GTA detectives... what do they actually do?

[Motorhead350]

Recently, I caught up on a ton of Overhaulin' on netflix and they always seem to "steal" the car. I had my truck stolen years ago as some of you recall and when I filed for a report it was pretty much just getting a police report to file for insurance to get a new car. I wasn't interested in filing a claim, I wanted my truck back, not the money... after three months I got it back.

When I went to the police station, they had a whole division devoted to auto theft. They did absolutely nothing to help me find my truck. I actually did the work myself. Went to some really bad areas at 3am, friends were illegally going in to peoples yards of known gang members and searching for it (since it was a known vehicle for gangs) I called the city asking if they saw it on red light camera, went to banks asking for security footage to see if it drove by. The bankers would not even mention if they had cameras and.... I got really nasty with them. :argue:

Anyway I told the "detectives" all that I had done and wanted to know if they could go to the bank to legally view the cameras trying to put a face to the thief's and the car following the truck. Finally, I found footage of the truck being stolen ON MY OWN. I turned the footage into the police and they did NOTHING. The locals on here were helpful as could be, but it seemed like the local help did nothing at all. They were actually calling me asking if I had any new information for them.

:mad2:

I am not trying to start trouble, but can a LEO actually tell me what these people do? All it seemed they did was drink coffee and tell me they were sorry they haven't found it yet.

Finally, after it was recovered I actually found D.N.A. inside the truck. I found chapstick in the drivers seat and I never use chapstick. I turned it into the police and said "Here's you DNA of the car thief. Go find them." I never heard from them and I bet it went into the garbage before the guy could serve himself another cup of coffee. From what I heard a DNA test is quite expensive and I guess only done when a murder takes place.

Still, can someone tell me what these people do.... anything?

Just curious.

[martyo]

Personally, I would keep a copy of this thread in the glove box of each of my cars and hand it to any officer who pulled me over before even beginning to discuss why I was pulled over.

But that's just me.

[J-MAN]

Personally, I would keep a copy of this thread in the glove box of each of my cars and hand it to any officer who pulled me over before even beginning to discuss why I was pulled over.

But that's just me.

How to get out of a ticket is another thread. So insensitive. I'm waiting for the CD.

[WhatsUpDOHC]

Maybe they're afraid to go into the neighborhoods that you were going into.

[cat in the hat]

Do a $50,000 burglary ? The burglary guys are working on that for days.
Do a $50,000 armed robbery ? The whole squad is working on that for a week.
Steal a $50,000 car ? Eh.

Why is that ?

There are probably about ONE MILLION cars stolen in the US every year. ONE MILLION. In a place like Chicago, I wouldn't be surprised if it was 50 - 75 per day, maybe more.
If a Detective spent a day on each one, they'd need 50 - 75 Detectives doing nothing but stolen cars every day. I will guarantee you that they do not have a fraction of that.

As a rule, the cars either :
1. Turn up on their own relatively quickly, either occupied or stripped / dumped, or
2. Are cut for parts / crushed / shredded, and never turn up.
And even when there is an arrest, few people bother to show up for court - they either want their car back immediately, in the exact shape it was taken, or they want it totalled and cashed out - any other outcome is inconvenient.
And in reality, most people do have insurance, and all most of them really do want from the Police is the right paperwork for their claim.

So what do the Detectives do ?
They don't work on each one, individually, that's for sure - just based on the sheer number of stolen cars as compared to manpower budgets.
The same goes for techniques like neighborhood interviews, DNA, narcotics sweeps, etc - it is simply not practical to use them for every individual incident.

So they work on large numbers of car thefts at the same time :
They analyse stolen car reports for patterns - high-theft areas, times of day, types of cars, etc - in an effort to concentrate available resources on getting the biggest problems under the most control practical.
They try to make multiple arrests / multiple recoveries by developing information on large-scale theft rings and professional "chop shops" through investigation of arrestees, junkyards, and other techniques.
They keep all that paperwork straight for your insurance company ;)

[martyo]

So insensitive.

