A friend of mine tagged the bag with an Airtag, knew where the bag was, and the Calgary police still didn't cooperate.

They didn't want to track down the bag and worse, told him they'd arrest him if he'd tried to steal / get the bag back.

Make up some name. Call the police. Tell them someone stole your bag (give your self description), and that you are going to steal it back. When they ask who you are, use the made up name. When they ask where you are, give them the airtag location. Stand by and watch them get arrested.

The police are so incompetent it's not even funny. You can serve all the info they need on a silver platter and they won't move a muscle.

I once had a friend who was being harrassed (keyed car, 100's of calls and texts per day, guy would text info that could have only been known by stalking them) and the police refused to do anything at all. We knew who was behind it and the anonymous call/text apps the harasser was using had an [email protected] email for police to use. They flat out refused to do anything at all.

We were able to get my friend's number blacklisted from a number of these services on our own but the harasser would just find a new service and start over again.

In the end the harassment stopped only after another friend confronted the harasser, called the most recent number, had the guy's phone start ringing, and told them stop. First it was incredibly dangerous to confront someone like this and I guess we were lucky he backed off since even with that "proof" the cops wouldn't have raised a finger.

How does that not make the police actively complicit in the theft?

If private citizens can’t launch prosecutions it doesn’t matter what the law says.

I guarantee you though that if it was the cops property they would knock on someones door

Moral of the story: skip the police and do it yourself.

> The shop owner and the police didn't cooperate.

It sounds like they did cooperate, given that you know what was on the security footage? What else could they have done?

Working with indifferent police is frustrating. If they really cared, they would interview other stores, pull footage, try to find her going to her car/home.

Do you honestly think police have the resources to track every stolen item like this?

There are two issues with this way of thinking.

First, if police don't try to track down all theft, then there is going to be favoritism. Hope you contributed to the ball!

Two, If there is no meaningful way to attain redress, you invite vigilantism.

Side note: My concern (that is hopefully untrue and insane) is that, with demonstrations of police impotence (ie: Uvalde) and politicians talking about the recent raid, there is going to be more people who will take the law into their own hands.

Regardless if it's the police brushing me off over a theft, or Uvalde... it all leads to one place: the public's eroding trust in the police.

They're really not there to protect and serve. That was a LAPD marketing motto that a ton of other police departments adopted over the years for optics. The police actually have no such legal duty, and this has been upheld in court multiple times.

I am 100% on your side, but in good faith we cannot expect the police to serve us. Your "first/two" analogy is moot I'm afraid.

Third, if police never bother with "trivial" thefts like bags, cellphones, laptops, and purses, it means that a single thief can steal hundreds of such items and never be caught. If the police make an occasional effort to solve trivial thefts they might prevent tens of thousands of dollars of recurring theft by the same person.

> If the police make an occasional effort to solve trivial thefts they might prevent tens of thousands of dollars of recurring theft by the same person.

Statistically speaking, would that make any difference though?

Yes, he wouldn’t be touting about it and invite his friends to do the same. Or he’s get caught and all the friend would laugh at him and feel good about not stealing.

Sometimes pursuing crime does have an effect.

It could make a huge difference to the people who get their stuff back, and the ones who don't get it stolen because the thief was caught before they could target them.

personally i think thats time better spent then a lot of what the police spend their time and effort on

I've pretty much never experienced police caring much about typical stolen items. The only thing that they tend to expend effort on is stolen cars IME (non-US experience, developed country). They might help with a stolen laptop if helping is utterly trivial for them.

Fwiw in Japan I lost my ID and reported it to the police, they found it within a day.

Ive seen them accompany people to retrieve stolen bicycles. In my experience, they're not interested in doing detective work to locate stolen items, but if you know where the stolen item is, they will accompany you to retrieve the item.

Ok, so what do you suggest the police do? There are literally only so many hours in a day and only so many police officers… if we appointed you police chief tomorrow, how are you going to solve this issue?

Triaging crime doesn’t necessarily mean favoritism. You can have set criteria you use to determine which crimes you investigate and how much time you spend on each.

That's definitely awful idea but... commercialize police services to some degree.

