quote: A family feud may be behind a fake ad on Craigslist that invited people to take whatever they wanted for free from a Tacoma home, but it appears police aren't ready to haul anyone to jail for it.
What a crazy world we live in! This is just wrong.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
quote: The sibling rivalry is one of the reasons Tacoma Police are not looking at this as a criminal case. They say it's a civil matter.
Why the heck is this a civil matter?
Posted by KarlEd (Member # 571) on :
I have that same question. This seems to be completely obviously criminal.
Is it possible the owner could sue the police for failure to investigate? Can the police pick and choose what they will pursue?
How is this different from selling your neighbor's house when he's on vacation? Surely that's illegal (i.e. "criminal")
Posted by zgator (Member # 3833) on :
quote: Police also say even if they knew who took items from the home, most would likely not face criminal charges.
People walked in and took things that didn't belong to them simply because something on Craigslist said they could. How is that not theft?
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
quote:People walked in and took things that didn't belong to them simply because something on Craigslist said they could. How is that not theft?
The most likely thinking is that they didn't have the specific intent to steal.
I would prosecute the takers - it'd be difficult, but I'd still do it, if for no other reason than to publicize the scam and make sure people know they are responsible for their own willful blindness. And there's almost no doubt that the poster of the ad committed a felony.
Civilly, I have no problem holding them entirely liable, and I hope the insurance company goes after them if they are identified.
It's also possible that the Craig's List add was simply a cover for a single house-stripper who took what he wanted after giving himself deniability and crowd cover.
And why the heck didn't the neighbors call the police? They noticed this for days?
quote: Officials at Craigslist say they need a subpoena or search warrant to release information about who posted the ad. Tacoma Police say they are not going to request those documents.
This is pure incompetence. If it was planned to cover a burglar, it's a serious crime. It needs to at least be investigated.
And shame on Craig's list for requiring a subpoena or warrant. There has obviously been a wrong committed here. Cooperate with correcting it. I don't think it's CL's fault this happened, but they were used to commit this wrong and should feel some duty to help correct it.
quote:Is it possible the owner could sue the police for failure to investigate?
Not unless the state has created a private right to sue under these circumstances - something I very much doubt.
quote:Can the police pick and choose what they will pursue?
Yes, in general.
Posted by mr_porteiro_head (Member # 4644) on :
quote:I would prosecute the takers - it'd be difficult, but I'd still do it, if for no other reason than to publicize the scam and make sure people know they are responsible for their own willful blindness.
Really? I myself have taken stuff from stranger's porches, back yards, etc. because they said it was OK in an email or a craigslist ad.
I have also given away stuff in a similar fashion. I wouldn't want you to prosecute the woman who hauled away my swam cooler -- she was doing me a service.
Posted by Jutsa Notha Name (Member # 4485) on :
That is the difficulty behind good faith ads like the Craigslist listing, though. If nothing else, having to call for verification and having someone meet you at the location to prove intent is the best way to approach such ads.
Posted by mr_porteiro_head (Member # 4644) on :
I'm really glad that I didn't have to stick around when my swamp cooler was taken -- I was gone all day, and what a good feeling it was to come home and find that acursed beast gone!
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
quote:Really? I myself have taken stuff from stranger's porches, back yards, etc. because they said it was OK in an email or a craigslist ad.
Was it marked in any way? Beyond that, the type of people who will strip a water cooler and moldings know that the owner could have had someone come in, strip the house, and give her money for no additional work. Essentially, they believed an anonymous stranger was giving them permission to gut a house. It's simply not credible to me.
Maybe a judge or jury would believe them. But I sure want people to recognize that they are taking a risk when they do something so destructive and unlikely.
I would like to know what the heck a swamp cooler is, though?
quote:I wouldn't want you to prosecute the woman who hauled away my swam cooler -- she was doing me a service.
And I wouldn't prosecute her. You weren't stolen from - no crime was committed.
It might be reasonable to take an old piece of furniture or a swamp cooler based on anonymous permission. A little more diligence is due when gutting a house.
Posted by mr_porteiro_head (Member # 4644) on :
Good points, Dag.
Posted by Jutsa Notha Name (Member # 4485) on :
quote:Originally posted by Dagonee: I would like to know what the heck a swamp cooler is, though?
It is similar in concept to an air conditioner, but it cools air by having a fan blow through water that is usually trickling down from a sprinkler into the resivoir. In dry and arid regions a swamp cooler is can be more effective than an air conditioner, depending on the build of the machine. Swamp coolers are also the cheapest way to cool large warehouses in dry regions, where air conditioning large square footage can sometimes be prohibitively expensive. Swamp coolers are less effective in humid regions.
Posted by quidscribis (Member # 5124) on :
A swamp cooler is a poor man's air conditioner. I had one back in Canada.
