Last night I had a tricky decision to make. I left my apartment to catch the lift upstairs to lend some clothes to a friend. While waiting for the lift to come, I looked out the window noticed something strange going on down on the street.
Three young people, a girl and two boys, ran along the street and stopped next to a car. "There's heaps of cars here", the girl said. One of the boys looked out while the other two crouched down next to the car and used tools to break in to the car. It was a similar situation to what I saw when I came across two older men breaking into my car a few months ago.
I heard one of them say, "There's someone up there". He was probably talking about me, I thought, so I backed away from the window and pulled out my mobile to call the police.
Then I stopped. What would it achieve to call the police? The kids would definitely be gone by the time the police got there. I wouldn't be able to identify them in any confident way because our street isn't lit. All that would happen is that I'd have a conversation with a policeman about a crime I didn't really see very well, unable to identify the perpetrators.
So I put my phone away and took the lift upstairs to drop off the clothes. The crew outside continued their work as I entered the lift. By the time I came back down, only a few minutes later, the group had disappeared.
I'm still not sure whether I did the right thing. Am I too cynical of the police response? Some might argue that deciding whether a crime is worth pursuing is someone else's decision, not mine.
Think about the guy whose car was robbed, he is going to place a police report, they ‘would’ of linked it up to your call, especially if you gave them the cars rego. These kids will probably do the same thing again with the same group of ‘friends’, if they are caught next time it is possible the police ‘might’ be able to link the crimes.
Also ask yourself this: would it be weighing on your conscious now? I don’t think so. I think your blog post may of taken a very different tact otherwise.
Jus
My car has been broken into several times, but nothing is ever stolen because the car is empty. I imagine the same is true for most residents in our street. I’ve never contacted the police about the break-ins because there hasn’t been anything stolen, just some broken locks and door handles.
The other situation was when I was mugged in Hyde Park. The police asked lots of questions about the guys who did it, but it was dark and I couldn’t give them a lot of information despite spending about an hour answering their questions. They told me there might be a camera nearby that they could get information from. In the end, nothing was done; my report would be one of the many filed by the city police about such crimes.
To me these crimes really represent a social problem not something that can be improved so easily.
My decision hasn’t been weighing on my conscience actually. My choice doesn’t make a big difference in the scheme of things. I just thought it was an interesting situation to write about.
Of course it might have been luck that they were dumb enough to stick around. But even though it is hassle (we were ordered to court to testify), it’s worth the effort if it helps making the area you live in a saver place.
Cheers,
Jens
I understand your reasoning Matt. I didn’t think twice about calling the police that night, but at the same time, the whole thing seemed like a futile attempt. As far as I know, none of the people I know who have been at the receiving end of a crime has had their perpetrators caught. So it’s hard to say if what you do has any positive or negative impact.
There were three people sitting in a get-way-car idling next to the parked car in which a fourth person was inside, likely attempting to start.
When my car entered the basement garage, the fourth person jumped out of the parked car and quickly went into their get-away-car and, along with the other three people, and slowly drove away. I managed to make a note of their car color, make, model, license plate, and the general appearance of the people involved. However, this would also indicate they were able to notice the same details about me and my car considering there were four sets of eyes on their side.
After a couple minutes I returned to the parked car and looking through the drivers’ side window of the parked car I noticed that the plastic panel below the steering wheel was removed and was located on the passenger seat. The steering wheel column including the ignition area below the steering wheel was exposing wires, all pointing to signs of attempts to start the car.
I thought of reporting this incident, however after some though, I did not see any benefit and a possibility of retaliation by the suspects if they were caught, since they likely saw my car and other details of me as well. Insurance covers such types of break-ins so the owner of the parked car would likely be fully compensated.
I did a license plate check from our transportation ministry’s website and noticed the plate did not match the description of the car that I saw was being used as the get-away-car indicating the plates did not belong to the car. Therefore the information I had would likely be of little help to the police.
In my situation, I decided not to report this incident, at this time.
The same attitude (what can I do? What will the Police do?) is why children are starved to death or people are put in suitcases and no one notices it or cares. If no other justification is sufficient for you, surely it’s enough that just because you feel you can’t get anything done, doesn’t mean you don’t stop trying.
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