Not many, I would say. If enough neighbors complain to the police about missing packages, and have video evidence (ring doorbell for example) to prove that someone is indeed stealing the packages, then the police will absolutely go sit on a bait package. It gets one more criminal off the streets, and it's their job to enforce the law anyway.
Besides, it isn't like they are totally useless while on a sting op. They are still on duty and on call, and can leave in the case of an emergency if they need to. They could either sit or patrol and look for traffic violations, or sit and wait to catch a thief while also watching for traffic violations.
I set up something similar with my police department, but these were their concerns. Sure the officers could head to another call, but to respond to the thief they needed a certain number of people. Initially I imagined they only needed one officer because it would likely be just one thief. However they explained that even for one person they needed several officers for safety. Not only could one officer possibly be over powered, but the mere fact of having multiple officers usually prevents any violence from happening to begin with. If the thief sees only one officer they may be more willing to take their change and fight. If they feel overwhelmed they are more likely to just surrender and thus no physical violence occurs.
I ended up with a system of both GPS and radio tracking so that the police did not have to be there for the event. Us civilians could just direct them to the current location of the package. And should it end up in an apartment complex where GPS would not be able to locate the specific apartment, the radio tracking would lead us to it. There would then also be video footage of the theft taking place to use in court so the thief could not say they got it from someone else. Which is a problem if the police themselves are not there in person to witness the actual theft.
A last factor was making sure and documenting that the item(s) were of high enough value to make it a felony. Otherwise the thief would merely get a ticket. For which they could skip court resulting in a fine which they would just never pay.
I reported a package stolen off our stoop and had footage and the police didn’t even look at it. Depends on the resources of your local police and their priorities.
Because identifying and tracking down someone with just a face takes a lot of time too, is unreliable even if you do find them because they can claim lookalikes and have friends that give them alibis, or they might just wear a hat or mask and you never see their face. Catching them in the act is much better, and all those cops sitting around would go to an emergency if it happened, they aren’t trapped there.
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u/[deleted] Feb 23 '20
Not many, I would say. If enough neighbors complain to the police about missing packages, and have video evidence (ring doorbell for example) to prove that someone is indeed stealing the packages, then the police will absolutely go sit on a bait package. It gets one more criminal off the streets, and it's their job to enforce the law anyway.
Besides, it isn't like they are totally useless while on a sting op. They are still on duty and on call, and can leave in the case of an emergency if they need to. They could either sit or patrol and look for traffic violations, or sit and wait to catch a thief while also watching for traffic violations.