Steal From My Brother Once, Shame On You. Steal From My Brother Twice . . .

My brother has the learning curve of a lizard.

The police rang our doorbell at 4:00 this morning to let him know they had found his truck. (He was already up having been called by them a few minutes earlier to announce their imminent arrival. I woke up at the sound of the bell.) When they saw who was at the door, the cats all took off like the Angel of the Lord was come to take them to their just reward. We didn't see Paribanour or Mittens again for about six hours.

At first, this particular service--waking people in the middle of the night to notify them of the location of their property--seemed a bit, I don't know, superfluous, since the truck was in the driveway when I went to bed. (Apparently, I don't process too well upon first waking unexpectedly.)

The truck was not in the driveway.

It had been stolen.

It had been stolen and used as a getaway vehicle on a crime spree lasting several hours before being left in a ditch behind the town high school a couple of miles away. Several vehicles in our neighborhood (including, it turned out, Neighbor Dan's truck but not my car) had been entered and pilfered but it was my brother's truck they stole.

Because he left the keys in it.

He left the keys in it! After having his wallet stolen out of the truck only a couple of months ago, he left the keys in it!

So we stood in the driveway, under the eaves of the garage, in the dark and intermittent pouring rain with lightning crashing nearby and the tip of one of Neighbor Dan's palm trees rubbing against an electrical wire in the wind, arcing and sending sparks flying, filling the air with the scent of ozone and burning wood while my brother filled out a criminal complaint form and answered the same questions to each of the three officers who eventually showed up one by one.

They warned him that, although they would try to get the truck back to him as soon as possible, it might take a while if the forensics crew decided they wanted to look for DNA or fingerprints. Also, at the moment they were using the truck as bait, having staked out the area in hopes the perp(s) came back.

As it was, they called at seven to let us know we could come and retrieve it. It was stuck in the ditch, bogged down because of the rain. Neighbor Dan ended up coming by and pulling it out.

The truck works fine and, at first, my brother thought he hadn't lost anything, himself, but on further inspection a diamond ring that belonged to our uncle, of mostly sentimental value, and a check he had out to pay the utility bill, necessitating a visit to the bank to change account numbers, were missing. He added those items to the complaint form. Neighbor Dan may have lost a (full) cash deposit bag from his business. The problem with living in an area as safe as ours is that people get careless.

Let's hope, for my brother's sake, that third time's the charm.

The Wheel of Justice Begins Its Slow Turning

My brother spent the morning in court.

Today was the first scheduled trial date for the guy accused of breaking into my brother's truck and stealing his wallet. In the end, my brother never saw the guy and, apparently, the trial was continued to another day.

The alleged perp remains in jail due to the fact the court won't consider bail because he has a long list of prior convictions and was already out on parole when he was arrested for using my brother's card to buy some cigarettes. He's nineteen years old and looking at two more felony charges now. If he's convicted it's going to be a long time before he's out walking around again.

He apparently had an accomplice, as well, that my brother just found out about and who may have been the one to physically remove the wallet. That one is only fifteen years old and, unlike the first guy, will be charged as a minor, not that it makes much difference since he's been in juvie detention in the next county over for the last 21 days on other charges, already.

I hope I'm wrong but neither one of these winners seems capable of learning from experience.

Nicely Done, Javert. Nicely Done.

The police have arrested a suspect in the theft of my brother's wallet.

My brother just received some documents from the court detailing the name of the suspect (might could be a good ol' boy from the sound of it, if he is the one), the charges (two: theft from an unoccupied vehicle and use of stolen cards over $100) and his bail ($5000). The $5000 amount is listed next to each charge so I'm not clear on whether that's the total amount or per charge. It might be a moot point since the court has already judged him indigent and assigned a public defender which means he might not have even the 10% cash necessary to post bond.

The alleged thief has also been enjoined by the court to stay away from the scene of the crime (assuming he makes bail) and to have no contact of any kind with my brother.

There are several more pages to the document requesting details on my brother's loss (minimal), any insurance reimbursements (none), psychological trauma (also minimal/none), funeral expenses (its a really generic form), etc., including an essay section on "How I Feel About Being a Crime Victim."

First court appearance is set for October 10.

There Is a Fine Line Between Innocence and Irresponsibility

And my brother crossed it.

Apparently, he's been across it for some time now but it's just this weekend that it finally caught up with him.

It's not just that he leaves his truck unlocked. We live in a very safe area of a very safe town. I also leave my car unlocked and, when it's not Rainy Season (or even when it is and the weatherperson is convincing enough about an upcoming temporary dry spell), will leave the windows down* as well. We seldom lock the house, either, even when both of us are away. No, that's the allowable innocence which comes with living here.

It seems my brother, however, has been in the habit of leaving his wallet in his truck. With his driver's license and insurance card in it. And his credit cards.

