to think this is a waste of police time?

[getrealandgetalife]

two policeman knocked on my door today to see if i had seen anyone acting suspiciously around a neighbours car, because he'd had two indicator lights stolen of a 1990 nissan micra.

I think that this is a terrible waste of police time, but everyone is saying that this is a legitimate use of the police time...

do you really think so?

If anyone removed bits of my car I would jolly well tell the police. Apart from anything else I want a crime no. For when they try to book me for having no indicators.

Someone nicked 3 plants from my mum's garden one year. When she reported it they said 'oh, already? It's only October!' Apparently it was a particular plant that is very valuable for making Christmas decorations, and the thieves did it to 7 houses in the street that night. The police didn't think it was a waste of time at all, they were glad to be alerted it'd started early that year.

mydog think she was upset that sleepy was left behind. She did go out and buy more so he wasn't alone.

But she reported it as someone took things belonging to her.

It's theft, so the police have to respond. I'm sure they would like to say to the victim, 'Get over it, it's a couple of indicator lights', but sadly they can't do that.

Maybe if the OP had reported her daughter's scooter stolen, then maybe her neighbor's car lights wouldn't have been nicked.

I would have reported it. It's theft. A crime pure and simple.

My DP had his number plates nicked from his previous car, which I view as a more serious crime, as they are often used for making off without paying for fuel. But a crime is a crime.

YABU

If someone stole my DP's indicator lights, they cost us £90 EACH.

We'd be reporting that. Theft is theft.

Lol Hrsyerton

OP ypu have no idea of other crimes in your area, the police might be looking fot a mstching physical description aswell as witnesses.

Doh!

Ageism is fucking vile.

A neighbours indicator lights have just been stolen. Six months ago, a scooter was stolen from you. The bigger picture seems to be that there is a problem with petty theft in your area. Well done to the police for trying to deal with it.

Maybe the crime reporter feels victimised and frightened at haing something of their stolen and worried they'll come back again.

Theft is a crime and to claim on insurance it needs to be reorted anyway, if you had you daughters scooter insured for theft then you'd have to report it to claim

The bottom line is it's a crime.

Of course the police have to prioritise, especially these days, but it doesn't make it any less important to the victim.

Contrary to popular opinion the police want to solve crimes. It's what they joined up to do.

Of course something like this is only going to warrant an, at best cursory, door-to-door, but it's highly unlikely this is the little shit's first and last theft so, if and when they do manage to catch them, they've got a nice book to throw at them.

Someone steals another persons property. What is that if not a real crime?

ok, so i'm still getting bashed for questioning the use of poilice time, so here is another bit of background information.

10 years ago i was held up in a bank by a bloke with a gun, and he threatened to shoot me three times. he put a gun in my face and told me that if i didnt give him £200 and my cashcard he would shoot me. I didnt give him the money or the cashcard and manged to get away without being shot

I reported that to the police, i went straight to the police station, and hysterically told them what happened. I was at the police station for hours.

I ended up being off work for a month, because i was terrified to leave my house, because although i didnt give him my cashcard, it was lost that evening in the scuffle and i thought he had it.

so I didnt get paid for that time off so i applied for compensation, not for shock or damages or anything else, but for the exact amount that i had lost in wages. My theory being that, although i didnt give him any money, his actions meant i lost a months salary( approx £1000).

So anyway, this claim goes all the way and gets rejected 3 times, the reason being that the police station state that there was no incident and i wasnt linked to any incident ever. they did have a record of the bloke who was also there, He gave £50 so he was a victim.

It turns out that i because i didnt give him any money, i wasnt a victim. Because he never shot me, he wasnt a villian, not a bank robber, not an armed robber, nothing.

so a man threatens with a gun to shoot me three seperate times = no crime.

I move 300 miles to this rural community and then i find a policeman knocking on the door and asking me about a petty indicator.

I agree that any crime is a crime, i agree that we all have the right not to have our hard earned belongings stolen. and i absoultley agree that we have the right to report any cirme and have the police respond as they see fit.

But i dont understand why it took two of them!

(i have nothing against micra owners or old people, its just that there seems so many bigger things. Also the argument about reporting all crimes to make the stats better, if i were in charge and saw that my rural area was sending two officers out to a indicator theft, then inner cities are sending one officer to other, more crital things - i'd be cutting back on our services too)

But being threatened with a gun IS a crime. I have no idea why yours was not considered a crime at all. Surely the police dealt with it, investigated, etc.

it was about the time that woman was killed in London station when they were getting hard on gun crime, and i belive that they wanted to manipulate the statistics.

I also got my bag stolen in Blackpool on a hen night and wasnt allowed to report it, because id had a drink. It had £150 quid in it, i know exactly where it was taken from, whcih bar, and when, it was snatched off my shoulder while i was at the bar and they had video evidence of it.

So maybe my problem is with the police and not the owner of the car.....

You moved to a rural area - which generally tend to be lacking in gun crime (potentially part of your reason for moving there?) and usually tend to have all round lower crime figures than cities and you are complaining that there were TWO policemen there?

Are you serious? You move somewhere with statistically LESS crime and then complain because the police have time and resources to send TWO coppers to what you consider to be a small crime??

Surely with your history (how awful, although personally I would have given the bloke with the gun all my money and my card and anything else he wanted as it's considered safest) you should be glad to see such a visible indicator that you live in a much safer area now??

Their very presence in a pair is proof that you are safer - and you're here saying it's a bad thing??? Riiiight.

You are sp angry and feel such a victim after that vile cunts actions and undrtstandibly so you are failing to see you are being unrealistic. Maybe talk to a professional. So sorry this happened to you.

Maybe there just happened to be two policemen in the car ? Some areas still double crew , like us , albeit not often , but particularly the specialists like traffic , who might just be passing , and actually do still deal with reporting crimes as well as their core role . What would you rather , that one of them sat in the car ?

People should report every crime . Every single one . How can we possibly be in the right place to catch the thieving little shits who frighten the vulnerable , rob those who can least afford it , and make everyone's life a misery , if no one tells us about it ? We're ordinary people , not psychics , and the more data we get to analyse , the better we can do our job . Even if we can't solve your crime , the fact that you reported it , and your neighbour reported it , and the bloke down the road reported another similar crime , might mean that the next time , we're in the right place to catch the little bastards red handed .

And theft is theft is theft . We are honour bound to investigate every crime . And an indicator light might not be much to you to replace , but everything is relative , and maybe he hasn't much cash to spare . What isn't much to you , might be something huge to someone else .

I'm sorry , I probably sound irritable , but we get criticised for doing our job, and criticised if we don't . We are never going to make everyone happy .

okay so thanks for all your Points of view on this I really appreciate you all commenting and i was feeling a bit better till i went out this afternoon

he was telling the next door neighbour that the thief had turned his car around so that it was pointing in the other direction and thats how he noticed something was wrong...... Seriously would the thief not just stole the whole 'spare parts' car?

steal = ovbiously not stole!