red tape that doesn't apply to you, the owner. Stealing it back is usually your best option.