11 September 2013

Disgusted with ACT Policing

| Concerned
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I just wanted state my absolute disgust with ACT policing. On Monday 9th September, my daughter’s new car that she’d only had a few weeks was broken into out the front of our house in Calwell.

Someone had popped the window which shattered it so as not to make any noise, they removed the shattered window in one piece and placed it under her car, this caused more that $1,000 damage to her new car with the cost of the replacement window and the cost to have the bent frame around the window reparied. Her boyfriends wallet was the only thing taken from her car (and it wasn’t in plain sight). I called to report this to the police, and I was told they don’t send a patrol for this and gave me a crime report number for her insurance and as far as they were concerned that was that.

That same afternoon my daughter’s boyfriend went door knocking the neighbours to see if anyone had seen or heard anything. This is when we discovered our next door neighbours have a CCTV camera set up at the front of their garage which can partially see our front yard as they’ve had their cars broken into a few times and they offered to have a look a see if they could see anything.

The next afternoon they came over to tell us that they had indeed seen the offender on the camera looking through their car windows with a torch and trying to open their car doors at about 3.30am before moving off in the direction of our place and it wasn’t some young teenager as we had suspected. They then called the police, informed them that they had video of the person that broke into my daughter’s car and the police were not even interested in coming around to take a look. What good are the police these days????

We have this low life piece of scum on video and the police are not one bit interested. It seems that Canberran’s can just walk around breaking into people’s cars and nothing will be done about it. I know in the grand sceme of things this isn’t a big crime, but it is still a crime for which we have video and undeniable evidence and yet the police are happy to just let this person continue walking the streets damaging other people’s hard earned property. Absolutely angry and disgusted is how I am feeling right now and the police wonder why people take matters into their own hands!!!

One very angry Canberran!!!

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CCTV =/= evidence.
For starters (don’t quote me on this, it might be old news), footage of someone cannot be used if they did not know they were being filmed, which is why every public area with cameras has big signs up saying “you are being filmed”.
Secondly, all the CCTV footage does, is give the police something to work off. It’s not like TV where they have fancy facial recognition programs of every person to ever go outside in Australia. Unless this person was a known criminal and they have his face on record they won’t have any idea who he is. They aren’t going to pay someone an hourly wage to sift through hundreds of potential photos. They also cannot afford to post a photo of this person in local newspapers/TV etc, as it is insanely costly to do so.

I’m not entirely sure what you wanted the police to do about this whole thing. Your ‘evidence’ is shady, and the amount of manpower involved in tracking him down (hours to identify him, hours to trace him, hours to compile evidence, hours to perform forensic tests on the car for evidence) would likely have cost 10x at a minimum what the loss was.

Also, I should point this out: A new car with P-plates parked on the street (even in the driveway) is just asking for trouble. It indicates that your family is well-to-do (given that you can buy your 18 year old a car), meaning any valuables in the car are probably worth it. It’s also pretty well-known that the younger generation is more likely to have things like wallets, phones, ipads, laptops etc sitting in their car.
As for insurance, given the high-cost of insuring an 18 year old, it might be smarter to insure it under your name until she reaches the age where it gets cheaper, and have her listed as a part-time driver in the meantime. It’s what my parents did for me (though they didn’t buy me a new car) and when my car was broken into, it cost me all of $300 to have 3 windows, the front seat and a $1500 stereo replaced fully.

I offer you my sympathy, but what did you honestly think would happen?

TL;DR: QQ more

OPs neighbour must be growing drugs, if they have CCTV. Refer story ACT police setup in Civic showing grow houses. I have CCTV, I was broken into recently and feel the need to protect myself. Seems the police want more reports; dunno why, they do nothing.
ACT police are evil, particularly the women. I reported a rape and was told by the phone operator that my story did not depict rape and she refused to interview me.
Years later I read about a very similar rape in the paper which was going through the courts. I rang the rape crisis centre and told my story. The counsellour urged me to contact the police again, with her support. The counsellour indicated that she was aware of the police turning away many rape victims without interview. The counsellour stressed that what happened to me was rape, and that I was not at fault. I was devastated and confused; still am.
I did not go back to the police. Why bother.
I feel worthless thinking back on it

OPs neighbour must be growing drugs, if they have CCTV. Refer story ACT police setup in Civic showing grow houses.
ACT police are evil, particularly the women. I reported a rape and was told by the phone operator that my story did not depict rape and she refused to interview me.
Years later I read about a very similar rape in the paper which was going through the courts. I rang the rape crisis centre and told my story. The counsellour urged me to contact the police again, with her support. The counsellour indicated that she was aware of the police turning away many rape victims without interview. The counsellour stressed that what happened to me was rape, and that I was not at fault. I was devastated and confused; still am.
I did not go back to the police. Why bother.
I feel worthless thinking back on it

We’ve all worked hard to buy our cars. Unfortunately a video of someone staring into next door’s car is not proof that the same dude busted into your car.