I apolergize! :D

[Mebot]

So they work on large numbers of car thefts at the same time :
They analyse stolen car reports for patterns - high-theft areas, times of day, types of cars, etc - in an effort to concentrate available resources on getting the biggest problems under the most control practical.
They try to make multiple arrests / multiple recoveries by developing information on large-scale theft rings and professional "chop shops" through investigation of arrestees, junkyards, and other techniques.
They keep all that paperwork straight for your insurance company ;)

Correct. This is where Geospatial Predictive Analytics and Pattern Trend Analysis play a huge role. Take the exact same concept and instead of car thefts, you're looking for IEDs in Afghanistan. A counter-IED cell using pattern analysis can reduce casualties by almost 80%! This fact alone is why I love my job. We have the power to know where

[Haggis]

Young man comes into Police station wearing a very wore Misfits t-sirt, wore out sneakers, jeans with holes in them and peanut shells in his unkempt hair complaining his S10 Blazer was stolen
- Sorry we can not help you.

Young man walks into Police station in nice suit with a tie and neat clean hair and proper hygiene complaing his Lincoln, Audi, BMW, etc... was stolen
- Sit down sir we will fill out a report.

[kmastl]

DUDE
When will you find these guys? I
mean, do you have any promising leads?

The policeman laughs, agreeing broadly.

POLICEMAN
Leads, yeah. I'll just check with
the boys down at the Crime Lab.
They've assigned four more detectives
to the case, got us working in shifts.

[ctrlraven]

Do a $50,000 burglary ? The burglary guys are working on that for days.
Do a $50,000 armed robbery ? The whole squad is working on that for a week.
Steal a $50,000 car ? Eh.

Why is that ?

There are probably about ONE MILLION cars stolen in the US every year. ONE MILLION. In a place like Chicago, I wouldn't be surprised if it was 50 - 75 per day, maybe more.
If a Detective spent a day on each one, they'd need 50 - 75 Detectives doing nothing but stolen cars every day. I will guarantee you that they do not have a fraction of that.

As a rule, the cars either :
1. Turn up on their own relatively quickly, either occupied or stripped / dumped, or
2. Are cut for parts / crushed / shredded, and never turn up.
And even when there is an arrest, few people bother to show up for court - they either want their car back immediately, in the exact shape it was taken, or they want it totalled and cashed out - any other outcome is inconvenient.
And in reality, most people do have insurance, and all most of them really do want from the Police is the right paperwork for their claim.

So what do the Detectives do ?
They don't work on each one, individually, that's for sure - just based on the sheer number of stolen cars as compared to manpower budgets.
The same goes for techniques like neighborhood interviews, DNA, narcotics sweeps, etc - it is simply not practical to use them for every individual incident.

So they work on large numbers of car thefts at the same time :
They analyse stolen car reports for patterns - high-theft areas, times of day, types of cars, etc - in an effort to concentrate available resources on getting the biggest problems under the most control practical.
They try to make multiple arrests / multiple recoveries by developing information on large-scale theft rings and professional "chop shops" through investigation of arrestees, junkyards, and other techniques.
They keep all that paperwork straight for your insurance company ;)
Pretty much on the nose. This is why "theft" is standard on all automobile policies.

[Motorhead350]

Do a $50,000 burglary ? The burglary guys are working on that for days.
Do a $50,000 armed robbery ? The whole squad is working on that for a week.
Steal a $50,000 car ? Eh.

Why is that ?

There are probably about ONE MILLION cars stolen in the US every year. ONE MILLION. In a place like Chicago, I wouldn't be surprised if it was 50 - 75 per day, maybe more.
If a Detective spent a day on each one, they'd need 50 - 75 Detectives doing nothing but stolen cars every day. I will guarantee you that they do not have a fraction of that.