He could (and did) get away with that here, at home. But, this weekend he went to visit his girlfriend at her place down by the beach. The thieves didn't break anything (didn't have to) and didn't take anything except the wallet. The police took a report although there's not much they can do about it since the bad guy(s) probably had a few hours head start. My brother spent some time on the phone cancelling the cards so he's not out any money (which is the one thing he never keeps in his wallet, anyway) and the insurance company will issue a new card so his only expense should be replacing the driver's license.

And the inconvenience of having to pay for things with checks until his replacement cards arrive.

Will he learn his lesson, change his behavior, or will he figure, considering how long he's been lucky, he's got another twenty years before it happens again?

*Windows up on a clear, sunny day will heat the interior to the point where getting in will suck the air right out of your lungs.

Immunized and Released By Order of the Judge

The County Clerk's office requires those summoned to jury duty to log in to the clerk's website the evening before the scheduled date in order to determine if attendance is really required. Out of curiosity, I logged in early and caught the requirements for last Friday. Numbers 1 through 81 were to show up Friday morning at the court house, numbers 82 and above were excused.

My number was 374, to check in Monday evening for a possible Tuesday call up. I figured my dry run last week paid off and I was as good as home free. Dutifully, I checked again after 5 p.m. for my cohort. The new instructions were: Numbers 1 through 891 to report. All higher numbers excused.

891?!

How many notices did they send out for today? I wasn't even close! I went to bed early, slept fitfully, got up in the dark and arrived with time to spare.

After going through security (slightly more efficient and less intrusive than the airport) I arrived in the large jury room which was hung with landscapes and already almost full. A quick count revealed fewer than 300 seats. The folks running the show explained that there were outside phone lines we could use, restrooms in the room and a cafeteria down the hall which they now decided to use as an overflow room. They moved close to 50 people down there and our room rapidly filled up again.

Just after 8 a.m., they began registering us by hundreds. They were extremely efficient but there also seemed to be a lot fewer than a hundred people in each hundred called. The man in charge kept repeating the phone, restroom and cafeteria instructions and asking if everyone had registered as some folks were still straggling in. One woman said she wasn't registered yet, but when she went up to the desk they discovered she was at the wrong court house.

Just after 8:30, they announced that at least one of the judges wanted to "get started early" and that the bailiffs would be coming down any minute for the first group. We would be assembled by our numbers and sent out with the bailiffs in packets of eighteen. When the first jury was assembled they called the numbers randomly so, once we were in the waiting room, high or low numbers meant nothing anymore. My group was the third or fourth called and, for some reason, had 25 in it. We speculated that was because we might have an important or controversial trial with a possible large number of challenges. The order we called was the order we lined up and left the waiting room and the order in which we entered the courtroom. The trip between, however, was akin to herding cats and required a third elevator when two of our stragglers missed the one they were supposed to take. I felt a little sorry for our bailiff who was an older gentleman.

We were each handed a questionnaire at the entrance to the courtroom and warned that the judge would go through it with maybe the first three or four potential jurors but, after that, the rest of us should just expect to rattle off the answers when called on. In addition to personal information (name, residence, occupational and marital status), it also asked whether we'd ever served on a jury before, whether we had family in law enforcement, and whether we or anyone close to us had been a victim of, or accused of, a crime. I was appalled to find almost half my fellow potentials answered, "Yes," to these last two, some with multiple incidents on both sides including, shootings, armed robberies, auto thefts, home invasions and one arrest for theft of chocolate milk. I hadn't realized I led such a sheltered life.

The judge introduced everyone in the freezing court room, including the uniformed bailiffs, the court reporter, the state's attorney, the defense attorney and the defendant, who was a young man looking very respectable in khakis, an Oxford shirt with tie, clean shaven and hair cut. Who knows what he might have looked like on the date of the alleged crime, but his lawyer had him spiffed up and he tried to keep an embarrassed "Hey, I don't know why we're all here, either, it must be some kind of mistake" look on his face. With some success, I must say. He was charged with three counts: On the 4th of July last, 1. Breaking and entering a dwelling, 2. Breaking and entering a conveyance, and 3. Petit theft (less than $100). So much for the important, controversial case.

The judge explained the general workings of the system and the legal definition of Reasonable Doubt and interrogated us in turn from the questionnaire. The gentleman one over from me really didn't want to serve and claimed he was biased against the entire system and didn't believe the state should even have prosecutors but should leave everything up to the police. The judge was exceedingly skeptical. I thought the guy was trying too hard and expected it to backfire on him. When asked if he could turn up the thermostat, the judge explained that the county works on some sort of Stalinist centralized HVAC system involving a large facility somewhere in the county resembling a NORAD or NASA launch control center and if the one guy who controls that is happy it doesn't matter what anyone else feels.

Then the state's attorney questioned us individually, generally on the theme of "Do you hold any sort of grudge against the state or the police that might prejudice your judgment?" (The gentleman one over from me claimed he did by virtue of a previous arrest.) He ended with an explanation of the minimum he had to prove in the case using a hamburger analogy (if the judge defines a hamburger as bun, patty and ketchup, the fact that you prefer bacon, cheese and mushrooms is irrelevant as long as the prosecution provides a bun, patty and ketchup) which was unfortunate as it was getting on toward noon and breakfast had been a good seven hours ago.