Call a spade a spade, but as others have said – even if someone could identify Mr carstalker on a video at midnight, unless you see him breaking in to your car A plus B doesn’t always equal C. If you can’t put it away, get it alarmed. Sure, it’s shutting the gate after the horse has bolted, but it’ll stop there being a next time…

Simon.Corbell@act.gov.au

Write to the Police Minister and request a response. Then publish it here so the ACT Community has got a better idea of what to expect from Police when they attempt to report crime.

It’d be good if RA can host the CCTV footage here too.

miz said :

We had similar car incident in our street as the OP (also Tuggers) and, similarly, police refused to attend even though the glass was still on one piece and could have been fingerprinted. Very angry making. Tuggers police have a big PR problem because of their non-attendance problem.

Sorry to hear you had the same thing happen, seems it might be the same person as I’ve heard a few people in Tugg now say their cars were broken into the same way, the piece of glass from my daughters car, while shattered was in one piece and had been placed carefully under her car…. and this guy, who wears a hat, a big coat and carries a backpack will keep getting away with it because the police just don’t want to do anything about it!!! The worst thing was seeing my daughters face when I told her what had happened (I noticed it as I pulled out the driveway to go to work), she had worked so hard for this car and then seeing her face when I told her the police weren’t going to do a damn thing about it!!!!!

Skidd Marx said :

It probably didn’t take you long to work out that the majority of people on this site are complete wankers.

I’d be pissed with the cops too.

Yes they are, and quite frankly, im sick of it… PISS OFF YA WANKERS!!!

We had similar car incident in our street as the OP (also Tuggers) and, similarly, police refused to attend even though the glass was still on one piece and could have been fingerprinted. Very angry making. Tuggers police have a big PR problem because of their non-attendance problem.

It probably didn’t take you long to work out that the majority of people on this site are complete wankers.

I’d be pissed with the cops too.

DrKoresh said :

Would calling 131 444 help? I’m under the impression that the call goes directly to your local police station. I remember calling it once as a teenager, and I’m fairly sure it was answered by an actual officer. He was great, very affable, especially considering I’d just rung-up to ask whether or not smoking tobacco through a bong in public is legal (it is, if anyone is wondering).

Apologies for being a Grumpy Old Man (a little prematurely), but I’d have had you charged with wasting police time…

IP

Concerned said :

DrKoresh said :

Would calling 131 444 help? I’m under the impression that the call goes directly to your local police station. I remember calling it once as a teenager, and I’m fairly sure it was answered by an actual officer. He was great, very affable, especially considering I’d just rung-up to ask whether or not smoking tobacco through a bong in public is legal (it is, if anyone is wondering).

It’s not the emergency number, but the OP doesn’t describe an emergency, so maybe it’d be worth getting in contact with a police station directly.

That was the number I called!

Well I’m fresh out of ideas then 🙁

Post the CCTV

In a kind of related story, approx 4 weeks ago a friend in Florey had discovered that while he was at work, someone had taken the liberty to take somewhere in the vicinity of $1000 – $1500 in car parts and structural steel from within the boundaries of his property.

Little did the thief know that there was a CCTV pointing right at him for the 6 minutes he was stealing property that wasnt his. One picture was posted on social media (it was a unique car that he was driving) we had a business name (which was on the side of the car .. just not enough resolution to read it) address and rego all within 2 hours.

Turns out the driver of Alexander Crane and Tipper Hire goes around scouting for “scrap metal” and this time got caught red handed.

So posting some CCTV footage could well be helpful in identifying the alleged suspect

DrKoresh said :

Would calling 131 444 help? I’m under the impression that the call goes directly to your local police station. I remember calling it once as a teenager, and I’m fairly sure it was answered by an actual officer. He was great, very affable, especially considering I’d just rung-up to ask whether or not smoking tobacco through a bong in public is legal (it is, if anyone is wondering).

