In my experience, having had two former employees of my mom’s shop and a strong arm robber arrested, it came down to me handing the police work to the detectives. The other complaints we filed, just to name one, another employee stealing inventory from mom’s shop in Manhattan and selling it to a vintage shop in Brooklyn went nowhere because we didn’t have surveillance in the store showing she stole it despite there being surveillance in the other shop showing she sold it. Or the time I caught a kid red handed with my bike, and the cops wouldn’t do anything because I didn’t have a bill of sale despite my ability to describe the bike and it’s serial number. They gave me the kid’s address and said if I demanded my bike back and he gave it to me, I could keep it. The kid was running a bicycle chop shop in his garage.

So yeah, if you want the cops to close a case, you need to help them and that costs money. Unless you get lucky and everything is obvious and the case closes itself. Or in case of a murder. They tend to actually put resources into solving murders. Or anything where they can reasonably seize loot. But property theft or damage doesn’t really register.