Clues Abound, Cops Care Less

May 25th, 2006 by Potato

I got my car back this morning (7 am, ugh). When I was cleaning it up, I found a ton of clues that the cops just don’t care about (I know no one was hurt, so they’re not exactly putting their best man on the case, but you’d think they’d bag some evidence just in case they caught someone else red-handed and wanted to pin this on them, too).

First off, there was a razor blade left on the passenger side. It was one of the 1″ wide disposable construction tool type razors, with 3 overlapping fingerprints clearly on it. I know 3 overlapping isn’t as good as 1 clear one, but you’d think the cops would take what they could get. As I mentioned before, there were McDonald’s wrappers and a cup in the back seat and on the floor on the passenger’s side. There were towels in there, though I’m not sure if they came from my bag of towels in the trunk that was on it’s way to the humane society that was ripped apart, or if they were the thief’s towels. Underneath, there was a brown button (the kind with no holes through it that sew on from an attachment on the back) and half a brick. The driver’s side door had a partial and very muddy boot print on the inside. The stereo when I got it was off, but as soon as I turned it on it was set to level 18 (full blast, essentially) with no CD inside (my CD had been taken and/or thrown out the window).

I know I’m not a cop, and I care a little bit more than not at all, but to me that sort of says “hey, this car was stolen and used to rob a house in a new subdivision, or one that was being renovated.” Sure, it could be that the brick wasn’t from a construction site that night (it could have been used as a hammer to drive out the door lock before the car ever left my lot), and the mud could be from some drug haven by the river, and the whole thing was just for a joy ride and to be destructive… But who steals an old Honda Accord for a joy ride?

Also, the repair shop or locksmith stole my vicegrips (they were there when I got my stuff out of the car).

2 Responses to “Clues Abound, Cops Care Less”

  1. rez Says:

    I’m gonna play devil’s advocate. Why? Cuz I’m an ass that way.

    Cops have limited time. They prolly figure their time is better spent on more dangerous cases than lifting fingerprints/bootprints from a stolen car.

    Vicegrips are tools. The mechanic or one of the apprentices might have taken it thinking it belonged to the shop. They have so many tools that it’s impossible to know what belongs to the shop and what doesn’t. They see vicegrips and assume it’s the shop’s (why do you have them anyway?).

    Ok my defence is pretty damn weak. I’d make a lousy lawyer.

  2. Potato Says:

    No, your defense is exactly what I said to myself, and it’s why I’m not pissed off (esp. at the shop for taking my vice grips, it’s natural). I don’t expect the cops to be knocking on doors and looking for eyewitnesses to a car theft that ended up ditching the car right away. I don’t expect them to pull in the lab weenies to comb through my car looking for hairs or saliva, or fingerprints on surfaces that are just covered with my own… but when I’ve got a number of things that definitely aren’t mine in the car, you’d think they could at least send a regular flat foot around to put them in a plastic baggie and shove it in a locker somewhere, just in case. I figure there’s probably only two sets of prints on the McDonald’s cup: the server’s and the thief’s; there’s probably only one set on the razor; they can’t take a few minutes to check it against the database of previously convicted felons?

    On the other hand, maybe that screams to the cops “rookie mistake” so they figure whoever it was has no priors…

    On the gripping hand, this is the London Police. They do have their fair share of murders and drug crimes, but it’s hardly Toronto or LA. The level of enforcement for speeding here is ridiculous compared to Toronto (almost every day I see a cop with a radar gun; one day on a 20 minute drive I saw 3), so that says to me that there is some manpower there somewhere.