We just received this e-mail from a TTAC commentator’s friend in the SJPD.
Just finished working 6 shifts in San Jose. I can say from the front lines, stolen cars, burglaries, vandalism and theft are significantly up from where they were a few years ago. The bad times are back. I recommend you exercise higher than normal precautions regarding the security of your property and person. This story is just one example. It probably won’t make the papers but on one shift we had four trucks where the catalytic converters were stolen. Go figure. I also took more than the usual rate of stolen car reports. And if you think they’re stealing luxury cars, think again. The cars stolen were all worth between $300 and $4000. They were all parked on public streets in front of residences. Robberies are up. People are hungry and mean again. Take care and be safe out there.
Big city crime & taxes are the #1 reasons I’m leaving Chicago.
Our neighbor in our old building was recently arrested a 2nd time for having sexual relations with a minor (14 years old).
The first 3 months after I got my STi, it was keyed TWICE in Chicago. My motorcycle has been knocked over …3? times while it was parked when I didn’t have a garage. Total repair bills were about $8k (the bike was only $8300 new).
I no longer will consider an apartment nor house without at least a 1 car garage — our current apartment has 1 garage spot that I can fit the STi & sportbike into which (so far) keeps people off of them.
It is oh-so-true the saying “You can’t have a nice vehicle in the city”.
The less I have to deal with the public out on the street, the better.
By Aug 1st my wife & I should be in our new house with 2 car garage 45 miles or so from downtown Chicago. Let the commute begin!
what is the LAPD doing in San Jose?
Criminals will just look to take advantage of any situation. More government programs will not fix the situation.
If some of these robbers came down with lead poisoning the crime rate might be reduced.
Criminals will just look to take advantage of any situation. More government programs will not fix the situation.
I dont recall anyone mentioning government programs? Criminals are criminals and aholes are aholes. The economy is an excuse for both to be who they want to be.
[Update: Oops, time for a reading comprehension lesson. Sorry for the confusion.]
I resemble that remark!
Two cars have been snagged on my San Jose street in the past few months, and it’s in a relatively quiet neighborhood. Both have been beaters worth a couple grand at most, and both were recovered.
My nephew just finished a very busy auto theft stint with the SJPD and is back on these increasingly nasty streets.
Good time to live in Texas — With our new castle doctrine laws and my new .45, I’m good to go!
Who needs factory jobs? Just send ’em all to China. The displaced workers will find something else to do …
“Criminals will just look to take advantage of any situation. More government programs will not fix the situation.”
Ah, I think the police could be described as a “government program”. Are you saying we don’t need more police?
It ain’t just San Jose.
Two weeks ago, our pastor’s car was stolen out of the church parking lot…
…during the service!
Some people have no shame.
Trouble is thieves are getting money for things such as manhole covers, mausoleum plates, and even old cars that they can turn in to the scrap metal industry. Catalytic converters are notoriously expensive to replace, hence the theft. Until we deal with the source of the theives income, we will continue to see this problem get worse; however that would be infringing on a small business owner’s right to commerce.
maybe i should buy a gun?
San Jose was one of the best large cities in terms of crime, including car theft. That was the “few years ago” that officer was referring to.
I’ll be careful, but bad times in San Jose are still better than good times in many other cities (*cough* Oakland *cough*).
It’s the region. Between the Port of Oakland and the Mexican border, and a large metro area in which to hide chop shops, stolen cars are just too easy to strip or move here.
It’s also priorities. Property crime is low on the totem pole when it comes to police attention, in comparison to gang crime, drugs, and ‘revenue generation’ (speeding tickets, parking tickets, etc).
San Jose is the best major city in the Bay Area, though. Oakland has far more crime, and San Francisco is notorious for their catch and release policy for criminals.
Still, it’s sad see things getting worse.
Oh no, scary criminals.
Sounds like a cop justifying his union job (next up, public schools are understaffed, and we all know that the world would have ended if the UAW jobs weren’t bailed out).
Quite timely since California may have to let some redundant, unnecessary government employees go if the government employee union lobbyist funded California legislators can’t find a way to screw the California taxpayers without a ballot initiative or beg for a federal bailout.
The unproductive, unemployable, society draining groups of people that are most likely to disrupt your driving experience are red light / speed camera companies and private toll way authorities. NOT car thieves.
Anyway, unless you keep a lot of cash in the trunk or your car is pimped, in which case you are likely a criminal yourself, having your car stolen is a free couple thousand over what your car is actually worth.
The only lesson here is buy gap coverage from your insurance company if your car is underwater, mostly in case it is hit and totaled, but also in case of the remote possibility it is stolen.