It’s not the emergency number, but the OP doesn’t describe an emergency, so maybe it’d be worth getting in contact with a police station directly.

That was the number I called!

I’ve seen the movies and most likely the police were sitting back drinking coffee and eating donuts. Either that or scoffing some Maccas.

Post the video up and lets have a look at the CCTV.

Police in the ACT do not respond to car break ins. They take a report over the phone or at the station.

Take the evidence and go down to your local station and speak with a police officer over the counter.

Get back to us with how the service was.

I should add that I not long ago witnessed a vehicle hit another vehicle and speed off in a car park. ACT Policing were happy to take details and the officer (someone in the traffic division who I was put through to via 131 444) asked a series of questions, the answers to which were noted down (could hear the typing). It was a minor incident, the other car only had some bumper damage, but they were on top of it.

IrishPete said :

c_c™ said :

There are thousands of vehicle theft offences every year in the ACT, and Police and insurers are always reminding people to remove potential rewards (visible or not) and remove the opportunity.

I hate to inject facts into an argument, but in the April to June quarter this year there were 205 motor vehicle thefts of which just 13 were cleared up, i.e. 6%. (To be fair, that should read “which were cleared up in that quarter”, but it’s still unimpressive).

There were other 2740 thefts reported of which 13% were cleared up.

So are there thousands of thefts from vehicles each year? Well, if there are it’s probably a fairly low number of thousands, because many of the 2740 thefts in that quarter would have been non-vehicle-related.

There probably is a source of stats for theft from a vehicle, maybe the ABS, but I can’t easily find it right now.

But it’s the clear-up rate that is instructive.

Clear-up does not need to mean a successful conviction (that takes many months or years in the ACT) – the stats clearly show the low priority given to vehicle crime, despite the risks to life and limb that it poses.

Not that burglary is much different, with 627 reported offences and only 6% cleared up.

These stats are easily available on the JaCS website.

The ACT Policing crime stats webpage http://www.police.act.gov.au/crime-and-safety/crime-statistics.aspx is hard to navigate.

IP

The AFP stats page is super easy to navigate, you just have to know how to use the filters on the right.

In 2012, there were 1137 motor vehicle thefts (i.e. vehicles stollen), 9979 other theft offences (i.e. other than whole vehicles stollen).

(There were only 2446 burglary offences, which is defined as breaking into a structure to commit an offence and 213 robbery offences, which would suggest around 2/3 occurs elsewhere, in other circumstances).

DrKoresh said :

Would calling 131 444 help? I’m under the impression that the call goes directly to your local police station. I remember calling it once as a teenager, and I’m fairly sure it was answered by an actual officer. He was great, very affable, especially considering I’d just rung-up to ask whether or not smoking tobacco through a bong in public is legal (it is, if anyone is wondering).

No, whether you call the 62- number or the 131 number, it goes to Police comms in Belco.

Would calling 131 444 help? I’m under the impression that the call goes directly to your local police station. I remember calling it once as a teenager, and I’m fairly sure it was answered by an actual officer. He was great, very affable, especially considering I’d just rung-up to ask whether or not smoking tobacco through a bong in public is legal (it is, if anyone is wondering).

It’s not the emergency number, but the OP doesn’t describe an emergency, so maybe it’d be worth getting in contact with a police station directly.

I suspect that we have ‘paper police’ who click radio buttons on PROMIS, tick and cross paper forms that are scanned and inputted onto PROMIS attachments; reviewed by a “Sarge” for correctness without reading field notes and then signed off for correctness.

The real investigation starts after an audit or complaint.

without reading all the other responses, i just wanted to add a similar experience where my sister had her brand new car egged (less than 2 weeks old) by drunken hags wandering along commonwealth avenue bridge (causing the whole door needing to be removed and repainted ultimately as it chipped all the paint off, left dents and was a red car which is hard to touch up – cost over $500 and was obviously not worth doing through insurance) but again the police did nothing – pretty much said they took a report, thanks for calling

would be nice if they patrolled or waited for other complaints/more info

so it is pretty poor….i feel for you

Mike Bessenger2:10 pm 12 Sep 13

Obviously the police won’t help. Put the video up on youtube, spread it on social networking sites and let the public help. You’ll probably have a better response anyway.