The defense attorney then took his turn questioning us. He had fewer questions for select people but ended by expanding on the DA's hamburger, explaining that even if the state did give us our bacon, cheese and mushrooms, if they left off the ketchup we must acquit. I think even the bailiffs were salivating at that point.

We were ushered out of the court room while they made their selection, which took less than half the time they warned us it would, and then back in again to hear the results. Seven jurors were chosen, four white women, two white and one black men. No explanation was given for their selection. They were sat down in the jury box, sworn in then and there with promises to "truly and faithfully try" right out of Gilbert and Sullivan's Trial by Jury, and the rest of us were sent on our merry ways with the declaration from the judge that we were "immunized from this date for the next 364 days" from any further summons to duty.

We broke out of there into the hot sunlight like kids on the last day of school. I hope the kid really is innocent of the charges. I'll have to check the newspaper over the next few days.

'Tis A Puzzlement

Last week my brother received a letter from an on-line billing service regretting that they could not complete setting up his account because some critical information was missing. He had not tried to set up an account with this service and did not, in fact, know of the service's existence until the letter arrived.

Over the weekend a brand new smart phone arrived in the mail. It was addressed to my brother and he had to sign for it. He has a relatively new smart phone already, does not need a new one and would certainly not (and did not) order one from some no-name outfit in New York where this one apparently originated.

He contacted the on-line billing service and was told that he did indeed have an account with them which he informed them was fraudulent and needed to be cancelled. (The billing service, for the record, is a legitimate division of a very large web company.)

My brother also received in the mail and article of lingerie direct from the factory in China. The care instructions are in English but the rest of it is all Chinese. My brother's tastes in clothing do not run in that direction.

He was informed by the billing service that another smart phone is already on the way to him.

Here's the puzzlement:

His bank accounts have not been accessed. No money has been taken from him. The phones (and the filmy flimsy) have been paid for as far as the supplying parties are concerned. He is not being billed for anything. He is not being asked to return anything. The fraudulent accounts have been closed and notices issued so they can not be used in the future to gain access to his assets.

We can not figure out how the perpetrators have benefited, or planned to benefit, from this. Our best guess is it might be somebody in the neighborhood who was hoping to intercept the packages from our mailbox but, since the phone, at least, required a signature for delivery, that brilliant plan was not thought through all the way. Besides, one or the other of us is almost always home. My brother's most paranoid guess is that someone put malware in the phones but he intends to donate them so they will get nothing (from him at least, and it was his identity they were apparently trying to steal).

Either this is some fiendishly subtle and devious plot that is beyond our comprehension, or an act of sheer stupidity.

Right now, I'm leaning towards stupidity.

The Place Where I Live

A couple in this county but a few towns over recently had a safe stolen from their home. It contained $100,000 in gold and silver bars that they had just removed from a bank safe deposit box in order to buy a house. I'm thinking either first generation immigrants untrusting of banks due to experiences in the old country (although, why then use a bank's safe deposit box?), or drug dealers trying to keep income off the books (although, I can't imagine customers buying with gold and silver so somewhere along the line cash must have been paid for these bars so there's a record somewhere), or--and this seems most likely to me--idiots.

Considering all of the advertising on TV and in the paper pushing gold and silver hedges against a falling dollar, junk mail touting collectible coins and medallions and right-wing ranters extolling the virtues of hoarding hard metal for the end-times, I'm not surprised someone thought this was a good idea.
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On a totally unrelated note, the Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commissioners remind people that it's not just a bad idea to hunt alligators with a handgun, it's also illegal. Handguns are, apparently, perfectly legal when hunting Burmese pythons, as long as the coup de grace is administered correctly.

But do not share with bears. Or the feral hogs.

The 4.5th Estate

The (extremely) local news rag in town, which started as a happy news newspaper years ago and has evolved into an echo of the "big" daily across the river has a very particular and peculiar style when it comes to crime reporting. I suspect it comes from trying to cover their asses when reporting charges. If they can be sued for any errors when reporting charges, or if those errors might affect the court case, then the easiest solution is simply to copy, verbatim, from the arrest report without editing the police shorthand.

Which gives us the second paragraph of the article below exactly as it appeared in the paper:

Third person accused in meth lab operation

March 28, 2012

By TIFFANY REPECKI (trepecki@breezenewspapers.com) , Cape Coral Daily Breeze

      A third person has been arrested in connection to a meth lab operation that local authorities busted last week at a home in northwest Cape Coral.

      Russell Wayne Baxter Jr., 28, was charged Sunday with drugs produce possess structure vehicle know drugs manufactured minor present, drugs produce methamphetamine, traffic methamphetamine or amphetamine 14 grams or over and neglect child without great harm.

Unfortunately, murdering the language is not an indictable offense.

(This was actually a pretty big deal since we're more of an Oxycontin type community and not so much with the meth.)