As a rule, the cars either :
1. Turn up on their own relatively quickly, either occupied or stripped / dumped, or
2. Are cut for parts / crushed / shredded, and never turn up.
And even when there is an arrest, few people bother to show up for court - they either want their car back immediately, in the exact shape it was taken, or they want it totalled and cashed out - any other outcome is inconvenient.
And in reality, most people do have insurance, and all most of them really do want from the Police is the right paperwork for their claim.

So what do the Detectives do ?
They don't work on each one, individually, that's for sure - just based on the sheer number of stolen cars as compared to manpower budgets.
The same goes for techniques like neighborhood interviews, DNA, narcotics sweeps, etc - it is simply not practical to use them for every individual incident.

So they work on large numbers of car thefts at the same time :
They analyse stolen car reports for patterns - high-theft areas, times of day, types of cars, etc - in an effort to concentrate available resources on getting the biggest problems under the most control practical.
They try to make multiple arrests / multiple recoveries by developing information on large-scale theft rings and professional "chop shops" through investigation of arrestees, junkyards, and other techniques.
They keep all that paperwork straight for your insurance company ;)

Thank you.


Young man comes into Police station wearing a very wore Misfits t-sirt, wore out sneakers, jeans with holes in them and peanut shells in his unkempt hair complaining his S10 Blazer was stolen
- Sorry we can not help you.

Young man walks into Police station in nice suit with a tie and neat clean hair and proper hygiene complaing his Lincoln, Audi, BMW, etc... was stolen
- Sit down sir we will fill out a report.

Unfortunately, I know what you are getting it and this is probably the case. Luckily, I wasn't the guy in the description. I spend an hour at the station telling them everything.... but yeah didn't help.

[CBT]

Should have told them there was 200 pounds of weed in it.

[jaywish]

I had bought a house in a black section. It was robbed 5 times in one year. I had two or three cars stolen. I can not even remember any more.

I got annoyed as you can imagine. I started beating the streets on foot. Ringing doorbells, Talking to every neighbor I could. Most were nice hardworking folks and helped point me in the right direction. this is a very long story but one part is below.

One car I found parked on an industrial side street across from what was then a hopping black bar. It was a 70 BMW 3.0s greymarket that I had salvaged and repaired. I called the cops. Explained the situation. The cop said good, take the car back. I said, don't you want to come down and wait for the thief to come out drunk and get in the car? No, they said they could not afford staff to do that, just take the car back.

[cat in the hat]

Young man comes into Police station wearing a very wore Misfits t-sirt, wore out sneakers, jeans with holes in them and peanut shells in his unkempt hair complaining his S10 Blazer was stolen
- Sorry we can not help you.

Young man walks into Police station in nice suit with a tie and neat clean hair and proper hygiene complaing his Lincoln, Audi, BMW, etc... was stolen
- Sit down sir we will fill out a report.

I've never heard of a cop not taking a theft report from anyone - it's easy, and it's one of the main things they do. You call 911, they send a car, he takes the report, easy peasey.

Here are some reports that they might not take :

"I came from the suburbs to buy a bundle of heroin, but they took my money and did not give me any heroin - ooops, I mean I got robbed !"

"A prostitute drove away in my car while I was using the ATM - ooops, I mean I was carjacked ! By a girl !"

"I gave that guy a ****job, and he didn't pay me - ooops, I mean my boyfriend beat me up and took my $10 !"

"The rental place was coming to take my 50" flat-screen, that I haven't made a payment on in 9 months, but someone broke into my house and stole it ! Imagine that !"

[Haggis]

I've never heard of a cop not taking a theft report from anyone - it's easy, and it's one of the main things they do. You call 911, they send a car, he takes the report, easy peasey.


I was picking on Dom.

[MyBlackBeasts]

Vehicle theft should be treated like horse theft in the old west. Then it would be very rare... A tree & a rope. Problem solved!