EvanJames said :

voytek3 said :

What sort of a moron leaves his wallet in a car? He deserved to have it stolen.

No, he didn’t.

Exactly, no he didn’t, it was an error on his part, but was not the reason the car was broken into as it most defnitely was not left out in the open and visible and part of the reason it had been left in the car was that it had been hidden away and simply forgotten, I myself have been guilty of this on more than one occassion and something I think a lot of people have done with either a wallet, phone etc at least once in their life!

Holden Caulfield10:46 am 12 Sep 13

DrKoresh said :

It’s funny, you get solid evidence of a physical crime occurring and popo don’t lift a lazy piggy finger, but I send one drunken and almost (but not quite) threatening email to Scott Morrison and the AFP bully-squad come knocking at my door to give me a good shakedown. If he hadn’t requested feedback on his website about his neanderthalesque immigration policies I wouldn’t have told the bastard what I thought of him.

That reminds me, I had the plods come to visit me at my work one day, at the request of Queensland Police, because someone, somewhere with a forum handle of “Holden Caulfield” must have been threatening someone else, somewhere else.

When I asked the plods if they knew who Holden Caulfield was they had NFI. Maybe they could have investigated that first, before investigating the first Holden Caulfield online they could find.

Still, a bit of an eye opener that they could narrow me down and just waltz into work asking their questions with absolutely zero connection to whatever it was they wouldn’t tell me about they were investigating.

Concerned said :

Was it showing P plates? My son’s car was broken into a few weeks ago, identical circumstances. Luckily nothing was taken, because there was nothing to take, but a lot of mucking around and expense to get the window replaced. I can only think that perhaps a P plated car was targetted since young drivers are more likely to have (and leave) small valuable items in car.

Yes her car was showing her P plates, unfortuntely we’ve also had problems with people repeately stealing her magnetic P plates, even off the old bomb she was driving until recently, so we’ve now had to cable tie the hard plastic ones to her number plates.. I am with you, I think this more a matter of her car being targetting due to the P plates thinking she may have a phone, IPOD or something else of value in the car… It is just unfortunate that on this night her boyfriend had forgotten to remove his wallet from it’s hiding place and the thief found it

Concerned said :

Given my daughter is 18 and her excess is huge we have not gone through insurance on this one, as for why they skipped other vehicles (my partner’s and mine included parked outside) and chose hers we don’t know.

Was it showing P plates? My son’s car was broken into a few weeks ago, identical circumstances. Luckily nothing was taken, because there was nothing to take, but a lot of mucking around and expense to get the window replaced. I can only think that perhaps a P plated car was targetted since young drivers are more likely to have (and leave) small valuable items in car.

Throw it on RiotACT and be sure to get the mob onto him
(or send around DOGMAN)

milkman said :

They might, but first the insurer will (if they haven’t already noted on the policy) note that the vehicle wasn’t garaged. That will then make the insured person’s risk assessment higher, and the cost of their policy higher too. And because it’s a not at fault, but 3rd party unidentified incident, most insurers will charge you excess and doc your no-claim rating too.

Insurers, like police, want people to take some self responsibility.

It seems pretty obvious that they skipped another vehicle and did this one because there were goodies in it, despite your claim they weren’t visible. Now I’d rather not have to pay to have my windows replaced because someone broke in looking for a wallet or a phone, just because some people do leave those things around.

Given my daughter is 18 and her excess is huge we have not gone through insurance on this one, as for why they skipped other vehicles (my partner’s and mine included parked outside) and chose hers we don’t know. The wallet was definitely not visible and an unfortunate error on her boyfriend’s part in forgetting to grab it out of the car given it was hidden away… something I’m sure everyone has done at some point, I know I have accidentally left my phone in the car. We can only put it down to hers being a shiny new car with big P plates on it, giving away it belonged to a young person and therefore may have something of value in it

Tooks said :

And explain how police can be incompetent if they didn’t attend because it wasn’t dispatched.

While Tooks won’t read this, I would like to say that while I agree with and hold a similar position for the most part, this part is a bit silly. If I call the number for ACT Policing, and talk to a human, and get an unsatisfactory response, I would then form an unsatisfactory opinion of ACT Policing. It doesn’t mean that the individual cop who does or doesn’t attend is incompetent. It means ACT Policing isn’t meeting my expectations.

