Package thief caught

S

stratfordwill

Getting the hang of it
Jun 29, 2014
27
58
Came home yesterday expecting to find a package on my porch. No package. Checked my cams and sure enough, he takes the package a minute or so after delivery.

Uploaded clips to dropbox and waited for cops. Thirty minutes after showing him the video and emailing the clips, officer called and said they had him. When they contacted him he confessed to a felony he had committed earlier in the day and when they served the warrant to recover my package, they found meth and heroin.

So this little misdemeanor escapade earned him two separate felonies.



 
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Police went by less than a minute later!:wave:
 
I didn't catch that the first time I watched it, but the cop who responded noticed it when I played it for him.
 
Cockroach. I detest thieves. Glad he got what he deserved.
 
Lee bought these cams 1 year ago, he told me this morning, i am a little strange this guy looks not poor guy at all but still stole packages, i think US street cams not as good as yours, lol.
 
EMPIRETECANDY said:
Lee bought these cams 1 year ago, he told me this morning, i am a little strange this guy looks not poor guy at all but still stole packages, i think US street cams not as good as yours, lol.
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in US. the street cams are not good at all. not like china. IA system.
 
gpower07 said:
in US. the street cams are not good at all. not like china. IA system.
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In China who cross the road without obey rules will get fine on the 2nd day morning, face recognize!
 
This male suspect is young and moves in a way that suggests he's physically capable if confronted by a homeowner. He might choose flight instead of fight - who knows? StratfordWill, if you happened to be at your residence and were lucky enough to visually assess the suspect as he stole the package - what would you have done at that moment??
 
Full daylight. Busy street. I think I would have probably gone out on my porch and told him he was on camera and asked for it back. I'd have stayed on my porch so I could get back in the house quickly if necessary, but I'm a big guy and it's not likely he would come back to attack me.

I don't carry concealed and I don't have a weapon accessible enough that I would have had it in time, and I'm not ever going to be running down a public street waving a gun over some piddly package, so there's no way that I'd have provoked a physical confrontation.
 
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stratfordwill said:
.... and I'm not ever going to be running down a public street waving a gun over some piddly package
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Under those specific set of circumstances that's exercising good judgment, IMO, and I can't imagine any reasonable person on this forum disagreeing with that.
 
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stratfordwill said:
Thanks. I wondered why the audio did that.

The audio should have been off, but somehow I must have reset it at some point.

I’m in a 2 party state so I don’t want the audio on.
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Fyi You would have the issue in a one party state as well...
 
That's great you were able to get police roll-out. In many cities I don't think you can get that kind of response from cops re a porch package theft anymore -- even with video of the guy. If the package value is < $750, in my city, all the guy would have to do is declare that he is "homeless" — now a protected status that grants immunity for any misdemeanor crimes —and he would not (could not) be subject to arrest. He'd walk away with some sort of written citation, at the most.
 
A lot of luck went into this for sure. I live in a small town. It wasn't a busy weekend, or too late. The perp happened to be on the same street a few blocks away. (Where he was couch-surfing.) And he just blurted out to a separate felony when he was contacted.

Our local leos are pretty good about investigating property crimes if they have anything to work with. But this specific set of circumstances was pretty serendipitous.

I'm pretty sure we would have identified him eventually. I'm a prosecutor and our courthouse sits on top of our local jail. One of the corrections deputies would have recognized his face, but it's unlikely they would have recovered my package if we hadn't been very lucky to catch him on the same day.

I was lucky in getting an officer who I knew. My last felony trial was a theft investigated by this officer. Weirdly I'd seen him at the courthouse earlier that day.

In a lot of larger jurisdictions here, this never would have happened. But around here we still prosecute at least some property crimes. I'd like to think that the officer would have handled it the same even if he hadn't known me.

Getting any significant sentences for property crime is a whole other can of worms. It takes a miracle or a repeat offender with a half-dozen or more offenses to get a sniff of a prison sentence for property crime here.
 
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stevejay said:
If the package value is < $750, in my city, all the guy would have to do is declare that he is "homeless" — now a protected status that grants immunity for any misdemeanor crimes —and he would not (could not) be subject to arrest. He'd walk away with some sort of written citation, at the most.
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That's too bad... stealing is stealing. Now if the "homeless" person was stealing food I could understand, but they're being given immunity when breaking a law that I would be prosecuted for? Isn't that in itself some sort of discrimination? Insane, IMHO.

Who am I kidding.... I live in a state that offers a handicapped plate for a motorcycle...the lunatics are running the asylum. :banghead:
 
& stratfordwill : Are your cameras in plain sight, somewhat obscured or fully hidden? I would expect a thief that is smart enough to follow the mailman would pay attention to the environment and not walk right into them.
Until I started looking at surveillance systems I never paid attention to these things. I do now. Actually I think I am suspicious when I scan around for cameras in stores an other public places.
On my street, I noticed only the 15th-20th house on so has one or two cameras, and from what I learn on this site is that most of them are actually useless.
 
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