A year or two ago, the son of a very good friend had his car stolen. The thief didn't know there was an iPad under the back seat. The son called LMPD with an exact location, and our totally worthless PD does nothing. All Friday night, all day Saturday, and most of Sunday, this kid and his dad track the car. Dad and his son actually followed the car and had the address of the thieves and their description. The worthless PD still did nothing. Finally, early Monday AM, son gets a call from LMPD ordering him to get his burned out car out of the street, or he would be sent a bill for towing and impound! Our PD does this and still can't figure out why they are losing community trust and support.
What you need to know is that the police generally don't really need "community trust and support." Sure, it makes their job easier. But when the day comes that a community decides to replace its police officers the old fashioned way due to lack of proper law enforcement, you can bet that the federal government will send troops to that location and cow the population to oblivion. They don't need us at all.
Police aren't there to help you retrieve your stolen property. There's no time for that. They're too busy taking reports and violating your Constitutional rights. Oh yeah, and never getting involved because it's always a civil matter, serving themselves and protecting each other, cowering behind their thin blue line, "legally" stealing your money in the name of CAF and going home safe at the end of their shift, regardless of the cost to anyone and everyone else. I think that just about covers it all. Did I leave anything out? Anyone?
@@markg7030 Steve did a video a while back about someone who'd traced his stolen property in the same way and called the police, only for the police to tell them they wouldn't retrieve the property (I think it was a motorcycle in that case).
The cops in canada advice canadians to put their car keys right near the door so if a criminal comes by and enters the home, to be able to not only steal valuables from inside the house but also your vehicle as well.
Right...like I'm not grabbing a rifle and retrieving my property. "What if the guy is voilent"...well i have the right to defend myself with lethal force, sooo... Pew Pew.
and where I live all a CAR thief has to do is floor it.. they have an extreme no pursuit policy.. where you had to have been carjacked at gunpoint (not knifepoint) for them to actually pursue the stolen vehicle.. so yeah people are resorting to self help because the cops refuse to take it seriously..
My dad's car was stolen and reported to police. Several days later my parents recovered the car. Mom told police we recovered the car. Police had no report of it being stolen. Days later mom received a call from police that they had recovered my dad's car. My mom called out the officer. YOU didn't recover our car! WE recovered our car!
@@kenmore01 I'm sure that's why my mom called as soon as they got it home (before cell phones). In the initial report they ID'd the teen who took it and where the car would probably be.
Law enforcement says they don't want you to do this. Yet they don't do anything about the crime or the criminals. Time for the people to take back the streets!!
If you go out to retrieve your own car, you are depriving the police of all the fun they have chasing your car at 130mph through residential neighborhoods, destroying your car, and screaming “stop resisting!”
The biggest peril with self help is that the cops will show up and arrest YOU! As for being worried about violent criminals, well, the car thief should be worried about violent victims.
Saw a video of just that. According to the cops, the victim matched the description of the thief. IIRC, the cops even accused the victim of insurance fraud.
It's worse than you think. Had a breaking at our Spokane house and the thieves stole one of my project cars. It was recovered by them as 4 occupants were passed out from Fontenot or heroine. The cops didn't charge for possession, auto theft, DUI or public intoxication. All four walked. Police are useless.
My husband and son found his stolen work truck when a customer saw it and not knowing it was stolen asked my husband why had it been parked in a certain spot for 2 days. When they got there they found a man sleeping in it and held him till the police came. It took a couple of hours because it was in Detroit. They didn't even arrest him.
Notice that they show up carrying a firearm, pepper spray, and sometimes an electrical debilitation device and/or a club. But not a first aid kit. For the actual help, they have to schlep back to their car for a first aid kit or call someone else who shows up with an ambulance.
@@MonkeyJedi99 Out of all the things you could have criticized them for you chose this? Their primary job is to enforce the law, not to patch up your boo-boos.
Completely false. "Individual officer trauma kits contain essential supplies for treating life-threatening traumatic injuries, such as gunshot and stab wounds, in a field environment before certified medical assistance reach the scene." @MonkeyJedi99
If the police did the job they were paid to do instead of farting around and getting paid for nothing then people wouldn't have to do their job. The only reason the police have a problem with the public doing this is it makes them look bad and makes taxpayers question if they really need the police after all. Next thing the police will be crying about is their funding being cut.
this is the result of the police being defunded. I'll bet half the force quit over the past five years. So now the cops only prioritize more serious crimes and ignore property crimes. No resources..
