Burglary

[kcal09]

Last week my condo was broken into and burglarized. The thief first knocked on my door and pretended to be an electrician checking for the lights in the apartment. After he saw me he left but later on broke into my condo after I left to run errands. He stole my laptop, some jewelries and cash. Fortunately, the surveillance camera was able to get pictures of him. The police came and took a report. However, I’m not sure if they will actually pursue this case.
My question: Is it legal for me to post his pictures on the internet and offer a reward for information provided which will result in his arrest?

[Coronita]

If this happened in San Diego and you are asking SDPD to follow up…Good luck.

A thief and his girlfriend smashed the window of one of my neighbhor’s SUV at night and took the bag that was left in there (why people leave purses/bags inside the car in plain sight is beyond me).

The neighbor had pictures of the thief and his girlfriend, because apparently they used his credit cards at an adult movie store (no joke) and there he got the CCTV video from the store that clearly showed who they were… He handed them over to SDPD…To my knowledge, SDPD didn’t do anything.

The thing I would do is
1) Take your picture and evidence to the police and open a case. Police probably wont really spend too much time on this though

2) Print out a bunch flyers and post the flyers all over where you live and post them on the interet…. BUT, obviously don’t post your name/address/and phone number. Setup a secondary contact (like get a google voice number or something you can later toss) Alternatively, if the fuzz agrees, write on the flyer to contact the fuzz at the number.

[Coronita]

Also, maybe you can be my guinea pig for this service

http://piggington.com/ot_anyone_uses_frontpoint_security

[moneymaker]

Good luck getting justice and let us know how it turns out. Something tells me vigilante justice may be popping up soon. Charles Bronson’s Deathwish movies were always popular when the economy was in the toilet. P.S.- I think lojack makes a product for laptops, might want to consider it for the new one,assuming there will be a new one.

[Hobie]

Good ending to stolen laptop

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1393117/Thief-caught-Hidden-app-victim-remotely-controls-MacBook.html

[briansd1]

That idiot thief should have reformatted the harddrive and reinstalled the OS.

[Coronita]

Actually folks. I’d worry less about losing the hardware and more worried about what sort of information you left on the hardware.

Especially when you have a smartphone or tablet.

I misplaced my nexus s one time, and oh my god I was freaking out. I didn’t have a screen lock on it because it’s a pita imho… But the phone has my unlocked gmail/yahoo accounts, my financial accounts, google checkout, paypal, amazon 1 click, and all my financial institutions.

Fortunately, I found it…And I immediately installed a remote-wipe application in case I do lose it…

http://www.androidlost.com/

[briansd1]

I have not yet tested remove wipe on android. But on the iphone it didn’t work.

I misplaced my iphone and did remote wipe and 5 hours later everything was still there.

[ucodegen]

[quote threadkiller]P.S.- I think lojack makes a product for laptops, might want to consider it for the new one,assuming there will be a new one.[/quote]
There is. It ‘phones home’.
[quote briansd1]That idiot thief should have reformatted the harddrive and reinstalled the OS.[/quote] They still won’t be safe. This LoJack sits in the BIOS. Because it is in the BIOS, it can also control who/what can reflash the BIOS.

If you have sensitive info that you don’t want them to see, you might want to look at PGP and/or TrueCrypt.

[HarryBosch]

BTW, how did he break into your condo?

Window? Door? …?

[kcal09]

He broke the door look and entered the condo. He was caught on the surveillance camera though.

[joec]

Thanks for sharing and bringing this up.

I’ve been looking at good solutions myself as well. Do you have a dog or home alarm system?

I’ve heard of many criminals doing the knocking the door thing and then, breaking in. I know someone who this happened to even though their kid was in the house at the time. They knocked and she ignored it, but they broke in and ransacked everything after no answer. Kid locked herself in her room and they tried to break in that door, but left after some hard, scary attempts at the door. They did mess up the rest of the house and stole many things in a truck.

Currently, we simply don’t open the door at all now figuring like spam, it’s better to not let them know if you are home or not and they can take their chances since you never open the door. If we didn’t have kids, I’d be a much bigger fan of guns at home as well, but that doesn’t help you when you are out. Best solution is to have nothing of thief value at home.

Do you know how long they were in the house? We have a camera as well, but are looking for more and more ways to secure the data since we’re storing it inside the house to a network NAS. Also more seriously considering the home alarm companies, but that doesn’t help since the police are really slow to respond anyways (thieves have at least 10 minutes+). It does help to limit their time if it’s blaring really loudly and they’d rather not bother. I hate how there has to be a monitoring fee and things like ADT say it’s free, but tack on a installation charge.

At this point, I am planning to get more deadbolts and chains (have to cut at least) and more seriously getting those door jam alarms which emit some loud noise when the door opens from the outside (probably a bigger deterrent), my concern if I am out is it keeps blaring non-stop for hours on end.

It’s impossible to keep a home completely secure, but please share ideas. I’m especially interested in the different home alarm companies, though concerned with the home alarm company’s disabling your alarm and robbing you from the inside.

Lastly, we’ve had stuff stolen before as well and the police does absolutely nothing…incredibly upsetting and feel very violated.

The macbook article is interesting. Are there GPS devices you can buy or software for the PC that does the same thing?

[Coronita]

[quote=kcal09]He broke the door look and entered the condo. He was caught on the surveillance camera though.[/quote]

This interesting. I was debating on whether if I get a glass break sensor in my room, whether I needed to get window sensors too.. I didn’t think it would be possible to break a window/door lock without cracking the glass, so instead of getting 3 window sensors in one wrong, I was just going to cover with 1 glass break…Guess I need both…

This frontpoint security system is looking more tempting by the minute.

[kcal09]

[img_assist|nid=15595|title=Picture of burglar|desc=Please send me a message if you know this guy. He broke into my condo in Monterey Park on 11/17/11. Thank you!|link=node|align=left|width=100|height=75]

[Anonymous]

Long time reader, first time commenter.

I was in an accident in UC when a drunk driver hit my car as I was coming off the freeway.

The driver fled and my car was undriveable. When we called 911 it took the police 30 minutes to get there and then the CHP and police argued about who was supposed to do the paperwork (since it was just off the freeway and on the street just off the freeway).

We got the first 5 digits of the plate. We contacted SDPD and they didn’t do anything.

I’m sure it’s just me (probably), but almost all my interactions with police I would describe as poor.

[Author]

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