For the record ACT Policing have by and large met my expectations in the past, but I really hate to hear these stories – Either they don’t have the resources to attend, or they have and SOP not to attend certain things (presumably because they would run out of resources if they did).

c_c™ said :

There are thousands of vehicle theft offences every year in the ACT, and Police and insurers are always reminding people to remove potential rewards (visible or not) and remove the opportunity.

I hate to inject facts into an argument, but in the April to June quarter this year there were 205 motor vehicle thefts of which just 13 were cleared up, i.e. 6%. (To be fair, that should read “which were cleared up in that quarter”, but it’s still unimpressive).

There were other 2740 thefts reported of which 13% were cleared up.

So are there thousands of thefts from vehicles each year? Well, if there are it’s probably a fairly low number of thousands, because many of the 2740 thefts in that quarter would have been non-vehicle-related.

There probably is a source of stats for theft from a vehicle, maybe the ABS, but I can’t easily find it right now.

But it’s the clear-up rate that is instructive.

Clear-up does not need to mean a successful conviction (that takes many months or years in the ACT) – the stats clearly show the low priority given to vehicle crime, despite the risks to life and limb that it poses.

Not that burglary is much different, with 627 reported offences and only 6% cleared up.

These stats are easily available on the JaCS website.

The ACT Policing crime stats webpage http://www.police.act.gov.au/crime-and-safety/crime-statistics.aspx is hard to navigate.

IP

thebrownstreak699:44 am 12 Sep 13

Tooks said :

And explain how police can be incompetent if they didn’t attend because it wasn’t dispatched.

So who would you say made the decision to use non-police despatchers?

BTW, I’m not posting again on this thread or even reading it. Past experience tells me this will end up being about 10 pages full of people slagging each other off. I’ll leave it to the rest of you. Enjoy.

Aeek said :

Tooks said :

A call taker in Belconnen didn’t dispatch your job to a patrol, so police are lazy and don’t care. Not sure I’m following. Police can’t investigate an incident if it’s written off over the phone by a civilian operator.

You are a known apologist for police incompetence, so no surprise.

Am I? Why is it then that on about a thousand occasions on this site, I’ve recommended people make a complaint to police in relation to incompetence/inadequate service etc? Please explain how that makes me an apologist? And explain how police can be incompetent if they didn’t attend because it wasn’t dispatched.

You, like a lot of people on this site, see a more balanced comment (with actual facts added) devoid of emotive crap and you automatically assume I’m some kind of apologist. Grow up, ffs.

Madam Cholet8:50 am 12 Sep 13

Take your concerns to the Minister instead of making written threats on a well known forum.

For the record, I would be disappointed if they said they weren’t interested, but I’m not sure that it’s the case here. They just said they wouldn’t come round to view the footage.

And your next door neighbour sounds like mine with CCTV plastered all over the house. A few in our street seem to have this modern day paranoia. I’m more concerned about my neighbours potential snooping on my property as opposed to his security.

Concerned said :

Tooks said :

A call taker in Belconnen didn’t dispatch your job to a patrol, so police are lazy and don’t care. Not sure I’m following. Police can’t investigate an incident if it’s written off over the phone by a civilian operator.

funny that when my neighbour called he spoke with actual an actual police officer explain that one… It’s ok though I’ll find the bloke myself and when the crime rate for people taking matters into their own hands grows who will the police blame then?????

Firstly, you won’t find the bloke because there’s no evidence, so don’t be silly. But if you want to get done for assault for hitting someone you think broke a window, well…that’s up to you.

The point remains you and your neighbour talked to someone in a call centre and they didn’t pass it on to a patrol. Whether that’s the right call or not I don’t know. In my personal opinion, when people like your neighbour call up and say they may have evidence, then they shouldn’t be fobbed off. While it’s unlikely the cctv would be any use in terms of identifying the offender, it should still be checked out, but that’s just my take on it.

Some people are shit, and it’s a shitty thing to happen (it’s happened to me too – back when people still broke into cars to steal stereos), but the reality of policing is you have about 90,000 people in Tuggeranong and on a Monday night, there’d be two, maybe three patrol cars for that whole area.

Like I said, I don’t know if not sending a patrol is the right call or not (fingerprints on the glass? looking at the cctv to see if it’s useful). Maybe they should’ve and maybe that’s something you should take up with them. But using emotive language, suggesting they are lazy, don’t do anything, don’t care etc, doesn’t really wash when every day on this site alone, there are stories about offenders being arrested for a variety of crimes (both minor and serious – have a look at the law & justice stories on this site for the last week or two) and the AMC is near capacity.

