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Comment by zanny | Hacker News Reader

The worst part is there is really nothing a normal person can do in a situation like this. You would end up paying substantially more to hire a lawyer to hound the police or pursue the investigation independently, and even if you brought the thieves to justice you would never recoup your costs.

I'm not smart enough to come up with solutions but there has to be something better than police unaccountable to anyone without excessive amounts of capital to effectively waste.

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>even if you brought the thieves to justice you would never recoup your costs. //

Assuming the video in OP is genuine the thieves, IIRC, are pretty well off. They certainly have assets that could be forfeit -- nice cars, comfy furniture, smartphones, etc..

These people don't appear to be stealing through necessity.

Exactly. Small claims court at a minimum. They might even get a summary judgement if they have person's face, voice, address, bedroom, and so on to point identification is solid. Two of these were straight-up in their house with pictures of what's in it. Realistically, present the stuff to the judge who might order police to collect remaining evidence. From there, they can be arrested, sued, stuff seized, or whatever.

Lots of possibilities. Don't even need a lawyer if going into small, claims court with video from something they stole. Only thing that concerned me was the confetti and fart bomb possibly counting as battery, booby traps, or whatever. I'd probably just set it to record and track even though other stuff was hilarious.

The original posts problem wasn't a matter of "taking the thief to court" it was getting the police to actually find out who it was. You need someone to id them, but OP couldn't even get the video released to him so who knows if a lawyer or private investigator could get it.

This is called "learned helplessness". It's the result of decades of state education teaching you that your only recourse is the nanny state. Funny how that works out.

So you're saying what, that he should have hired mercenaries to kill the guy and get his stuff back?

That would be more reasonable than hiring a gigantic mercenary State that turns against you, takes you money and laughs at your requests for help.

And if your mercenaries incorrectly target the wrong (innocent) person?

And if your cops incorrectly target the wrong person? How is that different? You're still the one paying them.

Thank you.

Also, to reply to your parent - Heinlein recommended public flogging. I believe it's criminally underused.

Not the nanny mercs!

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