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Comment by JumpCrisscross | Hacker News Reader

> nothing would have come of it had they not traced the guy

Notify the cops. Track the guy down. Go to the station and request someone come out with you. This takes cops off the desk, which they’re rarely against unless you’re a nutter.

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Where do you live? In SF, last time I tried to get the cops to come out of their desk (to arrest a bike thief who was selling my stolen bike literally 3 blocks away from the station), they told me that they couldn't do it. One of the excuses they used was that it was too far: if I could get the thief to enter the police station then they would help me.

SFPD is notoriously, maliciously useless. It's a political tactic that they've used to wring more funding, less oversight and fancy surveillance gadgets from the city. The previous DA had to rent a U-Haul himself to seize stolen property from a shady business[1] that was involved in organized car breakins. In 1975 they set a bomb off on the mayor's lawn to get him to concede to their strike demands[2].

They're not there to help you, little bike owner. They're there to ensure the value extraction and capital accumulation machine stays lubricated.

1. https://www.kron4.com/news/bay-area/boudin-forced-to-rent-u-...

2. https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=163878616863437...

Man I wish I lived in your world. That said we have studies that show police rarely actually do crime-related work.

> unless you’re a nutter.

Or undocumented, or a member of another group for whom interactions with the police are potentially dangerous.

Or for that matter, what if you are "a nutter?" People with mental illness also get stalked, and also deserve protection. Going in person to the police station is unwise for so so many reasons for so many people.

If this approach works for you then cool, for you. It's not going to work for most of us.

These all seem like situations where you'd just risk making things go EVEN WORSE by getting directly involved in a confrontation that might result in a police response to a violent situation...

The alternative is also potentially worse: being in a violent situation that the stalker controls.

Have you tried? I've seen women friends of mine try this more than once. Go through lot of effort to collect evidence and all the police will do is take your statement, promise that they will "look into it", and then promptly ignore you.

>This takes cops off the desk, which they’re rarely against unless you’re a nutter.

Is this something you have actual experience with? Because it doesn't sound plausible to me. Of course, I don't know where you live so it could be different there.

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