An uncle had a bunch of custom guitars stolen some years back. Couldn’t get the local PD or county sheriff to show any interest in recovering them. He found them for sale in a town nearby out of a paper add and went to verify that they were indeed his. The guy had them stashed in the attic and brought them out for him to examine. He made the ID and used the excuse of going to the bank for cash to slip out and drive around the block.
Called the county and told them he’s found the stolen goods from case #XXXX and they need to get someone out here to get his stuff and arrest the seller. County sheriffs dispatch told him they didn’t do stuff like that and he’d need to just pay the guy if he wanted his guitars back. So he hung up and called back and told them he had a shotgun and was going to shoot the guy and take his goods back. Sheriffs deputies were there in less than 10 minutes and made sure he had his guitars after they arrested the guy.
Problem is nowadays most honest people are going to have insurance on their stuff and the cops figure it’s just as easy for the owner to file a claim for replacement, so why bother investigating and arresting bad guys?
The other part of the problem is that the bad guys know it, figure if you have insurance you’re not out anything, so there’s no reason not to “spread the wealth”. They see you having insurance as permission for them to steal your [bleep].
