Comments on: Dear PoPville – Did We Do the Right Thing by Calling the Cops?

By: Marcus Aurelius

Marcus Aurelius — Fri, 20 Jul 2012 14:22:28 +0000

Kudos to you for calling the police.
And kudos to the police for responding.
But the fact that this guy was hammering away on the lock for as long as he was pretty much proves he wasn’t a bike thief. A real bike thief would have had that bike in about 30 seconds.
In any event, if he was the real owner and was embarrassed or inconvenienced by having to deal with the cops, he should appreciate that someone tried to prevent what they thought was the theft of his bike.

By: Peter

Peter — Fri, 20 Jul 2012 05:35:31 +0000

well, for sure, check out this link to a NY Times piece and video about the very same issue— where a guy as an experiment tries to brazenly steal his own bike in broad daylight….to see whether anyone cares.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/13/opinion/bike-thief.html

By: anonymous

anonymous — Thu, 19 Jul 2012 22:56:48 +0000

I wish this would have been a user poll.

By: bookman1216

bookman1216 — Thu, 19 Jul 2012 21:45:49 +0000

Surprised the MPD responded at all, let alone almost on command. Had a roommate watch as his stereo was stolen out of his car at NOON on a SATURDAY at the base of Malcolm X park, and the Cops flat out said; “Yeah, we don’t respond to property crime. We’ll send a unit around when they are in the area.” When first spotted, the guy was in the car a good 5 minutes, walked slowly up into the park to examine his hand which he cut while trying to rip the unit out of the car, sat there another several minutes and then slowly walked off thru the park.

45 minutes later, the Officers that responded acting like they were doing my roommate a favor even filing a report, and had the nerve to get pissy when asked if 45 minutes was a typical response time, for our area. I can see it, if it’s peak hours for crime, and a theft already occured, but a theft IN PROGRESS in broad daylight doesn’t warrant any immediate action? Complete BS.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Thu, 19 Jul 2012 21:01:27 +0000

Are you really the guy in the story and is that true?

By: THJ

THJ — Thu, 19 Jul 2012 21:01:06 +0000

I think the point was that what’s unusual here isn’t an eagerness of commenters to call the police (as suggested by the prior commenter) but rather hand-wringing letters about whether to report an obvious crime.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Thu, 19 Jul 2012 20:46:17 +0000

I don’t get what you’re trying to say here.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Thu, 19 Jul 2012 20:40:24 +0000

Removing a man-hole cover seems odd, certainly, but suspicious? What crime did you suspect him of committing? Stealing the iron for scrap? Planting a bomb? With his wife standing there?

Retrieving something from below is precisely what I would guess he was doing.

That behavior is in no way analogous to the guy trying to hammer off a bike lock at 11:30 pm while is buddy is serving as look-out.

By: textdoc

textdoc — Thu, 19 Jul 2012 20:39:25 +0000

The OP did the right thing… although calling within view (and maybe earshot?) of the suspicious guys was potentially risky.

In a similar situation in the future, you might want to text 50411: http://mpdc.dc.gov/mpdc/cwp/view,A,1230,Q,569047.asp

(Although I wonder if texts are treated with the same urgency as 911 phone calls.)

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Thu, 19 Jul 2012 20:32:51 +0000

You’re right, because only letters to PoPville express angst about reporting obviously criminal activity! Thankfully most readers, unlike you, do read the facts.