My shared connection to the Realtor dope I wrote about originally is someone I'm quite close to, and through them I've learned some pretty alarming realities of law enforcement.

It seems like the higher up the chain you look, the more indifference or incompetence you find.

Well, let's say, you have a really competent investigator. Is that the person you want to be promoted into a position where they are not doing any investigating anymore? In that light it's good to have the incompetent higher up so that the people doing the real work are those that are competent. :)

I really, really, really tried my best, but the only appropriate i could think of was "Fucking hell!".

Are you sure they're not a realtor masquerading as a....well, at this point, who gives a shit?

Maybe I can moonlight as a writer in Hollywood

Clip: https://youtu.be/8Inf1Yz_fgk

Not ragging on real estate agents, it's not an easy thing to pull off; convincing someone to hand you 3-6% of the biggest financial transaction they've ever made just for you to negotiate for what's probably a grand total of a few hours and do some online shopping. And they do provide value insofar as knowing the landscape can really help a client avoid getting bent over a barrel.

Source: did it myself (poorly, which is why I'm in tech).

This really surprises me.

I would have assumed that an FBI memory card used for taking surveillance photos would have all kinds of security and encryption on it for chain-of-custody purposes. Otherwise, the photos won't stand up in court.

The healthcare company I work for has cameras it uses for photos, and for HIPAA reasons those cards are encrypted and secured. They won't even mount on an unauthorized computer.

It's why the cameras police departments use cost 5x more than the consumer versions.