
My relentless pursuit of the guy who robbed me - michael_dorfman
http://www.salon.com/life/feature/2010/09/20/tracked_down_my_thief/index.html
======
brc
I did some amateur sleuthing as well, but unfortunately the most high tech
thing I used was a zoom lens on a digital camera.

You see, my neighbourhood thief was knocking off pot plants and outdoor
furniture. I saw him walking up the road several times with these items, but
the guy looked like a 'roid rager so I wasn't about to start asking questions
and figued he might be moving house locally.

But then he made the mistake of knocking off one of my plants, a delicate
specimen I'd taken months to get going. And he was silly enough to put it in
his window across the road.

I got some snaps of him, the plant, and dug through my photos to find one of
the same plant in it's original location to show it was mine.

I took the lot down to the police station and handed it over. They couldn't
believe it - and promptly drove straight around, knocked on the door and found
an apartment full of stolen goods.

He was wanted for assault, had tipped a pool table onto someone in a drunken
fight, was already on probation.

I had to go to court to give evidence and tell my story while this meathead
stared at me. It was quite unnerving.

But he went away to jail and I've since moved, so now it's just a story to be
told. The detective told me he wished all cases could be that easy.

~~~
OtherMichael
Given that you gave a photo of your "pot plant" to the police, I'm going to
assume that it was not what I first thought it was....

~~~
eru
Depends on where he lives.

------
jakevoytko
This highlights the value of contingency planning and tenacity.

With the suspect's photo in the McDonald's, the police might have been able to
find him, and convict him for possession of stolen property, especially with
his criminal history. But the author wasn't done! She turned his email address
into his complete online identity. This provided an extra link to the crime,
the stolen GPS, and some extra supporting information, like the comment on
MySpace about hitting the lottery. She made life easy for the police by
finding the suspect's name. She stopped the case from falling through the
cracks, and gave the police enough leverage to get a guilty plea.

This is why I don't believe (very strongly) in luck. Many facets of the case
were fortunate: the Craigslist ad, the email reuse, the McDonalds surveillance
picture, the MySpace profile, etc. But she was given multiple trails of
breadcrumbs that she followed to their inevitable conclusion.

~~~
Gormo
Does this illustrate the value of contingency planning, though?

It doesn't seem as though the author had any prior experience tracking down a
thief, or that she was executing a pre-existing plan when she eventually
needed to.

Instead, she relied on her adaptability and her general base of knowledge to
deal with a new contingency as it arose, without advance preparation.

If anything, the lesson here is to maintain your capacity to decide and act on
the fly, and make use of whatever opportunities the situation affords, instead
of trying to predict the unpredictable.

------
bjonathan
"Given Johnny's dozen tattoos, given his weakness for skank, I made a leap --
and assumed he was on MySpace"

------
edanm
"If I were mathematically inclined, I might even observe that in my tale, the
good guys outnumbered the bad guys, by about 10 to one."

An amazing ending to an incredibly interesting and well-written piece. That's
just how I think about the world - so much more good than bad. It's a shame
_most_ articles seem to focus only on the bad!

------
rottencupcakes
> "By now it was Friday afternoon, and Inspector Vargas does not work weekends
> or Mondays, thanks to the California state budget cuts."

The movies would have you believe that detectives work around the clock and
would do anything and everything to catch a crook. Rude awakening.

Seems like a lot of crimes must go unsolved because of this - time just seems
like such a critical aspect of a lot of cases.

~~~
davidw
> The movies would have you believe that detectives work around the clock and
> would do anything and everything to catch a crook.

Well, to be fair, movies tend to deal with international espionage, zillions
of dollars of diamonds/gold/cash/whatever, heinous murders, nuclear weapons,
and things of that ilk, rather than stolen GPS devices.

------
tome
FWIW, this is completely the opposite of what pg suggests:

<http://paulgraham.com/top.html>

 _Turning the other cheek turns out to have selfish advantages. Someone who
does you an injury hurts you twice: first by the injury itself, and second by
taking up your time afterward thinking about it. If you learn to ignore
injuries you can at least avoid the second half. I've found I can to some
extent avoid thinking about nasty things people have done to me by telling
myself: this doesn't deserve space in my head._

~~~
Tautologistics
That is the short sighted view though. If everyone always turns the other
cheek then there is little consequence to hurting or screwing others, which
then reinforces the wrong-doers behaviors and perhaps even encourages others
to join in. Within reason, one should always make it clear that certain
actions are simply not acceptable and that there are clear consequences for
those actions. If not for your self, it may save someone else from that same
injustice.

The long term results of action vs. inaction will always have an impact on
society as a whole and on one's personal quality of life; it just might not
immediately noticeable.

If however, one is driven solely by revenge then it might cause one to expend
way too many resources or cause one to take things too far but, still,
intention has little effect on the external impact of an action.