My brother's best friend from high school was driving from Canada to Brazil, while he was in Chiapas Mexico his car was stolen. He was stuck in town for 2 weeks, one night after leaving the bar he spotted his car, he still had the keys so he hopped in and drove to the little hotel and grabbed his bag, headed south and crossed the border into Guatemala at dawn.
Years ago I made a citizen’s arrest. The situation involved a suspected drunk driver that nearly ran myself and family off the road. Then in typical intoxicated intelligent fashion stopped at the security gate at the entrance to the military base we were both leaving to use the public phone. I stopped as well to talk to the military police at the gate to inform them of the incident. They called their L.E. Desk to talk to someone in charge and I was informed to make a citizen’s arrest. So I did it. They came and hauled the person away. At first I was angry due to being scared by the person running me off the road. Then seeing him cuffed and stuffed kind of calmed me down enough to drive my family home. Don’t know if this is even close to the experience these folks went through, but at the time my adrenaline level was off the chart.
Calm down, Batman. We aren't all equipped to take on multiple people at once with fists and gadgets and win/survive. :p Police, as suck as they are sometimes/lots of times, should be called, for that's their job. Your job is to go home to your families every day and not do dumb things you probably don't escape unscathed like be a vigilante. But go you, if that's your deal, and good dang luck, I believe in you! (not getting outta there without a scratch, that is.)
@@mikeybhoutex Most cops won't respond to these things. They just won't. I live in Las Vegas where cars and motorcycles are stolen all the time and if you call the police you'll be lucky if they respond that year. I had a friend who found his stolen motorcycle in the exact same way that this video is about. He was standing outside the thief's house right next to the stolen bike, had security video of the thief stealing it, and had video of the thief coming and going from his house. They called the police multiple times and over the span of 4 hours they never showed up. So he took his bike back on a trailer. The cops called him DAYS later as part of their "investigation" and the thief wasn't even arrested. Calling the police is a 100% waste of time.
I had a beat up old Camry. It got stolen. Presumably for parts, so when I found out, I assumed that was it. But I still reported it stolen. A few days later, I got a call that the sheriff dept. had recovered it, after someone was trying to register it at the DMV. When I picked it up (paying the impound fee), I found it not just cleaned, but detailed. The person trying to register it, was also a victim, of the thief, who sold it to her. The "For sale" sign was still in the car. My then business partner called the number, saying he was looking for a used compact car. I hope the sheriff's office called that number, too.
I used to work for a security company and one of the things we handled was vehicle tracking systems. Every time a car got stolen the owner wanted to know where it was, but we weren't allowed to tell them because of potential liability issues if they go to get the car back and are injured. Most customers were not happy with this. We weren't allowed to tell them that the cheaper subscription which didn't come with the "monitoring service" instead had a web page they could log in to that showed the vehicle location...
@@21972012145525 The company I worked for provided the "24/7 monitoring service" for multiple vehicle tracking systems from different companies. When a vehicle alarm went off we would call the owner, and if they said the vehicle had been stolen we would tell them to report it to the police and call us back with a crime reference number. We would then call the control room of the local police force for the area the vehicle was currently in and give them the location. Or in the case of one particular system (which I shall not name) the customer would call us saying their car had been stolen and giving us a crime reference number. We would look the details up and see when we last received a signal from from the vehicle, then in most cases not bother telling the police were it was 2 years ago... *cough*
Just to add, this job is also where I got my go-to example of police incompetence. We had a large piece of plant equipment get stolen (JCB/Backhoe type thing), and the day after it was reported the tracking system alerted in. We notified the local police who attended the scene and said they couldn't find anything. Following day the tracker alerted in again in the same location, different officers were sent out and again they reported that they couldn't find anything. Later that day when I was on shift I had a different vehicle with the same owner trigger a false alarm. I called them to confirm it was a false alarm, then asked "umm, by the way, where is it?" because the map was giving us the same location as the stolen one. They said "in our depot at ". 2 separate times the police had sent multiple officers to that location looking for "a large JCB", and they had said "can't find any JCBs here". The location was a depot full of JCBs! (Turns out when they stole it they cut the tracker out, which the owner later found laying on the floor by the entrance)
They'll find it ... after it's been stripped of its parts and abandoned in a ditch, so they can tow it and charge you for the tow and 7 days in the impound lot (because they notified you 7 days after they found and towed it).
