Do police ignore your video?

cam235

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Local theft of > $4000 in tools from a work truck (not mine, thankfully) parked on the street in front of a house overnight. Neighbors have video of two people involved, including a clear view of a getaway vehicle and the plate. San Jose PD was offered the video. Their response (paraphrased): "Sorry but no one is interested."

I thought they might take it and just sit on it, but no. In fact with grand theft they won't even pretend to collect evidence.

Please tell me it is not like this in other areas.

EDIT: Update 1/19. My city councilman agrees this is not right, and his office is looking into it.
 
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Coger2017

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Oh I find that very hard to believe. But!! If true, a simple phone call to the world famous and honest newspaper or news channel will get better results.
 

Frankenscript

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Local theft of > $4000 in tools from a work truck (not mine, thankfully) parked on the street in front of a house overnight. Neighbors have video of two people involved, including a clear view of a getaway vehicle and the plate. San Jose PD was offered the video. Their response (paraphrased): "Sorry but no one is interested."

I thought they might take it and just sit on it, but no. In fact with grand theft they won't even pretend to collect evidence.

Please tell me it is not like this in other areas.
Sounds like a great story to tell to the local news channel. They love expose' stuff like this.

Sent from my ONEPLUS A3000 using Tapatalk
 

Parley

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Our local police is interested in my videos. They have been in my house a few times to view videos and take copies. This is one of the reasons I have been upgrading my cameras for better night time pictures.
 

cam235

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I agree the local news may be the way to go. By the way, I am not saying they do nothing; they do respond to violent incidents and real-time intruders. However, in this case and with others I'm aware of, property crime (of any magnitude) after the fact is simply not on the radar.

I do not think it is necessarily a California thing, although there is a recent law making theft under $950 just a misdemeanor. In fact I've heard good things about police response in neighboring cities. I don't have a lot of data but I wonder if this may be something specific about San Jose.
 

bigredfish

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No offense :)

I just find there are very few things about the folks running that country that I understand ;)
 

mat200

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Local theft of > $4000 in tools from a work truck (not mine, thankfully) parked on the street in front of a house overnight. Neighbors have video of two people involved, including a clear view of a getaway vehicle and the plate. San Jose PD was offered the video. Their response (paraphrased): "Sorry but no one is interested."

I thought they might take it and just sit on it, but no. In fact with grand theft they won't even pretend to collect evidence.

Please tell me it is not like this in other areas.
Hi Cam,

San Jose CA -

In addition to news, hit the following:

nextdoor
facebook
+ other online news sites / blogs as well as social media outlets.
 

looney2ns

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Hi Cam,

San Jose CA -

In addition to news, hit the following:

nextdoor
facebook
+ other online news sites / blogs as well as social media outlets.
Nope, they are very interested in home owners video here.

Also Time to become a nuisance to the police chef, the city council, the mayor and prosecutors office.
Heck, file a complaint on the state attorney generals website.
It "could be" due to budget cuts, and they have to prioritize....that's insane.
But again, as the fish said, it's commifornia, little that does make sense.
 

cam235

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Before hitting the newspapers I did contact my district's city council member and his office did get back today with an apology, and says they want to figure out what happened and fix this right away. So, we shall see.
 

RJF

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DC police request and post to their YouTube channel homeowner videos all the time. DC will reimburse you up to $500 for your video cameras if you agree to provide footage if they need it.
 

Fastb

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Maybe the police have grown tired coming out to see low quality video from Nest and Ring cams. ie: video that doesn't have a good facial shot, doesn't help the LEO, and actually wastes their time.
This wasn't another porch pirate situation however. The LEO was told the video contains the license plate, vehicles, and people. Also, $4K in tools should warrant a higher level of LEO investigation.....
 

CCTVCam

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No offense :)

I just find there are very few things about the folks running that country that I understand ;)
I came to the conclusion a long time ago that the politicians aren't really interested in stopping crime because it doesn't affect them. As politicians they have around the clock protection plus most live in expensive neighbourhoods that are largely unaffected by crime. To them policing and prisons are just another budget expense they could do without getting larger. Then there's the fact that some aspects of crime, are prevalent in the rich and so they probably don't want to stop them. eg. I'm pretty sure in the UK they could stop drugs overnight (harder in the US because of the size and numbers), but I'm also of the opinion they don't want to. How many rich and famous do you hear of using party drugs?
 

Matt L.

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I'm a bit worried to tell police as they could just seize the stuff. Nice that DC Metro will reimburse. Too frequently that happens to people, less often businesses, rich people.
 

RJF

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I'm a bit worried to tell police as they could just seize the stuff. Nice that DC Metro will reimburse. Too frequently that happens to people, less often businesses, rich people.
Not that worried. If the police want the footage they will get it, whether or not you have agreed in advance to provide it. Unless the camera is camouflaged, they are likely to see it when they scope out the crime scene.
 

cam235

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Just as a followup, regarding the original incident: the city councilman's office was able to forward the video to police. Still not sure why SJPD didn't take interest in the first place.

In fairness to other local police agencies, it appears that some of them eg. Fremont PD does actively pursue property crimes. They just reported one guy had 700 stolen laptops at his house. He was fencing locally plus a regular monthly truckload shipping out to Asia. Trying to even out the international trade imbalance I guess.
Thousands of stolen laptops, tablets recovered in massive Bay Area car burglary scheme
 
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PapaBill

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Welcome to the Bay Area, where the law only cares about the rich and famous, and if your just a homeowner or even renter... BIG DEAL.
Yes I know since I was born and raised in Redwood City, but luckily my family got me out of that crap bay and into the central valley.
Hope they finally get off their arses and do something about that theft.
Keep us informed please.

I forgot to mention at least over here in the central valley, the local P.D. and even the S.O. ask to see any videos ya have of a crime.
 

darrenph1

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In Los Angeles here. We were broken into but our neighbor confronted the getaway car mid burglary. They got away with next to nothing. When I got home and the police were there with my wife. I told them I had the security cameras. They asked to see if we could see the guys in the footage. I only had front and side house cameras at that time and they came in the back from another neighbors backyard, but I have them driving up and down the the street, getting out of the car and running back to the car after the confrontation. I burned a DVD for them right there and was asked if I could email the clips via dropbox to one of their detectives.

Now granted there wasn't much in the footage to help them much, paper plates on the cars and the guys were wearing hoodies and masks and using walkie talkies to communicate as thats how the guy inside found out it was time to go...

Can't believe they wouldn't want to see the footage you have, that sucks,
 
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