~~~
marciovm123
This is referred to in behavioral economics as the "second-order free-rider
problem", and is an active area of research, e.g.
<http://www.cirano.qc.ca/ee/ESA2005/papers/Kiyonari.pdf>

------
suprgeek
Tucked into this tale is also a cautionary warning: be careful about what you
post online. In this particular case I applaud the victim on her tenacity and
the thief was a not-very-tech-savvy person. However if the roles were reversed
and the offender was the tech savvy one, imagine the havoc that could be
wrought on someones life.

~~~
brianmwang
See: 4chan

------
jdietrich
It strikes me that people who are bothered by theft in the modern age just
haven't _got_ the whole digital revolution on quite a profound level. She
lists the things that bothered her as "the BlackBerry with contact information
for dear old friends, the wedding anniversary wallet that her husband bought
her when she finished chemo, stuffed with about two years' worth of love
letters from her toddlers, hopeful doctors' notes, and other scraps of paper
she couldn't bear to part with".

The wallet itself I kind of get, but the rest is just data. With a ScanSnap
and an iDrive account, the stuff that matters becomes so many electrons in the
grid. Send the bits of dead tree off to Iron Mountain, insure your gadgets and
stop worrying.

I think it's a sort of zen exercise, separating sentiment from utility. If
suffering really is caused by attachment to transient things, then it seems to
me that we have a truly unique opportunity to break attachments wholesale, at
little or no cost. Keep your bits in the cloud and treat your atoms as if
they're borrowed (which ultimately they are).

If we really want to reduce crime, locking people up isn't going to help - we
have decades of recidivism as proof. There's no such thing as deterrent, not
for people with chaotic childhoods who never developed self control or long-
term thinking. If I'm robbed from, it's my fault, because I haven't done
enough for the people in society with lives so crappy that petty theft seems
like an attractive career.

Here in the UK, the average prison inmate is functionally illiterate, mentally
ill and addicted to drink or drugs. One in ten is psychotic and one in five
has attempted suicide. I imagine the numbers are much the same in the US. I
see a lot of comments in this thread about preventing crime, about punishment
and deterrent. If it worked, why is recidivism so high? Is the best we can do
just locking people up?

~~~
briancooley
You need to read the next rest of the sentence and the next:

 _that person would probably prefer you just dump it all in the trash. Because
finding fragments of your private life on people's yards and scattered on the
street, in the shrubs and gutters, is a unique kind of psychological torment.
Suddenly a routine violation starts to feel really personal._

She wasn't upset about the stuff being stolen, she was upset about the stuff
lying all over the neighborhood for the world to see. She felt violated and
exposed.

The proper digital analogy is having your "bits in the cloud" hacked and
posted on a public website for all the world to see.

~~~
jrockway
_The proper digital analogy is having your "bits in the cloud" posted on a
public website for all the world to see._

So, you mean Facebook.

------
JacobAldridge
I know HN etiquette dictates that my comment should add something to the
conversation, otherwise a simple upvote will suffice, but I have nothing to
add: I just wanted to state that this story is awesome.

OK, maybe a few things to add. Snarks would point out that this was overkill,
that insurance would have covered most of it (most of it was recovered anyway)
and self-sleuthing can lead to dangerous situations. But as someone who's had
their house robbed several times, a modern tale of vengeance well-told is much
appreciated.

~~~
retube
> Snarks would point out that this was overkill, that insurance would have
> covered most of it (most of it was recovered anyway) and self-sleuthing can
> lead to dangerous situations.

Possibly true. But nothing is as cathartic as personally tracking down the
person that wronged you.

~~~
TheAmazingIdiot
What are you going to do? Kill them? Maim them? Bring it out in blood equity?
Or some sort of "bringing them to justice?"

Its just stuff. You never know what the motivations they had for doing it. It
could have done all sorts of good, at a cost of some personal sacrifice. Is it
wrong? Society says so. But personal "justice" is just as extreme.

And yes, I have had things stolen from me.

~~~
trustfundbaby
> What are you going to do? Kill them? Maim them? Bring it out in blood
> equity? Or some sort of "bringing them to justice?"

Its almost like you didn't read the story or something.

------
Tichy
What stood out to me was this comment: "Dude!!! How do you not work? You win
the freak'n lotto???"

So maybe the criminals often don't even realize that what they do is actual
work?

