any H.A.M.B'rs cops?, I need your help.

My cars were stolen mid september, the neighbors took down the license plate of the four guys with the trailer that loaded them and returned five times that day. Well mid december i finally nagged the cops enough to run the plate and its some trash hauling company out of Olympia. Then the detective that my case was assigned to told me they couldnt do anything, as Thurston county didnt get along with them.....

Its been over a month of nagging, calling them with "you know who did it, youve witnesses, i handed you the thiefs plate number, get off your butts" and absolutely nothing has come of it other than "weve better things to do than look into a bunch of stolen scrap and junk cars".

So any advice here? These guys have prolly long ago parted out my plymouth, jeep and sold my dodge roadster and parts at some show, but i still want justice.

 

I'd hate to tell you what I'd do.
I wouldn't have called the cops, for starters.

Hope you can get it worked out somehow!

regards,
DJ

 

I'm not a cop, but call your local news. They would love to get ahold of a "good" story like that. Tell the police what you plan to do also and FOLLOW THROUGH!!
Good Luck.

 

Your'e gonna have to let it go and get on with your life. You won't get any satisfaction from having justice done to the perpetrators so it's up to you to heal yourself. I had a car stolen under similar circumstances with similar results but with a twist. It turned out the city recovered my car but didn't notify me and it sold the car to someone as an unclaimed vehicle. So, I would have been fighting the city too. It didn't do any good to try and fight this as I couldn't afford a lawyer, could'nt find one to work pro-bono, and the story was too old (all this info was discovered five months later) for a local TV channel to want to carry it. Life isn't fair, good people get screwed, bad people get away with things..............that's the way it is. You getting over it is up to you alone. Good luck brother, Iv'e been there.

 

Who did you report it too? City cops, County sheriff, District Attorney are all seperate offices. If I were you, I think I'd talk to all of them.

 

Go talk to the sheriff department. Maybe they will try to do something for you. If that doesn't work, go visit your district attorney and expalin it all to him. The bad thing is, with the information being so old, a judge won't ever give a search warrant on it. If the local guys would have ran with it, who knows what they might have found at the trash hauling place. Good luck.

 

Sounds like you need to take some of your own actions on these guys!

 

state bureau of investigation, local news, local paper, all good places to start.

 

Most TV stations have some sort of "Trouble Shooter" person, that loves to uncover stories like this, and make the local PD or Sherriff look lazy, inept, and just plain stupid.
That might be worth a try-

 

Ctiy managers hate to be botherd with this kind of stuff. Maybee pounding on his door would get some results. Keep going up the ladder till you get results.
Walter

 

If you're not "RAMBO" let it go, or move out of the county and then persue it.
Why Rambo?
It sounds like you're living in that same corrupt bumfuck town Rambo wandered into in the first movie!

Governments are nothing but gangs with enough fire power to call themselves "legitimate".
Your local government is a gang and the cops are obviously acting like it's "hit men".
They "don't get along" with the hit men/cops in the next "hood"?
Sounds like the kind of corruption Mulder and Sculley usta run into in the X-Files, but in real time!
If you rattle them they will probably just take it out on you instead of the garbage collection, which may also be connected to "The Gang". They usually are.

 

That must be an easy job.

 

Wow, sorry to hear, this really sucks. I would certainly call the local news/troubleshooter. Both the Sheriff and DA office are elected officals. Normally they don't want bad press.

Next step, move outta that town. Who wants to live where the local law enforcement doesn't protect you or inforce the law?? You pay taxes with your hard earned money and taxes is what pays these boobs salary.

 

After the initial report to the cops, Whatever happened, I wouldn't call any more to law enforcement, because they don't care. If they cared, they could do something. Don't you realize that cops have families, and some cop's brother or brother-in-law works for the trash company!

If I had the license numbers of the vehicles involved in the theft of my stuff, I would find out where they live. Then, it would be my night job to do some survellance. It would be a fun game. You never know what could come out of it. I might even hire a private Dick to get some names to tie to the License numbers, and if they are company owned, some employee names and addresses. It wouldn't take long to find out who the regular drivers are, because all Companies provide their insurance company with names of people driving their trucks. Then, I would walk in to the front desk and talk a bit, not ever revealing my name or my purpose, but to check the place out. You might even see one of your vehicles parked in the trees! If I found my vehicle, I wouldn't call law enforcement, I would simply 'reposess' it. I don't know about Wash. but here in Colo. it's not a crime to reposess one's own property.

 

I vote for call the news!

 

The thing I would do immediately is:
File a civil suit against the owners of the vehicles that stole your stuff. The owner of those vehicles are liable for any activity those vehicles were involved in, ESPECIALLY, any illegal activity, even if the owner of the truck/trailer didn't know about it. Have your lawyer immediately depose the witness of the thefts. With the right jury, you can make out, maybe like a bandit!

 

Don't just call the news. Walk in there with the name, phone number and address of your witness, the name of the detective you talked to, what he said, the case number, list of what was stolen with values, when police were contacted, etc. All on paper and documented as much as possible. They need to back up your story to run with it. Make it easy for them. Even if they don't run with it, if the detective gets a call saying "Hello, detective -------? This is So And So from CBS News and I have information that you...." he'll think twice before he blows the next citizen off.

 

Contact your state DMV or MVD as the case may be. Drop a bug in their ear. Inform them that the trash company is operating a chop shop and is being protected by local law enforcement. They will go over that operation with a fine tooth comb. If so much as a bolt that can be traced back to your cars is found the shit will hit the fan at the trash company and at the local police station.

