My friend lives in NJ. His car was stolen, stripped, and abandoned. The city is making him pay for the towing and impound fees.

Nope, sorry, disagree. In the homeowner's case there was no one who should have been responsible for stopping the storm. In this case the very same people who should've prevented the car theft in the first place are the ones demanding money for not doing their job!

Shouldn't they have identified the car as stolen before they tow it? I think the city SHOULD be responsible for this.

Nope, sorry, disagree. In the homeowner's case there was no one who should have been responsible for stopping the storm. In this case the very same people who should've prevented the car theft in the first place are the ones demanding money for not doing their job!

Well, why not pass the 'cost" on to the people who are responsible for the crimes. While I realize that those particular people who stole the car may not have been caught, TPTB could start a fund for victims of crime such as theft...where those sort of costs are paid. The money would come out of the fines and such of the people who are caught.If need be, raise the fines to cover such things.
Many places have victims funds that are funded by fines and restitution

No, not if it's parked on city property and is in undrivable condition such as missing tires,windows, etc. Then it has to be moved. I do think they should have left some type of tag on it though alerting the owners to move it themselves or have it towed at the city's expense.


I don't understand how a car theft is different than a home theft. Was the car parked in an area where police could see it was being vandalized? You are saying they should have stopped it so I'm thinking maybe the police saw it happening and did nothing? If so, I would be very angry as well. I'd be angry anyway just because it happened to me.

My friend had a car stolen years ago, and the police told her the same thing "we rarely catch these guys". Actually what they meant was "your insurance paid you for another car so we're not going to bother looking for it"
About a month after it was stolen (from the parking lot at the mall) we went shopping (in her new car). We actually pulled up and parked beside her stolen car. The only things the theives did was put in new sun visors. They didn't even paint it. We called the police and they came and did nothing. They said "you already have a new car, this one now belongs to the insurance company and they wont pursue it".... Of course, I wasn't going to accept that answer so we waited and an older lady came out and got in the car and drove to the other side of the mall to a department store. We followed her, then approached her and told her we were college students doing a reasearch project on smokers and told her if she would answer a few brief questions she would be entered into a drawing for a new TV. So we asked her some bogus questions and then got her name, phone number and address. Later we drove by her house and the car was parked in the drive. Again we called the police and they did nothing. Next day, we called the insurance company and they said they wouldn't pursue it. So, we called her and asked her about the car, which she says her son 'bought' her. She was an older lady so we just let it go and thanked her for her time.

Wow....I would have at least told the woman. If she's pulled over by a cop, couldn't she be arrested for possessing stolen property?

By the way, where do you live? What kind of crazy town is that where cops don't care when you have found your stolen car and the person driving it? I have friends who are cops. They would have followed up on it because it's an open and shut case for them when you have a person right there driving the reported stolen car! And, cops get reviewed based on arrests. It would be an easy arrest for them.

I'm starting to see VQ's side of this. There should be a cop assigned to every person who would follow them around 24 hours of every day. This way there could be no crime because everyone would always be under surveillance.

No VQ, at least that's not what I'm saying. Or maybe I am. It's sad but even with more police officers there will still be theft, murder, robbery. There may be less, but it will still exist and any of us can be a victim. There have always been theives and there always will be. My mom's house was broken into at Christmas time. She lost alot of valuable items and was out of pocket for her deductible, not to mention the things she could never replace. But, she didn't blame the police for that, she blamed the thief.

I'm not blaming the cops--I understand the thief is the bad guy here and my friend said the same thing. What I'm saying is that it's a goddamned shame when you are the victim of a crime and the people you pay to prevent that kind of thing, instead of saying "how can we help you recover from this," tell you "too bad, so sad," and stick their hand out--no, worse than that, they FORCE you to pay more money on top of that! And the answer is, "well you should've been paying extra money all along because everyone knows we can't protect you from this kind of thing, so it's your fault, sucks to be you!"