------
Timothee
Here's my short "Internet investigation" story:

late at night I found a wallet on the pavement and decided to deliver it
myself the following day since the address on the driver's license was very
close to my place.

Next day I discover the guy moved. But with some of his info, I found the
_Google cache_ of an old Craigslist ad he had posted, that gave me his phone
number. He was pretty happy.

------
rdl
I can't imagine anyone who lives in SF ever leaving anything visible in the
car. Even leaving spare change or an old blanket in the back seat causes
people to break in within hours (causing damage to the vehicle far in excess
of any value of property stolen). One of the worst parts of SF. Contrasted
with most Gulf Arab countries where I felt comfortable leaving $10k+ in
equipment in unlocked vehicles parked for days.

~~~
illumin8
We don't cut off the hands of thieves here...

------
VMG
> I ran his e-mail address through a reverse e-mail finder, which cost me
> about 15 bucks for a month's worth of "surveillance."

Can anyone enlighten me on what she means?

~~~
rms
There are a number of paid services on the net where you give them an email
address and they slurp up all the information out there associated with that
person.

<http://www.spokeo.com> is one of many and might be the one used in the
article, though Spokeo gives you 3 months for your $15.

~~~
orblivion
How do they find out what you've used your email address for? Do they buy that
info from the websites?

~~~
maxawaytoolong
I don't know anything about Spokeo, but Rapleaf uses the APIs of various
services, and when that isn't enough, they screen scrape.

~~~
orblivion
> Rapleaf uses the APIs of various services

Those APIs expose people's email addresses?

~~~
maxawaytoolong
Yes. If you already know someone's email address, you can get all sorts of
information about them from twitter, fB, amazon wishlists...anything where the
user's account is keyed to an email address.

~~~
orblivion
So... isn't there something in user agreements that avoids this sort of thing?
Maybe I should read it closer, but I would expect "will not sell my email
address to third parties" would be a common clause. And if it wasn't, I'd
expect some sort of consumer backlash.

Sorry for the line of questions, this is sortof a jolt to my view of reality.

~~~
maxawaytoolong
They aren't selling the email address to third parties - they are letting them
access the information for free.

------
shrikant
This would be a good outline of a response to
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1705467>

------
tyn
She posts with her real name and full details of the case. What if the guy
does the same thing she did when he is out of prison?

~~~
jrockway
Then he goes back to prison, this time for 25 to life?

~~~
tyn
If he's caught. He could even do it while in prison.

~~~
jrockway
You watch too much TV.

Where's he going to get the money? That GPS he stole didn't resell for much...

~~~
tyn
What money? He could ask a favor from his buddies, provided of course he has
the same revengeful mentality as the victim. This is quite unlikely but still
works as a deterrent for many people that would otherwise take similar actions
as the victim. A solution to this problem might help in the battle against
crime. Just to give an idea, something like an e-testimony with a digital
certification that can be connected to the person's identity details only from
qualified public servants.

~~~
jrockway
So his friend is going to risk 20 years in prison just to get revenge?

This guy has already been in prison; he got caught stealing and was sent back
to finish his first sentence. Not everyone is the mafia don that you see on
Law & Order. This guy probably has no connections and no money. Which means he
has to do his dirty work himself.

And after two years in prison, I doubt a direct ticket back is his first
priority.

~~~
TallGuyShort
Statistics would argue with you. Most sources put the proportion of repeat
violent crime offenders at around 60%.

~~~
mseebach
If you're in jail for theft and then beat the person who got you arrested
senseless with a baseball bat, that doesn't make you a repeat _violent_ crime
offender.

Of course, the article doesn't elaborate on what his previous sentence was,
but I wouldn't be terribly surprised if it was theft, fencing, scams or fraud
etc. and not violence.

------
danbmil99
I'm all for vengeance but it just seems ironic and unfortunate that Johnny Boi
will almost inevitably get out of prison sometime in the next 2 years more
hardened and better equipped to be a complete fuckup, undoubtedly progressing
to even stupider but possibly more violent and disruptive crimes. Just saying.

~~~
varjag
So, the better option for dealing this thief would be...?

~~~
ergo98
Community service. Monitored parole. Work programs...

The guy stole a backpack from an unlocked car with visual valuables. Police in
my area once tried to make it a _crime_ to have visible valuables inside of a
vehicle, locked or not, because it encouraged crimes of opportunity by casual
criminals. It essentially _wasted their time_.

This guy wasn't going to pass the car by and then decide to murder an old
lady.

~~~
varjag
Yes, he just stole other person's belongings. Sure, the lady was teasing him
with her unlocked car.