Cat converter thefts started happening recently in our parking structure at work. I guess its the unintended consequence of biennial smog checks combined with the economy and people keeping cars longer than planned.
Having just got back from an SF Bay area trip, for those of you who haven’t been there:
1) San Jose — don’t remember/non-memorable.
2) SF – Pretty, but the hills are annoying
3) Oaklan – Nightmare. Never would go back. I’m just glad I went there accidently, cruising around, during the day and not at night.
San Jose is becoming Detroit of the past several years?
There isn’t a piece of scrap metal anywhere in the Motor City that hasn’t been stripped. Homes are having their innards torn apart for the copper pipes, people are taking light pole electrical covers, manhole covers, anything they can get their hands on to sell. Cats are getting ripped off nice and regularly.
This is in addition to the usual rims and/or car theft.
Sometimes I really do wonder if what they say is true. Detroit is a leading indicator of where the rest of the country will be going in the coming decades. Makes you at least think about it sometimes…..
Bottom line. A lot of people are good people. A lot of people are good people WHEN THEY HAVE A JOB. Solution: jobs. Not everyone will be able to get a college degree and work in an office or as a janitor. Manufacturing jobs are important. Period.
I often wonder what it was like during the depression. People have always stolen from others, but it seems today a lot of folks like to steal metal, cars, TV’s, etc. If they need to eat, why aren’t they stealing groceries??
maybe i should buy a gun?
Get them while you still have the chance.
This stuff makes me glad I live on the other coast in a pretty low crime city. The gun is just extra protection.
The cars stolen were all worth between $300 and $4000.
Damn. The fuzz are on to my private industry cash for clunkers program.
@ robstar:
After 40 plus years of experience, I believe I’m entitled to say that San Jose is a nice place to live, but I wouldn’t want to visit here.
mopartscrub.
If you buy a gun, please take classes in how to use a weapon. There are few more dangerous things than a very scared/nervous person with a gun. Bad things happen, and bullets go through wall very easily.
I am a gun owner–shotguns, rifles, handguns. I love shooting, and I am pretty darn good at it, but I grab a bat if my wife hears a noise and sends me to investigate.
Such a great place to call my hometown. My mom’s co-worker’s 4Runner had his Catalytic converter stolen.. and my dad has been warned about his MPV too. A person even had the balls to break into my mom’s brand new Honda Civic (while she was at work) just to rummage through her trunk and belongings. The ironic part was that the day her car got broken into, I was getting an alarm installed on my xB. Welcome to to the ghetto folks…
By Aug 1st my wife & I should be in our new house with 2 car garage 45 miles or so from downtown Chicago. Let the commute begin!
And this is the problem with the way we handle problems. We could fix the situation now, while it’s cheap to do so, or we could just move away from it and hope the rot doesn’t expand. Only, eventually, it catches up.
maybe i should buy a gun?
Oh, yes, because that’ll really solve the problem. Again, way to address the symptom and not the cause, America. Instead of tackling poverty and thusly crime (you know, like most other nations have proven works) we’ll just arm everyone and let them shoot each other until it reaches a firepower homeostatis.
Brilliant.
Meanwhile, the rest of the developed world manages lower crime rates (violent and non) without turning everyone into Judge Dredd.
Sounds like a cop justifying his union job (next up, public schools are understaffed, and we all know that the world would have ended if the UAW jobs weren’t bailed out).
I do blame the police for this, in part. It’s a lot easier and more politically effective to buy cops and prisons than social workers and comprehensive welfare, despite that the latter works and the former only drives the feedback loop all the harder.
Here’s a tip: how about, instead, we offer reasonable working wages and jobs to the unemployed, ensure all kids get a good meal and that counselling and health care is free and easily available. And heck, if we did the same internationally we’d probably cut down on terrorism, too.
maybe i should buy a gun?
Oh, yes, because that’ll really solve the problem. Again, way to address the symptom and not the cause, America. Instead of tackling poverty and thusly crime (you know, like most other nations have proven works) we’ll just arm everyone and let them shoot each other until it reaches a firepower homeostatis.
Brilliant.
I have no interest in solving problems, that’s not my job. I work two jobs and pay a lot in taxes. Taxes that will increase when we give every single person food stamps and free housing.
What is your solution? Saying something sophomoric like “do it for the children” “stop poverty” means nothing. Are you willing to work more and pay more so somebody else can get a free ride for years or decades? I’m not. I am a law abiding citizen, but if a person decides to steal from me I am prepared to defend myself.
psarhjinian>
I don’t have time nor interest to solve other peoples problems. Also — solving them in probably one of the most corrupt cities in the United States is really not my problem either.
I have enough of a job keeping a roof over my head & my wife’s head, taking care of my rapidly aging parents and managing our own lives.
