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.