If you’re not happy (and obviously you’re not) then either call to make a complaint or post the CCTV on this site so we can at least have a squizz.

voytek3 said :

What sort of a moron leaves his wallet in a car? He deserved to have it stolen.

This..
Make it worth my while next time, only had a measly $20 bucks and 6 condoms…

Tooks said :

A call taker in Belconnen didn’t dispatch your job to a patrol, so police are lazy and don’t care. Not sure I’m following. Police can’t investigate an incident if it’s written off over the phone by a civilian operator.

funny that when my neighbour called he spoke with actual an actual police officer explain that one… It’s ok though I’ll find the bloke myself and when the crime rate for people taking matters into their own hands grows who will the police blame then?????

I need the old blade runner, I need your magic.

Car breakins and theft are organised crime in Canberra. I’ve lived in a complex (this is 5 years ago now) where car thefts were frequent and on one occasion over a dozen cars were stolen from the supposedly secure carpark. Body corporate refused to discuss improving security and police refused to attend for several hours, eventually sending someone out that afternoon after we all threatened to get very nasty about it.

They own the police and there’s nothing you can do about it.

I’ve even observed a handful of car thieves in the act. My friends and I thought we could scare them away but they didn’t care, they just kept at it until the car was stolen and driven away. We reported it to the police but were never asked to give a statement or testify in court… Guess why.

Tooks said :

A call taker in Belconnen didn’t dispatch your job to a patrol, so police are lazy and don’t care. Not sure I’m following. Police can’t investigate an incident if it’s written off over the phone by a civilian operator.

You are a known apologist for police incompetence, so no surprise.

Aeek said :

Concerned said :

milkman said :

Post the footage on youtube under the title “$1000 reward for this person’s right ear, attached or separate”.

I may just have to the neighbour to make me a copy and do just that

Maybe, also to your insurance company. They may frown on our police’s willingness to cost them money.

They might, but first the insurer will (if they haven’t already noted on the policy) note that the vehicle wasn’t garaged. That will then make the insured person’s risk assessment higher, and the cost of their policy higher too. And because it’s a not at fault, but 3rd party unidentified incident, most insurers will charge you excess and doc your no-claim rating too.

Insurers, like police, want people to take some self responsibility.

It seems pretty obvious that they skipped another vehicle and did this one because there were goodies in it, despite your claim they weren’t visible. Now I’d rather not have to pay to have my windows replaced because someone broke in looking for a wallet or a phone, just because some people do leave those things around.

voytek3 said :

What sort of a moron leaves his wallet in a car? He deserved to have it stolen.

No, he didn’t.

My car was broken into a few weeks back, at work. They punched in the passenger’s side door lock. Nothing valuable was in view, it’s an old, scruffy car. They opened the glovebox and ashtray drawers and yep, nothing to steal. Nada, zip.

Now I can’t open my passengers side door from the outside, or wind the window down. No one even thought of telling the police, I sure didn’t. What’s the point? They don’t care, theft is a free for all these days. I’m surprised more people don’t become theives, they might as well.

A call taker in Belconnen didn’t dispatch your job to a patrol, so police are lazy and don’t care. Not sure I’m following. Police can’t investigate an incident if it’s written off over the phone by a civilian operator.

This sort of police response (eg – no response) has been my experience of Canberra policing also.

Yet in SA people whose cars are burgled get the police out doing fingerprints etc.

Concerned said :

milkman said :

Post the footage on youtube under the title “$1000 reward for this person’s right ear, attached or separate”.

I may just have to the neighbour to make me a copy and do just that

Maybe, also to your insurance company. They may frown on our police’s willingness to cost them money.

Ooh, and isn’t there a TV program ?

wildturkeycanoe said :

So, cops aren’t interested in burglaries, the courts let drink drivers off with puny court costs and they leave all the speed cameras to TAMS to operate. What kind of law enforcement is that? I am absolutely disgusted as well and really think that we should start petitioning the government to set up a publicly funded vigilante group to roam our streets at night, armed with baseball bats and tasers. Deputize some law abiding citizens who are protected by the law from prosecution due to the use of excessive force in making a citizen’s arrest.