My work towards solving the problem(s) has been voting independently at every election for neither of the major parties, for the candidate I thought would be best for the future of my city & country. Beyond voting, paying taxes (if calculated, I’m sure total taxes are > 50% of my salary), and donating to homeless shelters I honestly don’t have time to do any more.
After putting up with the city for my entire life (over 30 years) and paying taxes since being 16, it’s time to give up & move on.
Are you willing to work more and pay more so somebody else can get a free ride for years or decades? I’m not.
That’s the kind of penny-pinching that’s given the US it’s current health and education system. It’s also the same methodology that’s killing the US carmakers: instead of addressing the initially expensive, politically unpalatable solutions, we’ll just make the easy and quick ones to fix the problem in the short term.
Crime tracks poverty directly, no matter how much people want to make it an issue of morality (and not an economic one) by demonizing the poor.** Address the problems created by poverty and disaffection and you address much of the reason people turn to crime in the first place. And yes, it costs money, but so does dealing with crime and health-crisis issues—only you’ve become used to paying for prisons, courts, police and emergency health care, so you don’t see it.
Yes, there would be overlap. Yes, it wouldn’t be a fingersnap fix. Yes, you’d be paying for other people’s welfare, but you’d be paying less in the long run and it’d be more humane.
The alternative, of course, is just escalating gun ownership,*** but wouldn’t it be better if we could solve the reason people need so many guns in the first place?
** Reagan was great for this. Remember the “welfare queen” he made up? Inspiring hate of the poor (and lionizing the tiny handful of self-made men) while ignoring the macroeconomic issues is an old, old tool of the very well-to-do.
*** What people forget is that poor and desperate people have guns, too, and are more willing and able to use them than you might. Oh, and that pulling a gun significantly increases the risk you’ll be seriously hurt.
psharjinian: Oh, yes, because that’ll really solve the problem. Again, way to address the symptom and not the cause, America. Instead of tackling poverty and thusly crime (you know, like most other nations have proven works) we’ll just arm everyone and let them shoot each other until it reaches a firepower homeostatis.
No, it doesn’t. We greatly ramped up spending on social programs in the 1960s and 1970s. Crime rates also exploded.
We reformed welfare in the 1990s, particularly in New York City; crime rates also dropped, particularly in New York City.
I don’t think that is the correlation you want…
psharjinian: That’s the kind of penny-pinching that’s given the US it’s current health and education system.
Our system of higher education (colleges and universities) is the best in the world, and the U.S. has one of the highest per-pupil rates of spending at the grade-school and high-school level. The idea that the American education system is the victim of conservative penny-pinching is incorrect.
As for our health care system, here are a few reasons why our health care system is so expensive:
1. People from Mexico can use the U.S. health care system and avoid payment. Someone has to eventually pay for this.
2. People who pay a lot for health care get a lot of health care in return. The U.S. health care system caters to wealthy foreign nationals who can pay for top-notch service.
3. American enforces drug patents, which allows drug companies to make enough money to fund research. Other countries – including Canada – use “collective bargaining” and subtle threats to infringe patents that reduce drug costs. They attribute the benefits to “socialism” but they wouldn’t have the drugs in the first place without the U.S. market to help cover the cost of developing them.
4. Some countries are less honest with statistics. A baby delivered live in the U.S. who dies an hour after birth has a one-hour lifespan, and is counted as a live birth. In some European countries, a baby that dies six hours after birth is considered a stillbirth. The U.S. also makes more efforts to save premature babies. This skews the infant-mortality statistics.
5. The rationining of health care by a private insurer opens the company to lawsuits. It’s much, much harder to sue a government plan – if possible at all – that rations health care. And, please note that ALL of the nationalized plans ration health care. The idea that people in, say, Europe, receive all of the care that they want under nationalized plans is false. That is why every European country allows its citizens to purchase health care through private insurers to supplement the nationalized care. That is also why several Canadians successfully sued for the right to purchase private health insurance.
psharjinian: Crime tracks poverty directly, no matter how much people want to make it an issue of morality (and not an economic one) by demonizing the poor.**
It doesn’t track spending to fight poverty, as I’ve shown above.
Many poor people commit crimes, but that is because the same attitudes and behaviors that keep them poor also make them more predisposed to commit crimes in the first place.
psharjinian: *** What people forget is that poor and desperate people have guns, too, and are more willing and able to use them than you might. Oh, and that pulling a gun significantly increases the risk you’ll be seriously hurt.
Wrong.
The simple fact is that armed citizens thwart many crimes annually…google Clayton Cramer’s Civilian Self-Defense Blog or the research of Professor Gary Kleck to become better informed.