My Grandfather “stole” a AMC Rambler American from a J C Penny parking lot. Same color as his, same grocery store bags in the back seat. Plus same ignition key. ( AMC only had about 32 patterns of keys). He only realized his “theft” when arriving home and his checkbook wasn’t in the glovebox. He immediately returned to the scene of the “crime” to find his victim and a Saginaw police officer checking out his car one row over from where he absconded with the wrong car. Everyone had a good laugh.
A girl that my dad coached in high school was really good in basketball and got a scholarship to USC. She had her car stolen from a student parking lot the first semester she was there. A few weeks later, she saw her car parked on campus so she waited for the thief to return. She discovered that it was a girl in one of her classes who had stolen her keys from her backpack. She said that the girl seemed rather annoyed that she wanted her car back.
My son, in the US, independently works on Teslas. He has a customer in Ukraine who reported to him that his Tesla had been stolen. My son tracked it on the internet, then disabled it. He also left a note on the screen, via Google Translate, that the car was disabled. He then notified his customer of the location. When the customer got to his car, my son re-enabled it. This was during the early months of the Russian invasion.
@@johnpublic6582 Most Ukrainians know Russian (it WAS taught in schools) so it wouldn't matter much. Also many (from people I know - almost all) Russians are against the war outside of liberation of DNR & LNR, or at least not in support of it - so not many of actual Russians are willingly fighting there (maybe excluding prison convicts and mercenaries). So a lot of "Russian" troops were from Caucasus, and probably know less Russian than Ukrainians.
I had my car stolen a few years ago. No tracker, but my local mechanic friend made a suggestion 'This will probably sound like the dumbest idea in the world, but borrow a car, start from the point it was stolen, and drive a block by block spiral outwards from the point it was stolen with your head on a swivel looking for it. Do it for as long as you can.' Nothing to loose but an hour or two, I took his advice. He was right; it sure felt like a stupid needle in a haystack kinda thing until about 30 minutes in (about a half mile from where it was stolen) I turned a corner and there it was. I called the police to have them come clear it, and as soon as they checked my id against the car vin they removed the stolon bolo and I drove it off. I still have and love that car. It's got a tracker now, just in case I don't get as lucky next time. My friend said that about half the time he advises his customers to try this weird trick they end up finding their car as most car thieves are local targets of opportunity and few have hidden off street parking available.
Always enjoy how police will always tell you “never confront the thief” because even after you report it stolen, the police won’t even bother confronting the thief. My advice would not be to not confront the thief. My advice would be to not confront the thief ALONE and be ready to defend yourself if it comes to that
I have an AirTag on everything. Even AirTag lanyards for my niece and nephew. Interestingly, my dad’s car was stolen once. He had a medical emergency and the police tried to lock his keys in his car, but that car wouldn’t let you. Someone stole the car. I went to pick it up with my brother, but it was gone. Long story short, I had a buddy who knew a cop who would drive around apartment complex’s running tags. He’d find tons of stolen cars that way. They’d often have been stolen from within walking distance. Then driven as basic transportation. That information led me to just drive the neighborhood in a grid, and I found the car a few blocks away at an apartment building.
Friend had a rental neighbor steal his motorcycle. Told the police he could see tracks from where the bike was (with it locked out) to the front door of the neighbor. Police said they would get a warrant the next day but that night the guy moved it in a rental box truck. If you really want your property back, you may have to do it yourself.
I learned a long time ago, Police do not try to solve theft. They take a report for your insurance company and just wait for your thief to mess up and get caught in the act.
I'm shocked! I thought the owner would be arrested & forced to give the car back to the "alleged" thief. If I can squat in your house, why can't I squat in your car?
Police officer: "Do NOT do our job for us." Me: "And wait years for you to finally call it off because no effort was put into doing your job in the first place? Not happening, pal."(In my head) "Yes, sir."(Out loud)
Surprised the police didn't arrest the owner for possession of the drug paraphernalia. Remember, the laws are backwards in CA. That being said, if that was my car, I would have done the same. How did they thief take the car to begin with? Doesn't sound like he broke the window to get in. Was it one of those cases where he programmed a blank key based on the VIN?
@@MeRia035 I was surprised to see it too. There are programmers out there that can replace lost key fobs. All you need is the vin. Works for many manufactures, including BMW..
Almost certainly the key cloning thing. There are many versions of the hardware available around the world for about a hundred dollars. If you have an electronic entry system, you don't own your car, you are just the current user.