Well I’m certainly happy to join in with my newly purchased baseball bat… It seems the police spend more time in maccas drive throughs than they do fighting crime and catching these low life pieces of scum so it seems us citizens must do their job for them

CraigT said :

c_c™ said :

There are thousands of vehicle theft offences every year in the ACT, …

…but there aren’t anywhere near thousands of individual offenders.

There are thousands of offences because there is fuckall being done about the small number of crims that plague us.

Viweing the footage could allow the cops to identify the suspect. A quick warrant and search later could turn up the wallet.

But if they did that, crime would drop, and they’d do themselves out of a job. This is why the vast majority of policing in the ACT involves sitting behind a desk inventing excuses to ignore crimes rather than getting out there and catching robbers.

This is exactly my point… It’s not thousand of people breaking into cars… It’s a few low lives who have learnt they can get away with it…. Meanwhile they roam around damaging other peoples hard earned belongings… This guy wouldn’t want to meet me in my street again!

What sort of a moron leaves his wallet in a car? He deserved to have it stolen.

milkman said :

Post the footage on youtube under the title “$1000 reward for this person’s right ear, attached or separate”.

I may just have to the neighbour to make me a copy and do just that

Well I don’t know, they seem to do okay for lazy desk jockeys,

From the relatively minor: http://the-riotact.com/gordon-losers-piling-up-the-offences/114846 to some more serious things: http://the-riotact.com/belconnen-child-assaulter-nabbed/114577

wildturkeycanoe7:54 pm 11 Sep 13

So, cops aren’t interested in burglaries, the courts let drink drivers off with puny court costs and they leave all the speed cameras to TAMS to operate. What kind of law enforcement is that? I am absolutely disgusted as well and really think that we should start petitioning the government to set up a publicly funded vigilante group to roam our streets at night, armed with baseball bats and tasers. Deputize some law abiding citizens who are protected by the law from prosecution due to the use of excessive force in making a citizen’s arrest.

It’s Tuggeranong Police. I’d expect nothing less.

I’ve had the Victims of Crime Commissioner take up my case because of this station. I’m still having issues with the ‘investigating officer’ who thinks I, as the victim, need to do his job (and that’s in at least two emails).

Whilst I cannot go completely into my own ‘issue’ with them as it is now in front of the courts (Commonwealth DPP), let me assure you that they’re a joke.

Post the footage on youtube under the title “$1000 reward for this person’s right ear, attached or separate”.

c_c™ said :

There are thousands of vehicle theft offences every year in the ACT, …

…but there aren’t anywhere near thousands of individual offenders.

There are thousands of offences because there is fuckall being done about the small number of crims that plague us.

Viweing the footage could allow the cops to identify the suspect. A quick warrant and search later could turn up the wallet.

But if they did that, crime would drop, and they’d do themselves out of a job. This is why the vast majority of policing in the ACT involves sitting behind a desk inventing excuses to ignore crimes rather than getting out there and catching robbers.

DrKoresh said :

It’s funny, you get solid evidence of a physical crime occurring and popo don’t lift a lazy piggy finger, but I send one drunken and almost (but not quite) threatening email to Scott Morrison and the AFP bully-squad come knocking at my door to give me a good shakedown. If he hadn’t requested feedback on his website about his neanderthalesque immigration policies I wouldn’t have told the bastard what I thought of him.

Lol, you knob. Should have sent him a turd in a shoe box. Almost untraceable …

Unfortunately, from the what I have been told, the new Chief Lammers may not help us with the quality of local policing.

jessieduck said :

It sucks but the police have better things to do. Let the insurance sort it out and move on.

Clearly catching criminals isn’t one of them

c_c™ said :

the thief has been rewarded and will be encouraged to offend again. Which will mean more risk others will be broken into, and that translates into higher insurance costs.

Bravo. onya way.

The theif has been rewarded because he knows the police won’t do jack sh#t which encourages him and his mates to do it again meaning more risk to others and higher insurance costs!

OLydia said :

The Police are happy to arrest gun toting criminals and banging up a few bikies, but for community policing – forget it. Rant over

Not to mention the time spent on revenue raising. Clearly crime does pay these days… The criminals know the police will do squat!