I.e. have "personal support" division where one can pay per hour to solve small (non violent) problems, such as small-items recovery, acts of vandalisms. Like private detective but with more rights and somewhat co-payed.

It probably wouldn't make any sense if the item in question would be of low value, but if payment for recovering airtagged belongings of 1000$ would be like 50$/h then probably it would be of value.

Yet, deep inside I feel it's a slippery scope into incorporating the police, and I'm not really fan of the idea.

Isn’t that just a private detective? That already exists

Private detective is not subsidized and also they limited with actions. Don't expect private detective to enter someone house to recover AirPods. If police declines further actions even if PI pinpoints their position you're still SOL.

I think we both agree on what ought to be; just now how it is.

I would say it depends on the area. Small town? I'm sure they would if they're not lazy. Big city, yeah, they have better things to do.

I've been salty about police since my car was destroyed in a hit and run and I had to crawl out the window and wait for police to respond for an hour. They didn't even bother to talk to witnesses or attempt to find the guy. LAPD folks.

Why is a bug city any different than a small town? If there aren’t enough police then we should hire more. Let’s stop effectively legalizing entire classes of crime.

I'm in agreeance with you. Not sure how though. The LAPD spends billions of dollars and still can't have a presence like a small town.

I personally think a lot of these very democrat states have an issue with WAY over paying public employees. (Sorry, don’t have the time to get the data right now)

The average HNer in America probably makes $100K+ Or is bound for that. Yet your issue is with the pay of averagely paid people?

Yeah, I have an issue with state employees (bloated school administrations, police...) getting 300 to 600k in compensation. I bet most people in the US would also have an issue if the media gave fair coverage.

Yeah there are so many of those vs this being another moral panic about a small percentage of people. Meanwhile same right wing people upset at this let the wealthy off of everything. Much like the current corrupt powerful people who themselves had loans forgiven ripping student debt relief

What is the point of police if they're not gonna do anything when our rights are violated?

I mean, I'd still like for police to investigate/prevent violent crime even if they don't care about my laptop...

This is effectively legalizing theft.

Wait, I thought police’s role was violating citizen’s rights to remind them of their position in society?

Hence the utility of AirTags.

Do the police honestly think I, as a taxpayer, have the resources to pay for ineffective police?

defund the police and let the market look after it

> Sounds like a good way to have even more corrupt and worthless policing

leaving things to market means making "corruption" legal/explicit, pay for service (not judging it's bad or good, just saying). having more popularized, optional, "police to hire" may not be that bad idea after all. a bit like having public care system with optional private sector, or schooling.

Sounds like a good way to have even more corrupt and worthless policing

We need "rent a batman to find your airtag" service startup.

They aren't indifferent - they are trying to service multiple calls per day so unless you have specific actionable intel on where the stolen item is, then it's a total waste of time for them to canvas the neighborhood looking for your sack.

Sorry, to be clear, I meant the shop owner, not the police.

You mean the thing we did not do?

Did you read the article? It doesn't sound like the police were defunded, they weren't even using the budget they had:

> The budget includes funds for 1357 officers and SPD says right now, there are 1,120 officers on the force—which leaves 237 open jobs.

> The Seattle Police Department’s budget shrunk after a final vote from the City Council.

> In 2021 budget was $363 million and in 2020 is was $401.8 million.

And they weren't spending the budget as intended (hence the vast number of open positions) and they still have tons of room to hire with the 2021 budget, so what was actually lost?

About $38 million was lost

When did the police get defunded? Pretty sure current admin only gave them oodles more funding.

> A while ago, my friend's bag got stolen at a coffee shop.

Traveller tip: loop the bag's shoulder strap around your leg when sitting down at a table in places like that. Extra credit: reinforce the strap with a steel cable so it's harder to cut. I do #1 but not #2. Definite benefit of #1 is that it's saved me from forgetting to take the bag with me.

Man so depressing wherever you are that you need to do this. Another reason why I love living in Japan; I just leave my laptop out unattended at cafes when I use the restroom and it’s never stolen. Just wish we weren’t so powerless to affect culture to change these things elsewhere.