Just like the one before her I guess - he was already on probation.

~~~
ergo98
There is a gradient of criminality, and committing a non-violent crime of
opportunity (where he even discarded much of the proceeds) is pretty low on
the scale.

Yet now the justice system is going to spend tens of thousands of dollars+
incarcerating him, and the net result will be that his options after being
released will lean even more heavily towards criminality.

------
habith
Good for her. I went through something similar a few months ago. I had my car
parked in the driveway and similarly someone broke into it (it was locked, but
didn't have an alarm) and they stole my GPS and chargers.

I found the post on Craigslist the next day and contacted the person with a
fictitious email and name. He emailed me back asking for my phone number to
set up a meeting.

At that point I had three options:

a) File a police report/contact the insurance company and have my insurance
rate hiked up (for a < $100 GPS) b) Meet the thief in-person and pull a Chuck
Norris on him c) Let it go and pick another GPS up / Fix my car door

I chose C as I didn't like the outcome of A, nor the possibility of him and
his hooligans retaliating against my family if I went with B.

------
cowmixtoo
Hmm... this story doesn't pass the smell test.

I and many of my friends have been burglarized and then tried to track down
the perpetrator. Also I am very active in my neighborhood block watch so I get
involved in the details of many personal property crimes. Even with the most
well meaning law enforcement officials and other institutions who might have
information you need to solve your personal crime, the kind of cooperation
this lady received is unheard of. In fact, I would be a little upset all these
institutions spent this much time on a crime that is partly her fault. The
rest of her details don't add up in my head.

Mark my words: This story will turn out to be more vigilante porn than the
truth.

------
temphn
Righteous vengeance. Fortunately for her, the demographics of the thief allow
the audience to unhesitatingly endorse law enforcement action without blaming
the victim. Many people who have been victimized in SF are not so lucky.

~~~
lelele
Care to explain? Thanks.

~~~
temphn
He looked like a neo-nazi. Most people who are convicted for robbery in SF do
not.

For the typical Salon reader, if a homeless member of a minority group smashed
their window and grabbed their stuff, they would feel resignment. They
wouldn't want to throw the book at someone who had suffered so much. In fact,
they would actually get more angry at a writer who pushed for harsh penalties
and jail time. Contrast to their reaction to this criminal.

From a purely utilitarian perspective, if you are victimized, it is better if
your attacker is from a group that has no sympathetic constituency, deserved
or not.

~~~
grandalf
Interesting point. My car was broken into a few months ago. The thief stole a
GPS unit from the glovebox and a $20 mobile phone. The damage to the car was
$3500 plus the $150 in property stolen.

I checked the T-Mobile website and saw that there had been two calls to
Central America. So I got on Skype and called both numbers. After a lot of
rings one of the numbers picked up. The person spoke English. I said, "I'm
calling to ask if someone called you from the United States yesterday. My
phone was stolen and I think he or she might know something about the theft".
The person claimed not to have been called the day before. After a few more
minutes he admitted that he did receive a call. I asked if he knew someone in
San Francisco and he said he had a friend who was a student who would never be
involved in a crime.

I could hear the profound disappointment in his voice. I have no idea if the
person who called him was the person who stole the phone, or if he may have
bought the phone from someone else. But the general evasiveness of the voice
at the other end made me suspect that perhaps his friend was the thief.

I don't begrudge someone a bit of petty theft if they are broke, but it does
seem callous to do $3500 worth of property damage in order to steal property
that you could sell for (at best) $80.

I also found it heartbreaking to think that this thief had let down someone
back home who cared about him. I mean, I'd teach that guy to write code or
something. Heck I'd teach anyone.

------
dbrannan
Good thing it wasn't over state lines. I had done some sleuthing on a fellow
that took 2.4K from me, had his name, bank info, dad's name, city - nearly the
works. The local police wouldn't get involved since I was out of state, and
the FBI wouldn't get involved because the crime totals of this individual
wasn't over 10K. That was several years ago and I just moved on, but I
remember feeling that justice was for the rich. At the time, 2.4K was a lot of
money to me.

------
Tichy
Perhaps "can't post stuff on Facebook anymore" will become a powerful
deterrent against a career in crime :-)

------
v21
The closure I wanted at the end of the story was for her to meet the thief.
For her to explain the hurt and worry and anger he'd caused. For him to try to
explain his reasons and lack of them.

Also, I seem to recall this turns out to be incredibly cheap for the amount of
reduction in recidivism it causes.

