Stolen Comic Books

[Dr Chaos]

 

Cool.

 

Now this thread is finally over.

 

Why, what happened, did you catch the thieves?

[ChrisInBaltimore]

Honestly, I'm not sure the police department will do a thing about this theft. I get the stealing mail is a major theft, but they don't really care.

 

I was in an accident in the city a few years back. My head was bleeding badly and I got taken in an ambulance from my vehicle. Someone stole my briefcase and some other stuff from my truck. The total loss on my end was around $500. It would have been an easy track for the police to follow. They could have asked the policemen at the scene, the tow truck driver, and the person working the desk at the impound lot. They pretty much told me they didn't care.

 

Good luck trying to get them to finger print your comic. I'd be surprised if they did it.

[Dr Chaos]

Honestly, I'm not sure the police department will do a thing about this theft. I get the stealing mail is a major theft, but they don't really care.

 

I was in an accident in the city a few years back. My head was bleeding badly and I got taken in an ambulance from my vehicle. Someone stole my briefcase and some other stuff from my truck. The total loss on my end was around $500. It would have been an easy track for the police to follow. They could have asked the policemen at the scene, the tow truck driver, and the person working the desk at the impound lot. They pretty much told me they didn't care.

 

Good luck trying to get them to finger print your comic. I'd be surprised if they did it.

 

I reported two other mail thefts in the last few years from the same address.

 

The first time nothing happened, I have no idea if the police lifted a finger.

 

The second time, the police obtained the stolen gift card numbers from AMEX, and obtained blurry security footage of the crooks where they used the cards (Footlocker and Target, they seemed to be wheeling a flat screen TV out of Target). They also had a picture of the car used but not the license plate.

 

All I could see from the pictures was a blurry non-descript black guy with a baseball hat and a non-descript silver sedan. Needless to say the case is still unsolved but at least it seemed that the police were making an effort.

 

The dollar amounts of this crime won't blow them away this time but this will be the third incidence of stolen mail I have reported and the total (for all three) is over $10,000.

 

The last two times I was reimbursed in full because UPS failed to obtain the required signature confirmation.

[ChrisInBaltimore]

Honestly, I'm not sure the police department will do a thing about this theft. I get the stealing mail is a major theft, but they don't really care.

 

I was in an accident in the city a few years back. My head was bleeding badly and I got taken in an ambulance from my vehicle. Someone stole my briefcase and some other stuff from my truck. The total loss on my end was around $500. It would have been an easy track for the police to follow. They could have asked the policemen at the scene, the tow truck driver, and the person working the desk at the impound lot. They pretty much told me they didn't care.

 

Good luck trying to get them to finger print your comic. I'd be surprised if they did it.

 

I reported two other mail thefts in the last few years from the same address.

 

The first time nothing happened, I have no idea if the police lifted a finger.

 

The second time, the police obtained the stolen gift card numbers from AMEX, and obtained blurry security footage of the crooks where they used the cards (Footlocker and Target, they seemed to be wheeling a flat screen TV out of Target). They also had a picture of the car used but not the license plate.

 

All I could see from the pictures was a blurry non-descript black guy with a baseball hat and a non-descript silver sedan. Needless to say the case is still unsolved but at least it seemed that the police were making an effort.

 

The dollar amounts of this crime won't blow them away this time but this will be the third incidence of stolen mail I have reported and the total (for all three) is over $10,000.

 

The last two times I was reimbursed in full because UPS failed to obtain the required signature confirmation.

 

Not sure if this would work, but what about opening a PO box? It sounds like you have some mail theirs in your neighborhood.

[Dr Chaos]

Honestly, I'm not sure the police department will do a thing about this theft. I get the stealing mail is a major theft, but they don't really care.

 

I was in an accident in the city a few years back. My head was bleeding badly and I got taken in an ambulance from my vehicle. Someone stole my briefcase and some other stuff from my truck. The total loss on my end was around $500. It would have been an easy track for the police to follow. They could have asked the policemen at the scene, the tow truck driver, and the person working the desk at the impound lot. They pretty much told me they didn't care.

 

Good luck trying to get them to finger print your comic. I'd be surprised if they did it.

 

I reported two other mail thefts in the last few years from the same address.

 

The first time nothing happened, I have no idea if the police lifted a finger.

 

The second time, the police obtained the stolen gift card numbers from AMEX, and obtained blurry security footage of the crooks where they used the cards (Footlocker and Target, they seemed to be wheeling a flat screen TV out of Target). They also had a picture of the car used but not the license plate.

 

All I could see from the pictures was a blurry non-descript black guy with a baseball hat and a non-descript silver sedan. Needless to say the case is still unsolved but at least it seemed that the police were making an effort.

 

The dollar amounts of this crime won't blow them away this time but this will be the third incidence of stolen mail I have reported and the total (for all three) is over $10,000.

 

The last two times I was reimbursed in full because UPS failed to obtain the required signature confirmation.

 

Not sure if this would work, but what about opening a PO box? It sounds like you have some mail theirs in your neighborhood.

 

It might just come to that.

 

Until now the other two thefts involved UPS envelopes which were small and obviously valuable.

 

Non descript boxes with comics in them seem to have escaped notice until now. The thieves might be getting more aggressive.