I freaked out a bit the first time I went to a Starbucks in Tokyo. I was told by the staff to save a seat by leaving my bag where I wanted to sit and come back to order after, and much of seats were on another floor.

Oh, and never ever do #2 if you're visiting a country where drive-by purse snatching is a thing.

When two dudes drive by you on a scooter and one grabs your purse, you kinda want the strap to snap or you'll have a bad time.

I'd not recommend this in general, no matter where. A friend of mine got robbed in Zurich, Switzerland (with crime rate way below most US cities). Because she wore her bag diagonally across shoulder they beat her up till they could grab it and she ended up in the hospital :(.

Health > belongings, always.

I once met a fellow traveller with a huge scrape going down her shoulder and arm. What you describe had happened to her in Malaysia and she'd been dragged along the floor a way.

How strange that this comment is attracting downvotes.

Police in the UK recommend leaving your car keys somewhere obvious downstairs in your house for similar reasons.

Replace the steel cable with one of those extendable pet leashes

Pacsafe is a company who actually makes bags with the steel cables built in for this purpose

Why does having an AirTag in the bag mean your friend gets his stuff back? This sounds incredibly optimistic.

They can track it to an address. Usually the police are "no help" because 6 seconds of 180p black and white security camera footage is very little to go on.

If you can tell them that your airtag is inside 45 Elm Rd., they can knock on the door.

Assuming the police are able/willing to follow this up what happens if there's no answer at 45 Elm Rd or they deny all knowledge?

There are some stories of this going wrong the other way. Police showing up and insisting that you stole a device because the not super accurate location was reported at their address.

We even had a similar incident reported today in our nextdoor neighborhood. Someone knocked on the door at 1 AM asking for airpods since they were showing up at that location. Wifi based locationing does not work well all the time.

However, airtags work better than that since if it is within a few feet, you can get a directional view on your phone and could easily confirm if they are nearby. Also they sound loud enough that if you can get close by (inside the house), you can not miss the sound.

Could they enter under some probable cause criteria given the location of the device is reasonably known to be inside the property?

Yes but they would need to have more than just the location of some air tags, which was the case in the linked article where they were already investigating another theft.

45 Elm road? Or, with thin walls, 46 Elm road? ...throw in multiple apartments....

A friend had his laptop and bag stolen from only a few feet behind him at a coffee shop. He had his back to the table he was using for only a minute or two as he placed an order from the counter. There were a few other people in the shop and no one remembers seeing anything.

Do you think having an airtag would have convinced the police to cooperate? If not, what then?

While this anecdote portrays tracking in a positive light let’s not forget the abuses that can occur.

The real problem is that police have given up on fighting crime. The public outrage against the police hasn’t helped.

When it comes to collecting taxes, however, there seems to be no problem with enforcement.

What do you mean the outrage "hasn't helped"? The public outrage against the police is precisely because they've given up on fighting crime, especially crime in their own ranks. The answer isn't a simplistic "more police" or "less police", it's "better policing" where the police actually do the hard parts of their job instead of overzealously focusing on the easier bits.

No, the outrage was over a few events

> The real problem is that police have given up on fighting crime.

The real problem is that the police never were about fighting crime for the masses. The police were always about fighting crime for the rich.

This occasionally resulted in fighting crime for the masses but also occasionally resulted in oppressing the masses themselves.

> The real problem is that the police never were about fighting crime for the masses. The police were always about fighting crime for the rich.

The police intervening in a domestic violence situation is not beneficial to the rich.

"This occasionally resulted in fighting crime for the masses"

> The police were always about fighting crime for the rich.

If you are inside a Starbucks, ordering latte’s and working on an expensive laptop, you are rich.

No you're not. A fairy high proportion of the poplulation can afford the small luxury of $10 to take a company laptop to a coffeeshop and buy an overpriced drink. When we're talking about who the police are fighting crime for, rich is the 1-2%.

The people the parent poster is talking about is more the "donates at least tens of thousands of dollars to local politicians' re-election funds every election" rich, not "can afford fancy coffee regularly" rich...