My work van was stolen from out in front my house last month, (I stupidly left it unlocked and there was a spare key inside for other techs to use when needed) I managed to find it half a mile away three days later where a bunch of other work vehicles. I called the cops to report it had been located and they came and cleared it. Apparently, this has happened a few times over the past few months that someone would take a car, empty out any valuables then dump it on that street. I'll be getting an airtag for it in case that happens again. It's at the dealer now getting re-keyed as he kept the extra key that was inside.
We run a bunch of risks... here's one: You also run risks if u do nothing. I know. We are living in a time where the police are literally unwilling to pursue property crime. I am not inclined to attempt a citizens arrest, but identifying the perp is high on my list of self help items.
Happy to hear these people took their car back instead of being too fearful to wait for the police to do it (which they won't do most times). Years ago I had a horse stolen from me. Two years later I was driving in town and saw the horse (it had several very distinct characteristics) in a pasture. The next day I was dropped off with a saddle and bridle. I opened the gate, walked up to the horse (who remembered me), tacked up and rode several miles to a nearby friend's house. A borrowed truck and trailer the following day completed the horse 'rescue'.
A guy at work bought a second hand car from a Facebook ad, had it stolen the next night, then found it listed for sale again by the same guy he bought it from, the scammer put had put an air tag somewhere in the car before he sold it and just stole it back. My guy at work tracked down the scammers home address and gave everything to to cops, three months later I left the company and the police still had not arrested the guy.
I mounted one on my motorcycle in a way that it can't be removed very easily. Airtags are discoverable by thieves by using the same app; it's designed this way to stop people from placing Airtags where that can be used to track others illegally - like spouses or ex-spouses, etc. You can remove the speakers from Airtags though.
Hey Steve, just a msg to let ya know how much I enjoy your channel and almost 100% of the content. Gonna have to say it’s at least 99 44/100% pure enjoyment and much much info. Thank you! Take care man
Follow-up: The owner reports the recovery to the police and gets arrested for possession of the drug paraphernalia and stealing the thief's wallet. Welcome to California!
@@kinjunranger140 sadly, claim protections meant for drug addicts. it's the same loophool as claiming asylum to illegally emigrate to a country that you have no intention of integration with.
The thing I hate most about the stories is that it encourages people to flee California, bringing their problems with them. As much as I enjoy these stories. Untill we have a border policy with immigration from California this will only encourage further refugees East. Even Israel has a border wall
0:07 I know a guy who had a backhoe stolen. It was behind a 12’ razor wire fence. My friend took a crane there and lifted his backhoe over the fence and onto a trailer and took it home.
A number of years ago I had someone come in my yard and steal my bicycle, which I thought was safe since it was right up against the house and hidden by some large bushes. I was a penny pinching college student at the time and I really relied on my bike as my main mode of transportation so I immediately went out and bought another bike albeit used but in decent shape. Several weeks later on my way home from the campus I saw my old bike chained to a bus stop with a broken chain. I immediately came right back to the bus stop and saw that my old bike was chained to the bus stop just using the front wheel, so I unbolted the wheel and took back posession of my bike leaving behind the front wheel. I always wished I could have been there to see the look on the person's face who stole my back and found just the front wheel.
@@rherman9085 Illinois, where Gov. Priztger banned "assault rifles" and threaded barrels. I can't buy a pistol I want because it comes with a threaded barrel and the State is afraid you'll put a silencer on the gun. I don't understand why the Supreme Court has let the gun bans stand.
@@reddrockingeezerthe supreme court had 6 justices in 1790, when the US population was 3.9 million. We are up to over 85 times that number at 333.3 as of 2022, yet we do not have 510 justices as the math would suggest, we have 9. The immense slowness of the court therefore allows cases of extreme civil importance to be indefinitely postponed, as they can always cite their essentially infinite backlog.
We need laws for this kind of thing, police should be FORCED to retrieve stolen property above a certain value. No more hiding behind 'investigations' if you have proof the object is yours, proof of its location, they should be forced. No ifs ands or buts, a federal agency should come and arrest the entire PD for refusing to get off their butts to set a precedent.
They have no obligation to arrest anybody or get your property back. SCOTUS already ruled so. You are on your own. I will ask for help, but if they drag their feet I'll handle it myself.
