What happens to some stolen cameras in San Francisco

[rz]

You know, I've heard a lot of you complain about the police and how they don't bother to do anything about theft. But it's not like that everywhere. I live in Central Florida. Yeah, you guys like to make jokes about Florida a lot on this board. I used to live in the city of Orlando... I've since moved to a suburb north of town.

While living downtown, we had our vehicles broken into at least 3 times in the 17 years we lived there. We almost never have anything of value in our vehicles, and two times, they broke in but didn't steal anything. We called the police each time, and they came and fingerprinted the vehicles anyway. The third time (maybe 5 years ago), they stole a new GPS from my wife's SUV. They asked if she happened to have the model and serial number, and she did (she keeps meticulous records). About a month later, we got a call from a detective saying her GPS was at a pawn shop in the next county. There's a law in the state saying pawn shops have to report the serial numbers of anything that has one, and can't sell an item for 30 days after it's been pawned to make sure it isn't stolen.

She had to pay $5 to get it back because that's how much the pawn shop payed the thief for it. Would have been returned for free if it was in our county. Wife agreed to press charges, but the guy ratted out the ring leader as a plea bargain, so she didn't have to testify.

So there are some places where the police actually does care about petty theft. I'm glad I live in one of those places.

[vision63]

Paul F. wrote:
How about Progressive Toilet?

Fair...

Tough audience!!!

[davester]

All this "the police in SF don't care about property crime" carping is just typical right wing nonsense from folks casting shade on liberal areas. No actual facts have been presented in this thread to support that BS, only opinions by people who don't live here. While living in the bay area, I've had the police render assistance on recovery of items stolen during three separate incidents, including a bicycle, a camera and lenses (pawn shop sweep) and a computer (using Undercover anti-theft software).

[vision63]

davester wrote:
All this "the police in SF don't care about property crime" carping is just typical right wing nonsense from folks casting shade on liberal areas. No actual facts have been presented in this thread to support that BS, only opinions by people who don't live here. While living in the bay area, I've had the police render assistance on recovery of items stolen during three separate incidents, including a bicycle, a camera and lenses (pawn shop sweep) and a computer (using Undercover anti-theft software).

When folk don't live in a place they go by what they hear. Personally, I give SFPD, OPD and BPD high marks for public interaction "overall." There's always those few of course.