Someone broke into my car last night...

What would you hope to get out of contacting the police?  Was the car damaged?  You may need a police report to possibly have insurance cover it.  Based on my experience, any damage that was likely caused would be less than a deductible, so it might be pointless.

I have an acquaintance who is, unfortunately, a drug addict and petty thief. Not a guy I have over for Xmas; he once took a penny jar being used as a doorstop.

 

He reports that usually when he gets busted for possession, the cops will go to his apartment and sift through his sundry Ipods and jewellery boxes to see if anything matches their recent reports.

 

They have never approached him concerning the missing items directly, even though he's a known carbreaker. Much easier for them to wait for the slam-dunk search warrant.

A couple months ago, I woke up at 5:30am to the sound of breaking glass. I put on my shoes and went to investigate the carport behind my apartment building, where I found that someone had smashed the window to my neighbor's car. I was parked next to him, but my car was untouched; this is why I drive a shitheap.

 

I called the police and reported it. Surprisingly, there's a police station less than half a block from my apartment building. Either the thieves had some balls or were from another part of town. At any rate, I figured that reporting it couldn't hurt and if break-ins became more common in my neighborhood, maybe the boys in blue might step up their presence.

That sucks, Syd.  Someone broke into a friend's car when we were seeing Matrix: Revolutions.   A window was broken, and nothing but a book of burned cds was taken, but talk about adding insult to injury.

I have a friend who was robbed- some drunk kids trashed his backyard and made off with his guitar and some other stuff (though if you're going to put up a teepee in your backyard, you're pretty much daring drunk kids to come tear it down). He called the cops, who searched the backyard and amid the remains of the teepee found a receipt from the local liquor story. The cops looked at the store's security footage and recognized the teepee-crashes from past run-ins. They went to their homes, found my friends stuff and returned it to him. I was pretty impressed and it was kind of neat to see how a case like that gets solved.

 

On the other hand, I have heard stories that don't end so well. A friend of my brother's bike got stolen. He reports it to the cops and in the meantime he does some digging of his own and finds his bike for sale on kijiji (the Canadian equivalent of Craigslist- just add a 'u' to every other word). So he shows the cops the ad featuring his bike, and a little while later he gets an anonymous call telling him to drop the matter and let it go. This freaks him out, since he's only told the cops about the ad. He was paranoid that he had stumbled across some kind of bicycle-theft ring that the cops were in on. In the end he stopped pursuing it and forgot about the bike.

 

If you really want to hear about crime that doesn't get reported, nearly every woman has a story about being flashed, groped, or assaulted by some guy and not reporting it to the cops. I've been lucky enough that nothing serious has ever happened to me, but in the minor instances where something did happen I didn't go to the cops. Maybe I would now, but as a teen all I did was flip the guy off. I wonder how the cops would do a line-up for suspected flashers though ("Round-up the usual members!")

 

 

 

Years ago I had sold my home and was waiting for my new home to close so my family moved into my Mom's house for a couple of weeks in between.  Her house had a carport but no garage.  I was watching TV in the room right off the carport and I didn't hear anything but my dog started growling at the door.  Finally, to get him to shut up, I flicked on the carport light and opened the door.  I didn't see anything, told him to shut up and went back to watching TV.

 

The next morning when I got into my truck to go to work there was shattered glass all over the passenger seat and my steering column cover had been cracked and ripped off.  All the wires were hanging out.  Whoever had broken in must have been less than a minute from stealing my truck when my dog finally moved me to action.  I'm assuming it was only turning on that carport light that freaked them out and got them running, saving my truck from being stolen.

 

I did call the cops to file a report for insurance reasons.  Oh, and also so that I could go into work later that day.

I don't live in the US, but in general people here call the police mostly for insurance reasons. They will come to your place, maybe take fingerprints and check out security cams but that's just in case they have the prints on file or somehow happen to run into guy, which once in a while does happen. It's not like they'll put any effort into solving the thing.

A dirty cop bicycle theft ring. Only in Canada.

Don't feel bad Syd. Having your car broken into is a scary thing, and also a major pain in the ass (I've been there too. They took a nice CD player and a burned CD full of music that I would probably die from embarrassment if I listened to it now).

 

I've heard a lot of urban legends about bicycle rings. In a way, it seems like a very Canadian crime, almost cute and quaint. Nobody's going to make a 'Fast and The Furious' style franchise about bicycle thieves. But there are stories about bike-rings where they load up on stolen bikes in Toronto and then turn around and sell them in Montreal, and then load up on bikes in Montreal and sell them in Toronto. And then there are just weirdos like this guy.

 

It's a dilemma about reporting sexual assault. It's easy to brush it off and talk yourself out of it: "Cops should focus on finding murderers and kidnapped kids, not a creeper who grabbed my ass on the subway." But looking back on my own experiences, I can see now that when guys tried something with me it was because I was young and stupid and unlikely to speak up or go to the cops. As I've grown older (and hopefully, tougher) things haven't been so bad, but if something happened now I would go to the cops. Not for me, but for the girls out there who were me ten years ago.

 

For insurance purposes, keep track of your spare car keys. 

I once had some guy break into my beater car and steal some mixtapes and paperbacks.  So strange.  I didn't report it. 

