Showing posts with label crime. Show all posts
Showing posts with label crime. Show all posts

Wednesday, August 27, 2008

scrap metal thefts


Every day there are stories of stolen metal: bleachers from a school, piping from construction sites, etc. With the price of metals right now, these items are are extremely valuable when cashed in at a scrap metal yard. If this business is so lucrative, why can't they regulate it to eliminate / cut down on the criminal nature of it? In some states when an individual sells something at a pawn shop, they have to provide a fingerprint and valid ID / driver's license. Then they keep a logbook of what that person has sold to the pawn shop, so that if it turns up as stolen goods they can track it back.

Is it too much of a stretch to impose the same regulation procedures on the scrap metal business?

Tuesday, August 26, 2008

evidence...


...or how I came to be a suspect in a B & E case --
I was seeing a bereavement counselor after my Mom died in April. First visit I took a water bottle in with me. One of the nice, stainless steel ones. After the appointment I was in my car, driving away from the office. I realized I left the water bottle behind. It was rush hour and I would have had to negotiate a couple of tricky intersections to get back there. I thought to myself "Oh, nothing will happen to it. I'll just get it next week."

A week later, we got to chatting right away, but finally towards the end of the hour I started glancing around the office, wondering where she would have put it. At a natural break in the conversation, I asked if she had it. She laughed uncontrollably for a full minute, then said "Oh, that was yours?"

The counselor had other patients after me that afternoon, and she wasn't sure whose it was. So she put it in the waiting room, in case the owner came looking for it. Then one evening that week the office had a break-in. My counselor wasn't present for the police officer's arrival, questioning, and statement-taking, so when no one knew where/when the water bottle showed up, it was taken as evidence! Cue CSI montage of DNA swabs and fingerprinting. (I always FF through them.)

A couple of phone calls and some official paperwork (and strange looks from everyone in the county police station "What's so great about this water bottle." It IS fabulous, and it cost like $20) I got it back.

"Oh, nothing will happen to it. I'll just get it next week."