Alot of police don’t do shit especially with stolen things how dare we help ourselves in the best world there would be a lot more easy training for civilians
The police do a lot of shit, right after they finish the donuts. Also, twice my local police have abandoned their pistol in the bathroom after they finish doing shit. Both times they tried to criminally charge the people who recovered the gun and turned it in. Where they didn't do shit was to the officers who were providing firearms to people without a background check.
I worked at a dealership in the Bronx We installed a microswitch to cut off the fuel pump behind the console on every car we sold We never had one stolen
Hey, that happened to to us! my husband had to go "steal" our navigator back. without air tags. Just 3 friends who were down for it at 5:30 am. I was asleep. So were the cops. They told us they couldn't do anything and said that they seen it at a drug house. Like they thought was a drug deal gone bad.
Awesome content mate, You are absolutely correct about the citizens arrest laws in various states. I live in Missouri, which allows me to carry concealed without a permit. I spent a couple of days teaching myself The citizens arrest laws in Missouri just so I would be covered. 1) The crime MUST be a felony. 2) You MUST witness the crime. 3) You MUST cooperate with law enforcement/courts after the fact. These are the rules for Missouri. TY Randy K 😎
Question Mr Lehto: You can only make a citizen’s arrest if you see the crime being committed. Now this couple didn’t observe the car being stolen. But the thief was in possession of stolen goods. So would possession of the stolen car constitute grounds for a citizens arrest?
As an escapee from California, car theft is out of control. The prosecutors WILL NOT send car thieves to prison. Guaranteed they only get probation if they even bother to prosecute. I remember one prolific car thief in the LA area who had like 90 some odd counts of car theft ( it was a theft ring). 90 felonies. He only got probation. California is a failed state.
Can confirm as a current resident. Police don’t give a damn about property crime. At all. There are more than a few videos out of the Bay Area where a cop is sitting in his cruiser across the street from where a car is being broken into. They clearly see it, and go right back to drinking their coffee.
I love stories like this as it’s proof what we already know to be true. But as the situation gets worse in Cali especially after 2025 I worry about all the refugees fleeing the state, causing even worse problems for regular people trying to live their lives. For now there’s an open border to the west and they’re free to move back and forth, and cross border crimes are now being seen in Nevada and Colorado. At some point governors need to say no, and start limiting and regulating the amount of people allowed to move out to resettle to free states , only taking the best such as yourself.
1. I can't believe Steve didn't mention Gomer's citizen's arrest. 2. I saw a police video where the cop had the citizen place someone under arrest, but the cop did the handcuffing and everything.
Thanks for your great videos. I just sent you an email regarding the very recent changes to Oregon crytpo law. It's unfortunate that the State of Oregon is trying to squeeze the last bit of money out of its residents. 😢 We are already broke.
Reminds me of the time my nephews bike was stolen. He found it a couple blocks away and was freaked out about what to do. I went there with him and watched the house while he put his bike in his trunk. The thief likely just didn't want to walk back from the store and saw the bike out front. The police wouldn't have done anything about his bike but I'd say its really ballsy to take your car back and I dig it! Be careful though.
The car thief obviously has squatter rights to the car. The police should arrest the owner for taking it back as it is a civil matter, and he should’ve gotten an eviction.
Does the fact that the owner would be providing the evidence instead of an officer make it harder to prosecute the case with respect to matters like chain of custody?
"You don't want this to escalate from a simple car theft to something much worse... right?" Well publicly on any form I would tell you you are correct. But on a deeply personal level I will state that there are many men out there who will greatly enjoy the escalated situation created as it provides opportunity for justified "correction" of the other person's behavior. From the merely painful to the life-changing to the life ending.
Police: So let me get this straight. Your car was stolen, you told us and we did nothing, so you tracked it down and stole it back? Guy: Yes, pretty cool, huh? Police: Put your hands on your head and turn around. You're under Arrest for Grand Theft Auto as by taking back your own car from the thief, you violated his Civil Rights! Also, He has Squatter rights.
one time i picked the wrong car coming out of a local store. I don't remember if my key opened their door or if it was unlocked (same color, make, model). i hopped in and looked around. I was taken back that all my stuff was gone and there were dangly things hanging from the rear view mirror. I never hang dangly things. Before i thought "oh snap i'm in someone elses car" i actually thought "someone took my stuff and hung decorations?". It feels very weird being in someone elses car like that.
The police have some nerve. Shouldnt lecture the citizen for doing the polices job they should have thanked them and apologized for thier pathetic failures.