[loadstone]

LCS owner took the slab from the thieves, looked it over, bought it, scanned it and listed it on ebay. What are the odds that the police could get any useful finger prints off of the slab?

 

Petty theft the police will not use the resources to care.

 

Perhaps but I plan to stop at the LCS tomorrow, pick up the slab, and bring it to the police station to have with me when I file the police report.

 

If the book is there already it would be more likely that they would bother to try to get the fingerprints.

 

On a related note, if they did dust for prints is there any chance that the book inside the slab gets damaged in any way from this process?

Its just powder, a wand and some tape if they find any. Dont see how it would damage the book inside

 

If the powder got in the case it might not be good for the book. I am not sure how likely that would be.

 

On the other hand, finger prints may be the only way I ever see the raw books.

 

This will be irrelevant. The police will not dust for prints.

1. They typically don't for anything of value under something that would fall under Grand Theft or a high profile or serious offense like homicide or attempted murder, rape, terrorist activity, etc.

2. The process, man-hours, and labs for the prints would exceed the value of the items here. Sorry not that they aren't worth the effort to you or me, but the police usually reserve that for things that have a bigger payoff.

3. Even if they were so inclined or convinced to do so, the handling of the evidence (slab) has already violated enough of the evidence collection and tampering safe-guards that it would be pretty much inadmissible in any prosecution and any half-witted defense lawyer could probably turn any circumstantial fingerprint argument here into swiss cheese.

4. Sadly even for valued items above $1000 I've seen less enthusiasm from police. The one thing you do have going for you here is mail theft which should be a federal offense and carries a bit more weight.

5. On the other hand, if the 2 goons really are "connected" men, you may never get any "justice" but may mysteriously have the items returned to you in some form. Be careful but if you are familiar with any of the local neighborhood councilmen or -ahem- "benefactors", word could move to the right people to get the items re-appropriated for you to eliminate any unnecessary/unwanted attention. Chances are if they are connected they were acting on their own and foolishly. If they are just wannabe's then they'll probably get tripped up a ways down the road and caught. Living in the state of RI for a few years I used similar methods to reclaiming some "mistakenly borrowed" items from me when I lived under a "protected neighborhood association". Needless to say they were more efficient than the police in some of these matters.

6. In any case, continue following your leads and working all avenues but prepare to handle most of this investigation yourself and good luck.

 

 

[Dr Chaos]

 

This will be irrelevant. The police will not dust for prints.

1. They typically don't for anything of value under something that would fall under Grand Theft or a high profile or serious offense like homicide or attempted murder, rape, terrorist activity, etc.

2. The process, man-hours, and labs for the prints would exceed the value of the items here. Sorry not that they aren't worth the effort to you or me, but the police usually reserve that for things that have a bigger payoff.

3. Even if they were so inclined or convinced to do so, the handling of the evidence (slab) has already violated enough of the evidence collection and tampering safe-guards that it would be pretty much inadmissible in any prosecution and any half-witted defense lawyer could probably turn any circumstantial fingerprint argument here into swiss cheese.

4. Sadly even for valued items above $1000 I've seen less enthusiasm from police. The one thing you do have going for you here is mail theft which should be a federal offense and carries a bit more weight.

5. On the other hand, if the 2 goons really are "connected" men, you may never get any "justice" but may mysteriously have the items returned to you in some form. Be careful but if you are familiar with any of the local neighborhood councilmen or -ahem- "benefactors", word could move to the right people to get the items re-appropriated for you to eliminate any unnecessary/unwanted attention. Chances are if they are connected they were acting on their own and foolishly. If they are just wannabe's then they'll probably get tripped up a ways down the road and caught. Living in the state of RI for a few years I used similar methods to reclaiming some "mistakenly borrowed" items from me when I lived under a "protected neighborhood association". Needless to say they were more efficient than the police in some of these matters.

6. In any case, continue following your leads and working all avenues but prepare to handle most of this investigation yourself and good luck.

 

 

Not what I necessarily wanted to hear but I really appreciate the knowledge you are sharing with us. I will attempt to push for finger printing as it seems that it would exponentially increase the odds of finding the thieves even though the police will probably say no.

 

If the LCS owner is the only other individual to handle the slab and I do not touch it myself who knows?

 

Since it was and ebay book and not simply put on the shelf for customers to touch it could work.

 

The fingerprints do not have to be used to prosecute. All they need to do is help the cops find the bad guys. If that happens, the LCS owner can identify them as the ones who sold him the book. Case closed.

[Dr Chaos]

I just wanted to post an update and a clarification.

 

First the update:

 

On my way to file the police report today I met with the LCS owner who was kind enough to give me the slab.

 

Also, even though I brought the slab with me the police thought that attempting to obtain fingerprints would be a waste of time.

 

Second the clarification:

 

Green Lantern 52 Raw VF+ 8.5 White was already spoken for and not a part of my purchase so it is not one of the missing books.

 

The missing books are as follows:

 

Green Lantern 43 Raw VF 8.0 White

Green Lantern 54 Raw VF 8.0 White

Justice League of America 40 Raw VF/NM 9.0 OW

Flaming Carrot Comics 1 Raw NM- 9.2

 

Thanks again to everyone who has helped me in my attempt to find my missing comics.