Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site peora.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxr!mhuxt!houxm!vax135!petsd!peora!jer From: jer@peora.UUCP (J. Eric Roskos) Newsgroups: net.flame Subject: Re: NYC Cops Message-ID: <893@peora.UUCP> Date: Mon, 6-May-85 09:43:25 EDT Article-I.D.: peora.893 Posted: Mon May 6 09:43:25 1985 Date-Received: Wed, 8-May-85 01:09:58 EDT References: <137@pyuxh.UUCP> Organization: Perkin-Elmer SDC, Orlando, Fl. Lines: 58 > O.K. Has anyone heard about the NYC cops? They are craking down hard on > them (and its about time). It's a sad thing when the police don't do things ethically, because then there's not much you can do. Here is an anecdote; I never told this story when I lived in the city where it happened, since I figured it would only make things worse for me, but it has always bothered me. Several years ago, I rented a house. Well, actually I rented the downstairs, and a EE student rented the upstairs. One Saturday night, I went to visit some friends, and when I came back, the house had been broken into. I could tell this because the front door was standing open, and there was a big truck parked in the (very dark) backyard. So, I went to call the police, and told them about it, & about the truck. Then I waited for the police to come. After about 5 minutes the truck drove away; I think they had seen my car drive up or something. After 30 minutes the police hadn't come, so I called them again, and made the mistake of telling them the truck had driven away. After another 30 minutes, the police arrived; it turned out they had been driving up and down the wrong half of the street, which was bisected in the middle by a divided highway. Well, the police were probably embarassed that they let the criminals get away, and that they couldn't find the house. So, they began complaining that the house hadn't been broken into, and accused me of causing a false alarm. They said I'd just gone off and left the door open. (It turned out there was a broken window in the living room which they never found, which turned out to cause me some problems for the insurance claim). When I insisted I hadn't, they began looking around the house, conducting what was in essence an illegal search. Well, eventually they came to the EE-person's part of the house, where they found (gasp, horrors!) an ancient telephone which he kept as an antique (albeit probably illegally, I realize, since it said "Property of XXXXX Bell" on the bottom). Well, he was not home; he was visiting his girlfriend; so they made me go down to the police station because there was this stolen property in my house, and endure a lot of harassment in the process. The burglary never was properly reported, and I underwent a lot of trouble as a result; all because the police wanted to cover up the fact that they couldn't find the house in time to catch the burglars. And, as for the telephone... eventually it was traced as coming from the University we both attended; the university stated that it was one of a number of telephones that had been abandoned when they had switched from the local phone company to a system by Northern Telecom, and that they considered it abandoned property, not stolen property, because the phone company had refused to come pick them up when they switched systems. This kind of behavior is very bad. When it occurs on the part of the police, there's not all that much you can do. [Disclaimer: I don't condone the possession of stolen telephones. I just think the police should do their job impersonally, without emotional bias.] -- Full-Name: J. Eric Roskos UUCP: ..!{decvax,ucbvax,ihnp4}!vax135!petsd!peora!jer US Mail: MS 795; Perkin-Elmer SDC; 2486 Sand Lake Road, Orlando, FL 32809-7642