Cwap. I tried explaining, but my brain isn't capable of coming up with a good explanation. Two day migraine. Water evaporation and fan combo that's supposed to be effective at cooling things down but less harmful to the environment. That's the best my brain can come up with.
ETA: Justa beat me, and better, too.
Posted by erosomniac (Member # 6834) on :
Part of the problem is that Craigslist hosts so many outlandish, legitimate ads that it's hard to tell. I'm on craigslist (for Seattle-Tacoma, where the incident occured) for at least an hour a day, and while the originally referenced ad would have gotten my attention, I would hardly have found it to be out of the bounds of the crap one finds there.
I mean, let's take a look at what's on Seattle's CL today (warning, some or all of these may be inappropriate):
And this is just, uh, today. Nothing particularly outlandish, like the obese woman who posted looking for a man who was sexually aroused by overfeeding her, or the guy who posted claiming to be a MS employee looking for someone to help him steal from his office, but the point is: people do really strange things on craigslist and ad mentioned in the news article sounds like it fits the zaniness that is craigslist perfectly.
Posted by mr_porteiro_head (Member # 4644) on :
Their proper name (i.e., the name that you'll find them under at Home Depot) is "evaporative cooler".
Swamp coolers use much less energy than air conditioning, but even so they are falling out of favor even in extremely arid regions, as (I'm guessing as to the motives here) more people are more willing to pay the higher energy costs to avoid the hassle of maintenance and humidity affects. I know several people who have paid thousands of dollars to switch over from a swamp cooler in order to pay the higher energy costs of air conditioning.
To be fair, swamp coolers have a big weakness -- they can only cool so much, depending on the temperature and humidity. When it gets really hot in the summer, or if the humidity rises, it can be physically impossible for swamp coolers to bring the temperature down to what you want.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
Thanks for the explanations on swamp coolers. Seems to me the one place we know they won't work is a swamp.
quote:And this is just, uh, today. Nothing particularly outlandish, like the obese woman who posted looking for a man who was sexually aroused by overfeeding her, or the guy who posted claiming to be a MS employee looking for someone to help him steal from his office, but the point is: people do really strange things on craigslist and ad mentioned in the news article sounds like it fits the zaniness that is craigslist perfectly.
I get that. What I don't get is whether I want to allow people to escape culpability* for accepting anonymous permission to take valuable property - even if some people do give such anonymous permission at times. We punish various forms of recklessness.
There's a built-in defense to certain crimes called "mistake of fact." Theft of all sorts is usually one of them - if you take something you believe you have the legal right to take, you're likely not guilty of theft. In some jurisdictions, the mistake must be reasonable. You can't escape prosecution for taking a car if the person who gives it to you is wearing a mask and the ignition lock has been ripped out. A jury would evaluate whether a reasonable person would believe this is how permission would be given. The jury, of course, is also free to disbelieve the defendant's claim that he actually believed the craigslist ad was real.
*criminal culpability - civil liability must attach here, I think.
Posted by pH (Member # 1350) on :
There was an episode of the Closer about somebody posting an ad posing as someone else on *please don't sue us this is not Craigslist*. Anybody else see it?
-pH
Posted by erosomniac (Member # 6834) on :
quote:Originally posted by Dagonee: Thanks for the explanations on swamp coolers. Seems to me the one place we know they won't work is a swamp.
quote:And this is just, uh, today. Nothing particularly outlandish, like the obese woman who posted looking for a man who was sexually aroused by overfeeding her, or the guy who posted claiming to be a MS employee looking for someone to help him steal from his office, but the point is: people do really strange things on craigslist and ad mentioned in the news article sounds like it fits the zaniness that is craigslist perfectly.
I get that. What I don't get is whether I want to allow people to escape culpability* for accepting anonymous permission to take valuable property - even if some people do give such anonymous permission at times. We punish various forms of recklessness.
There's a built-in defense to certain crimes called "mistake of fact." Theft of all sorts is usually one of them - if you take something you believe you have the legal right to take, you're likely not guilty of theft. In some jurisdictions, the mistake must be reasonable. You can't escape prosecution for taking a car if the person who gives it to you is wearing a mask and the ignition lock has been ripped out. A jury would evaluate whether a reasonable person would believe this is how permission would be given. The jury, of course, is also free to disbelieve the defendant's claim that he actually believed the craigslist ad was real.
*criminal culpability - civil liability must attach here, I think.
Gotcha. I guess my point is that I'd find following such an ad a reasonable mistake of fact, assuming the details are correct. If, for example, I got there and the door was unlocked without any signs that it had been broken, I'd take that as permission: who leaves the door to their house routinely unlocked? If I got there and the lock to the door had been shot off and went in and took stuff anyway, I can see how I might be culpable.
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