Hacker News Reader

Comment by instaheat | Hacker News Reader

My experience with cameras is as follows.

Flipping a house in gentrifying neighborhood. House burglarized a total of 3 times.

After first time, installed cameras covering every possible angle.

Both 2nd and 3rd time - They wore masks and did so in the early morning hours (3am-5am) Had several people case the house without masks. Either they didn't notice the cameras or they didn't care.

3rd time I had some choice words for the foe through my Video doorbell and let him know I would be there before the police and suggested he be gone before I get there. I got there in 10 minutes flat ready to beat him to a pulp with a tire iron.

I wish we instituted harsher punishments for thieves when they get caught. It may be unpopular opinion, but I am glad I have the right to kill someone and defend my property if I see fit if they're in a ski mask ready to take my things.

View on HN

I sympathize with your mentality, but you most certainly do not have that right. With a few very limited exceptions in Texas, in the US you have to be defending against a deadly threat. Breaking into your home with ski masks is usually seen as a deadly threat, but that doesn't apply to a flipper house when you aren't even inside.

If you arrived to the house and killed them with a tire iron you would likely have been charged with murder.

I strongly recommend reading The Law of Self Defense by Andrew Branca.

Will do. I actually started staying in the house just prior to the sale to prevent any further issues. With my vehicle onsite, had a lot less activity going on.

Between my vehicle and the “I’ll shoot you” signs, no one disturbed the residence.

It was a pain sleeping on a blow up mattress for two weeks.

I’m not sure you have that right. Killing somebody for taking your things is murder. If you want to lie and say you feared for your life you could get away with it. But it’s still murder. And you’d be getting away with murder. So Mr law and order. Might want to bone up on the whole law thing.

Well, I'm in Texas, so....

If you like the protection of the law stay within the bounds of it.

You don't know what they're willing to do to take your things. Are you really going to sit around to find out?

If you feel in danger, the most logical action is to flee, not fight. You might think that acting violently would be warranted and a good solution but it is only if you are 100% sure of winning. In any other case it can cause escalation and harm to your family.

Flee from intruders, with your family? Just pull the trigger and be done.

It's instinctive. Your looking at living with PTSD the rest of your life after a home invasion. Should defo be more harsher punishments. Love and aggression live very close in the brain, so if you ever get kids you'll know what kind of feelings get stirred up

The big problems with cameras is police don’t care about the videos because they don’t care about property crimes anymore. Maybe the police will care later after enough home owners get fed up?

You are making stuff up. Please show me where police or the law on burglaries is being handled differently. It’s a felony and always has been. These cases are investigated.

Parent commenter is not making it up, this just really depends on what neighborhood you live in.

With the destruction of the middle class it's true for a lot more people than it used to be.

Here's a fact for you. I handed police the video evidence of the bonehead showing up earlier without a mask to case my house then came back 30 minutes later with a mask on but same clothes in full HD glory.

In a stroke of luck, I also saw him a few minutes after I arrived onsite (did a drive around the neighborhood) and he took off. I literally saw which apartment building he disappeared into.

Lets say there are 12 units in a building (it's a smaller complex built in the 90s) it would not take them long to catch this guy.

They did nothing. I gave them his face in HD and where he was located.

They did nothing because "the victim saw the perp run into that apartment building" doesn't give them probable cause to do anything except walk the halls if someone lets them in and hope to run across the guy.

What did you expect them to do? Search all twelve apartments without warrants?

That's not how the constitution works.

How about knock on some doors? "Have you seen this guy?"

No one said they had to go inside. BTW, these apartments I am referring to are completely open. Anyone can access. They're ghetto.

aaaaand there's the racism I was expecting.

I think ghetto is a perfectly fine description for a 2 star apartment complex that hasn’t been renovated since 1995.

A variety of races are residents, I’d imagine. But nice try.

I'm asking for a basic investigative inquiry. Not a full blown warrant. It's completely logical that the offender went to hide back at home.

Now, of course no one could have answered or they could have told the police to go away, but knocking on someone's door doesn't require a warrant.

Maybe he would have been dumb enough to open the door himself.

In any case, hope the $200 camera he stole was worth it. Almost cost him his life.

You would kill a thief for your 200$ camera?

Yes, absolutely.

He had on a ski mask and appeared to have a metal object in his hand on the video.

Your understanding of how policing works is pretty flawed. Cops need warrants to go into any apartment. Also just because someone ran into an apt complex does not mean they live there. You need more probable cause to justify a warrant. What did you want the police to do pull everyone out of there apartments and hand search.

I am pretty sure it depends on the neighbourhoods, the frequency of these cases, staffing, frequency of other kind of crimes and your own ethnicity as a victim.

In my experience, I got the vibe of "we don't give a shit"

Oh yeah, and before anyone says that is what insurance is for... HA! They don't cover that shit.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com