 

I've been flashed a couple of times.  I'm not a minor so it's not really something I'd report to the police.  It's usually more funny than not, like the total doper hippie who completely waved his business out the car window at me.  He had just bummed a cigarette off of me and I felt like no good deed goes unpunished.

The hippie felt bad about you not getting anything for the cigarette and paid in the only currency he had.

 

I do have to wonder if he was the driver or the passenger, though.  Either way it's some uncomfortable contortion to wave it out the car window, but if you're driving a car at the time it increases the difficulty exponentially. 

 

You better treat the upholstery with some industrial strength disinfectant, because I suspect you've been hit by Dirty Mike & The Boys.

 

 

Nah totally fair things to feel and think.  In retrospect, I feel bad for replying rather than apologizing first.  So, I am very sorry to hear, but I am glad it seems that everything is mostly ok.

 

I had my truck broken into years ago and the jerks took my CD wallet and my brand new stereo faceplate.  No clue why, but they did.  I saw something on the ground while inspecting and nabbed it.  Noticed it was a lighter and knew it couldn't be mine, so I dropped it.  Called the cops.  They were more than willing to listen and even sounded interested when I mentioned the lighter.  They stopped listening when I admitted I touched the lighter.  They refused to file a report and said I tainted the scene.  It was an accident but stupid of me.  I filed claims with all the local pawn shops in case a faceplate with my serial number was turned in.  I never heard back and just had to suck it up.

 

 

 

Always report - sad to say some of these guys are in their exploratory phase. They could be testing the waters and warming up for something big.
 

 

Either you step in and stop it, or Uncle Ben dies.  You make the call.

God, that sucks, Syd.

 

Rule #1 of big city living: Never leave ANYTHING in your car that people can see. Period. Not a cd. Not a loose penny. Not even a stick of gum.

What I would give to hear that conversation. Do you think the guy who called used one of those creepy sounding voice disguisers?

 

"YOU HAVE NO IDEA WHO YOU ARE DEALING WITH. WE CAN MAKE YOU DISAPPEAR. JUST LET IT GO."

 

"But... but... my Schwinn..."

"YOU HAVE NO IDEA WHO YOU ARE DEALING WITH. WE CAN MAKE YOU DISAPPEAR. JUST LET IT GO."

 

This is what would've happened had "The Shield" lasted another season or two.

 

I had something similar happen about 8 or 9 years ago.  I must have left my crappy car unlocked and someone got in and stole my portable CD player and FM transmitter.  They left the car power supply for the player but did NOT leave the CD that was in the player: Dare To Be Stupid by 'Weird Al' Yankovic.  It pissed me off more that my CD was most likely tossed than that the other stuff got stolen.

I'm more of a DC fan, so I prefer to think that you're preventing Joe Chill from gunning down some innocent billionaire couple, leaving their orphan son with a burning desire to fight crime.

You guys are hilarious. But maybe I'm a bit slow, so tell me in the small mouth-words: are you advocating that women who are subjected to unwanted attention from men should just let it slide? Is there a threshold you'd recommend on the grope-rape continuum?

No need to be sarcastic Slim, I know I'm not that funny ;). I've already said in this thread my stance on the matter: "if something happened now I would go to the cops. Not for me, but for the girls out there who were me ten years ago." Or at least tell them off.

No worries. I was just concerned. I'd want my niece to raise a ruckus. Or a ballsack with her knee.

Got my passenger window smashed in when I was in college. They took my very first iPod and nothing else. I didn't really see any point in reporting it because my insurance deductible was $1000 and the replacement of the window and iPod came to $800. If I did report it I worried that my insurance might use it as an excuse to raise my premium.

Now I don't leave anything visible in my car when I park it outside overnight. (I even lock my glove compartment though I doubt that's much of a barrier)

I've been just as cautious ever since I got a new bike. I purchased this lock because the company that sells it guarantees that they will replace your bike if it is stolen so long that the lock was at fault. Not bad, but I still worry about one of my wheels being taken.

I have just resigned myself to the fact that if someone experienced at theft has their eyes on my stuff, there isn't much I can do to stop them. So I just try to cover my ass when the insurance and police get on the scene so they cannot call me negligent. That means locks and alarms and for the insurance an online record of all my receipts for my valuables so they can't argue replacement value.

Am I too paranoid?

I'm usually pretty paranoid about leaving stuff out in my car, but there are some times where I leave some stuff visible. I always lock my car and I've been lucky no one's broken in when I foolishly forget to hide my iPod if I have it with me. Usually that's the only thing in sight. Unlike when I was in college and the backseat of my car was littered with cds. I'm so lucky it was never broken into. I wasn't thinking back then.

 

 

As a slightly off topic thing, I've been more paranoid about someone breaking into my house, but the old man who previously lived here was a man after my own heart, because EVERY WINDOW HAS NAILS IN IT. You can't open them unless you have a hammer to take the nails out. I haven't, and I don't intend to. Makes me feel really safe. Even though I live in a commercial area where there's never been any thefts, you never know. Better safe than sorry.

 

No, you're being smart, realistic, & cautious.

Paranoia is total awareness.

I actually agree with this.  I was a kid in a much more permissive time,  and even as a teenager and young adult I had a couple of stalkers and sexual harassers.  I think people are more aware these days of what's dangerous, and more apt to tell somebody.  Sex aggression stems from a sickness that never goes away, only seems to get worse.