 

of course, living is this state, you'll know too, that is a good way to get killed, legally. the "make my day" law allows you to legally shoot anyone on your property who you feel is a legitimate threat to your personal safety. they've been getting more liberal with the law, a guy recently shot a crook in the back as he was leaving his property, the shooter got off. don't mess with texas? ha! texans ain't got nothin on coloradans!

 

Not to steal this thread, but I threatened to call the news stations to the police for their lack of patrol of my neiborhood. We had a drug dealer living in the area. Couple days later, Cop every hour or so, They ran the dealer out within a month or so.

 

Go get your stuff. Carry proof that you own it.

Do some recon, once you locate any of it, you have a right to enter their property to get it. Just make sure the locks were already broken when you got there.

Check the local laws first, states vary.

 

I think the key to your story is that you refered to the theft bieng done by a "trash Co." This suggests that what was stolen was of little value. To get attention you must put the value of your loss at $5.000 or so, to bring it into the felony category ( check local laws). I would then contact the DAs office and ask that your complaint be treated seriously.
Bob
Retired NYCPD

 

But isn't possesion 90% of ownership? If some idiot decided to throw bullets at you, they might get away with it. I'm all in favor of calling the news. I hate TV news, but sometimes those self-serving idiots are good for something. The only thing the law is afraid of is bad publicity it seems.

 

Unfortunately, this is somewhat typical for law enforcement these days. Going after criminals is difficult and expensive, harrassing law abiding citizens is easy and relatively inexpensive.

Recently here in Phoenix the police have decided that they will no longer chase motorists who run from them.

About the same time they started a program that requires people who buy over the counter de-congestant to show ID, provide name, address and a signature. This information is all turned over to the police as part of their "war" on methamphetamine.

Crooks who run from the police are let go, law abiding folks who buy cold medicine are put on a list of potential meth suspects. What bullshit.

 

I agree here, but fuck the 'threat' part. It's time for action. I can't believe what I'm hearing. If that shit happened in my town, it'd be front page news until they were caught.

What are the police there for if they aren't going to help in a situation like this? They have everything they need and they won't do anything. And then they wonder why no one has any respect for law enforcement. I wonder why.

Everyone needs to know about this. The TV stations and newspaper reporters (who you might have an easier time getting to run a story), other branches of law enforcement, the District Attorney, anyone you can tell it to.

And I disagree with oldsguy. Justice needs to be served, and I know I'd feel a hell of a lot better if some punishment was served to these people.

 

I really have to ask why it took from mid September 'til December for you to have bugged them enough to run the plate. When did you first contact them? I would think that having several cars stolen would have had you filing a police report within the day...did it take *them* that long to act, or you?

I'm not tryin' to be accusitory here...just trying to understand. If you're really living in a place where the cops don't take action when it's required, I'd MOVE! You pay their salaries...fuck that.

Olson

 

I found this posting interesting because I worked Thurston county a few years ago as a Washington State Patrolman. I then went to the city of Kent where I retired as a Det. Sgt. As I read your post I had the following questions pop into my old cop brain.

Did you have legal title to each of the vehicles (in your name)?
Were they on your personal property that you own?
Were they parked on public property?
Were the vehicles legally licensed?
Did ANYONE of your family give the ill doers permission to take the cars?
Did you make a stolen report immediately? You can only make a report if you own the cars.
Was there any kind of civil dispute between you and the company before the cars went missing?

I would hope that my brothers - in law, so to say, would have taken some type of action if this was in fact a theft.

I would suggest to you that you contact the Sherriff if in the county or the Police Chief if in Olympia city, and discuss the matter. Get an answer from them as to why they will not pursue the case. I would even write it up in a letter and take it with me and ask for a written letter back telling you what the facts were that led them to not investigate your case.

King 5 in our state as you know, likes this kind of story but make sure you have all your ducks in a row because they will investigate the whole story and you wouldn't want to be embarrased because maybe you didn't really legally own the cars (even tho you may have paid hard cash for them) or other debateable issues.

If you do go to the Sherriff, Chief or news I hope you will let us all know what they reply to you.

Hope this helps a little.

Fourdy

 

// Go get your stuff. Carry proof that you own it. //


If they are brave enought to steal your cars one by one, five times... I would dare say that if you show up to reclaim them they will have no trouble beating the holy shit out of you. You have more than enough suggestions above... Follow some of them... And good luck...

Hyfire

 

.........yet they will STILL take the time to give me a ticket for "unclear plates" or some other made up b.s. the streets are safe kids.

put a sign on your lawn with your story. they hate that but plan on being blackballed in that town for good....you cant win but at least youll feel good loosing.

a guy here put a sign on his lawn for something it was up for a week or 2 then they made up some b.s. and made him take it down but he got his word out.

-Rob

 

Search on the web for places that can do a license plate search - did a quick one and came up with

http://www.reverserecords.org/?hop=bsmc1
http://www.thewebinvestigator.org/licenseplate.htm

Never used any service like this, don't know if it works, don't know if it's a scam, etc. But heck it might be worth a shot! Might do a google search on "License Plate Search" or similar query...

Once you've got their name/address - time to do a little recon - go scope out the place, see if you can see any of the cars / parts, also if the place crushes and sells steel for scrap yours may have been "spare cash" for the truck driver... Also I'd be looking for the plate of the specific vehicle involved, and then follow them and ID the person driving - often trucks are assigned to employees and it's probable the same guys involved are still driving the truck.

Once you've got proof - take pictures, take those to the prosecutor and police about following up on it - if not bring a lawsuit against the owner of the vehicle for something just to get his attention.... Of course if I saw complete vehicles and I had title in hand a quick call to the cops and say that they've got your property and when you approached the building you heard shots fired should get them out there to see what's up! (Of course you may have been hearing things or it could have been a backfire )

Good luck and catch the scumbgs that did it!