ErkzO said :

Welcome to Canberra policing.
You now might understand why its easier to take things into your own hands as far as catching the criminal 🙂

Now I know what he looks like if I see him lurking anywhere near my property he will meet the end of my baseball bat… Bet the police will take notice of that

It’s funny, you get solid evidence of a physical crime occurring and popo don’t lift a lazy piggy finger, but I send one drunken and almost (but not quite) threatening email to Scott Morrison and the AFP bully-squad come knocking at my door to give me a good shakedown. If he hadn’t requested feedback on his website about his neanderthalesque immigration policies I wouldn’t have told the bastard what I thought of him.

Whilst I think it’s pretty ordinary that the coppers don’t care, the fact is if they came around and looked at the video evidence, found and arrested the guy, the courts would most likely let him go without even a warning whilst apologising to the low life scum bag about the inconvenience.

Put a thing into your insurance, let them know there is a video and leave it be.

Rawhide Kid Part35:48 pm 11 Sep 13

I hear your grief on this one. However unless the CCTV captured the offender actually breaking into your daughters car, there’s no real evidence even if the suspected offender was recorded trying other cars on the same CCTV at around the same time. ACT Policing in all fairness haven’t got a thing to go on in this case. No witness to the breaking, no actual breaking recording on the CCTV . Unless the or a suspect is caught with your daughters, boyfriends wallet in their possession , then there might be further investigation.

I too have had similar experiences dealing with the AFP following relatively minor incidents. One incident involved an explosive device being placed in my solid brick mailbox. When detonated the mailbox totally disintegrated and pieces of shrapnel landed in the yards of neighbours across the street and leaving the garage door pock marked. A quick thinking neighbour after hearing the explosion following the bike riding cretins as far as he could till they turned off the road. He was able to provide a description as well. Were the Police interested? No. They simply provided an incident number and said they was nothing they could do.

The Police are happy to arrest gun toting criminals and banging up a few bikies, but for community policing – forget it. Rant over

Eyeofthetiger5:31 pm 11 Sep 13

Sorry to be ‘that guy’ and I can understand your frustration, but try to see it from the other side of the fence..
So you have a car with a broken window, high chance there will be no fingerprints or anything and the time spent dusting it far outweighs the monetary loss.
Your neighbour will have a grainy CCTV video where you see an outline of a shady character wearing a hoodie. Just because there is CCTV doesn’t mean jack, 90% of the time CCTV is useless.
Maybe it would have made you feel better if the police came out and jotted a few notes down in their notebook and left.
I have doubts that the wallet or something else was not in plain sight, if he looked in the neighbour’s car with a torch then moved on why did he break into yours?

Welcome to Canberra policing.
You now might understand why its easier to take things into your own hands as far as catching the criminal 🙂

Holden Caulfield5:25 pm 11 Sep 13

Does the video show the offender breaking into your daughter’s car, or do you just have string circumstantial evidence, rather than “undeniable”.

As for taking it up further with the Police, I’d be inclined to put a copy of the video on a smartphone and front up to a cop shop and show it to them and discuss it a bit more.

If they’re still unwilling to do anything perhaps you can ask them why. There may be some valid reasons?

Unfortunately you have a video that shows someone looking in your neighbours car, not a video of a person shattering your daughter’s window and taking her boyfriend’s wallet. It’s not undeniable evidence.

It sucks but the police have better things to do. Let the insurance sort it out and move on.

“Her boyfriends wallet was the only thing taken from her car (and it wasn’t in plain sight).”

So she left a vehicle in the street, with a wallet in it, and you wonder why the Police aren’t helping you out more.

There are thousands of vehicle theft offences every year in the ACT, and Police and insurers are always reminding people to remove potential rewards (visible or not) and remove the opportunity.

Police have enough trouble resourcing minor offences as it is, I think you’ll find their willingness to help will be in part related to the contribution of the person reporting it to the loss incurred. Because that wallet was left in the car, the thief has been rewarded and will be encouraged to offend again. Which will mean more risk others will be broken into, and that translates into higher insurance costs.

Bravo. onya way.

Soooo…. link to youtube?

I’m wondering if the other half of the story is the police saying “no we don’t want to come out, please send us the footage”. Would be a sensible thing for you to do anyway. Unless they’re saying they aren’t interested because they will get a dark blurry image that couldn’t be used to identify anybody other than half the male population.

I’m sure the police would likely attend more incidents if they had the resources to do so, but the Government doesn’t fund that so you live with what we have.

If you felt that you were seriously that badly done by, you would be writing an email to their complaints area rather than writing a pointless rant on here that will achieve nothing.

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