------
danielnicollet
So, the lack of privacy of social media is not so 1-way after all (picture
Zuckerberg searching your personal info from his Dr Evil control room with
government henchmen in waiting ;-). It's 2-way: anyone can peer into anyone's
life. Sometimes for a good cause, sometimes not...

------
stretchwithme
I'm appreciative of the author's efforts in nailing this guy, as it makes the
bay area a little safer for everybody.

I'm rather tired of reading about these career criminals on parole victimizing
hardworking citizens, while others who haven't harmed anyone or stolen
anything sit in prison.

------
roadnottaken
In these days of unlimited free e-mail services (gmail, etc) you'd think
someone wouldn't use their personal e-mail account to sell stolen goods...

------
wooter
I wouldn't have contributed to putting a guy who is engaged and about to have
a child in jail for 2 years (which would probably piss a lot of people off)
and then posted the whole story, in intimate detail, on a popular site, tied
to my real identity.

The story is entertaining but the guy lost a lot more than her and it seems
pretty foolish to tell the world it was because of her. If the guy uses
craigslist, myspace, dating sites, and facebook, how many degrees of
separation can there really be? I hope a lot.

~~~
CapitalistCartr
He committed the crimes; he is responsible for the consequences. He knew he
had a pregnant girlfriend, and chose to not care. To let someone continue on a
destructive path against the community around him isn't dong anyone any
favors, not him, his girlfriend, or his child.

~~~
wooter
Doesn't mean its not going to piss him and his family off that this woman went
to those lengths to make it happen. You can't deny that people have strong,
sometimes irrational, emotions. Anonymizing the story wouldn't have made it
any less interesting and protected her from any retaliation (from him or
friends; even a brick through the window would be a pain to deal with).

Not to mention she does take a few jabs at the guy and his potential
girlfriend, saying they look sleazy/neo-nazi/etc.

Not saying what she did is wrong, just saying that clearly identifying herself
as the one responsible for his punishment (clearly identifying him too) isn't
the smartest move for her safety.

~~~
teaspoon
She more than likely took the witness stand and saw this guy face-to-face. You
can't really charge someone with a crime without identifying yourself.

------
lelele
This is a great article. Thanks for sharing.

Reading how one can exploit tech to accomplish something gives way to
entrepreneurial ideas.

------
tomwalker
I was glad to read about justice being done in this case.

Its a shame that many get away with so much.

------
zackattack
In April 2009, at a frat party, this guy asked to use my iPhone to make a
call. I had seen him at a different party the previous summer, so I let him
use it. He walked away with my phone.

He taunted me over the phone when I called and asked to have it back. I
updated my Facebook to relate that my phone was stolen; he logged in via
iPhone and updated "nvm got my phone back." A real class act.

I remembered his name was "Chase" and he was into music, so I looked through
MySpace for all the guys named Chase in Chicago. Through that, I found his
Twitter account and sent him an @reply indicating that I filed a police report
and would have him arrested at his next gig. A few minutes later he started
the trip back to Hyde Park and returned the phone to me.

------
napierzaza
The ending is written as if the Myspace page was what sprung the trap on him.
But was it the photo of him at McDonalds that they used or his online ones?

So it reads more like Credit card statement -> McDonald's photo -> arrest.
With all her extraneous snooping around that?

I don't want to make assumptions, but I bet there was one annoyed police
officer in California.

~~~
loumf
The photo wouldn't have led to the arrest if she hadn't matched it against the
ones in MySpace one that was attached to the e-mail, names, and other people.

------
thought_alarm
Dedicated to all the jackasses on Facebook. I can see you.

------
bdigital
Did anyone else find the attitude of this article outrageous?

Bragging about sending a young man to prison over her blackberry?

~~~
Confusion
He should have stolen the entire car before you would have him sent to prison?
If someone were to pickpocket a single $1 bill from my pocket, I'd want him to
be punished, to try and deter him from doing it again.

~~~
bdigital
Well there are different theories of justice. Deterrence is certainly one, but
rehabilitation is another theory that should be considered.

I'm not sure what the correct response is, but the article conveyed an
attitude that this was a clear cut narrative on the triumph of good over evil,
casting herself as the heroine.

Another perspective is that a common thief, desperate to make ends meet,
becomes the victim of a vindictive blogger. Guess I'm alone on this one :).

~~~
brown9-2
_a common thief, desperate to make ends meet_

How do you know this?

~~~
desigooner
exactly. if anything, this guy was a lazy one who didn't work for a living,
mooched off people's things and belongings and had all the time in the world
for an active social life.

if one is that desperate to make ends meet, and i've seen such people, they'd
be busting their asses and not lazying around in the parks or malls with
girlfriends

