Hello all, I would like to share my experience about our home invasion last week. We have ring professional monitoring and a bunch of cameras all around the home, but it was in disarm mode since it was daytime. Robbers (5-6 of them, 4 male & 1 or 2 female) climbed the side fence, opened a window in our sunroom/enclosed patio and broke in while me and my son (1 year old) were napping around 4 pm (my wife was away for work). One of them had a handgun and the rest used household gardening shears & tools to threaten to harm my son & me if I didn’t co-operate.
They held us hostage in the same room where we were sleeping and ransacked the whole home stealing lot of valuables (including wiping my laptop and phone), jewellery, tv and important documents. They took my debit card, forced the pin out of me, withdrew the daily transaction limit from 2 different atm locations and tried using my credit card for fradulent transactions (which were luckily declined). Once they found I had more cash in my bank, they took me to the local branch in their stolen car and asked me to withdraw a large amount of cash from the teller without raising any suspicion, luckily the bank was closed by that time, all the while they held my son hostage at our home, though he was sleeping and unaware. He was only awake the last 10 mins of the ordeal
My wife arrived at the only point of saving us when they were parked in our garage, as soon as the garage door opened, my wife noticed the suspicious car and immediately called 911. While this was happenning they forced me to convince my wife to come into the home without making noise, but my wife kept honking wildly, then they tried holding me at gunpoint, but there were sirens of emergency/cop cars in the background which scared them and they immediately took off in their vehicle. After an ordeal of 2 hours, the incident ended leaving us traumatized, we weren’t harmed physically. Law enforcement arrived, but couldn’t nab them, they collected evidence and haven’t had an update from them. My ring cameras recorded a bunch of videos, but the robbers were all masked.
Just to get an idea of the neighborhood and I wasn’t familiar with it. I looked up the house. It’s current Redfin market price is $2M+. Sold for @1.6+ 1 year back.
Unfortunately this is a sign of the times and exactly why part of me wants to leave for Asia. The simple, direct problem we have here in this country is that crime is not punished nearly severely enough. One can’t have a nice car or wrist watch out there because someone will see it and if they are crazy enough they will follow you home and do something like this. You all know about the case in SF.
When I went to Malaysia last February for a whole month, my wife demanded that I have ADT install a full security system since our home is fully detached. It did not help that my wife was robbed in the parking lot of a nicer restaurant where criminals were simply casing the cars and people and taking their chances. Unbelievable.
At the end of the day, I want all of us to be able to enjoy the fruits of our labor meaning enjoy a nice house, a nice car, whatever without having any fear about criminals. And, let’s put it out there, the availability of guns doesn’t help the situation. It may not be the cause of the situation but nevertheless it is a factor. And I laugh when someone wants to say oh this only happens in big cities or whatever. Well, here we are with this example. THIS COULD HAVE HAPPENED TO ANY ONE OF US.
I am just tired of the direction of this country. I do not foresee this country ever changing, meaning implementing way harsher punishments for crimes. I DON’T CARE WHEN SOMEONE WANTS TO THROW OUT STATISTICS THAT CRIME IS ON THE WAY DOWN. WELL, TELL THAT TO THIS POOR HOMEOWNER. This could have been you, simple as that. This is why again I love Singapore. When it hung the Malaysian guy who transported some small drug amount across, I was pleased to be honest because the government DID NOT WAVER from following its own laws (despite the outcry) which are tough. Don’t commit any crimes here which is what the government is saying. Oh man, I love that. And then, we wonder why Singapore is so revered for its success and high ranking on the best place to live surveys??? I wish Malaysia was as smart and well run as Singapore but what I do like about it is it too at least has a NO GUN POLICY. Again, not saying guns itself is the cause but we are crazy if we are also not to include it as part of the problem. No guns mean anyone can have a fighting chance against a criminal. This may sound simplistic, but the fact is, if someone has a knife well you could at least probably run away or at least fight him off and probably survive the altercation. Do you think young females here can work as Uber drivers (like there in Malaysia) into the wee hours? Hell, no!!! I felt so safe walking around by myself in the wee hours. That would be a dream here in this country. It is, what it is and I am saying a lot of people have started migrating out of this country for good. Do you blame them???
You aren’t going to get guns away from criminals. Prohibition was a complete failure. The war on drugs is a complete failure. People breaking other laws aren’t going to magically follow a law banning guns. Especially as you pointed out, the penalties would be weak and not deter people. The prison system is already over crowded. It’s not financially viable to significantly increase prison sentences.
If you want not to increase your odds, then you need your own gun. In that story, they messed up not having the alarm active while sleeping. They probably didn’t think they had to worry about it during the day. The alarm alone probably would have scared them away. Worst case, it would have provided some warning to the people in the home. Also, get a dog that will bark at strangers or strange noises. Criminals are only going to get bolder in areas that are lenient on crime.
Shoot and kill these motherfuxkers and feed them to the dog. meat are expenisve now days and not worth the hassle calling the cop and put urself in trouble if you kill them.
This is what is happening in urban CA and Bay Area.
They weaken laws such that you can’t prosecute criminals.($945 felony etc)
Ignore criminals for breaking in cars and smash and grab.
Ignore stolen goods sold on streets openly from these smash and grab.
Weaken laws such that legally people can live on streets in residential neighborhoods. Btw, don’t think this is only in SF. It is starting to happen in many other cities in rest of Bay Area, check your cities laws to be/being passed.
Ignore drugs being used by them. How can these people buy drugs? From their jobs? The drug dealer isn’t going to provide drugs for free unlike the needles provided by the city.
Ignore drugs sold on streets.
Bring in weak on crime District Attorneys. George Gascón was the earlier DA of SF who is now DA of LA and people in LA are furious about him. Chesa Boudin, Gascón’s successor was so bad even by SF standards, that he was thrown out. And Chesa Boudin was a public defender earlier and not even a prosecutor and he becomes the Lead Prosecutor for the city??
There is almost NO penalty for crime.
All these people not penalized with relatively less serious crimes are graduating to serious crime going forward. They’re doing it because they know they can get away and also because they are already in so much in the muck, there is no reason to work to make a honest living. I hope nobody argues that there is no work when supposedly “there is labor shortage” and unemployment is below 4%.
Making gun laws such that only criminals can own them. Essentially the person on the right side of law has no protection.
I saw a joke online which said. “If you shoot the criminal when he/she is robbing/beating you up in your home, when the police comes say you’re the criminal. You’ll be let off .”
I have a relative over from Atlanta. They have a resident homeless guy between 6-7 homes who hangs out in their yards smoking, spreading trash etc. Cops won’t do anything here since he’s not breaking any “major” laws. Many homes in this country don’t have fences either. Not the exact crime, but no California is not unique.
I mean is California unique in that we have people on video stealing trash bags of pharmaceuticals from Walgreens and (I hear he did finally get arrested and put in jail) getting away with it? Do they have open drug deals, open sale of laptops and not have the police do anything? Are other people’s laws so lax, that theft and robbery has become rampant?
All of these are consistent with the “defund the police” message. Crime is what you get by defunding the police. Why are people surprised?
I get that the actual police budgets are not really cut (very rarely), but what’s important is in the message itself. When “defund the police” is promoted, it tells people that committing crime is ok because police needs to be/is weakened.
Of all the incidents where people rioted to protest the police, how many were the result of actual police misconduct? There’s been one. At some point, police make a business decision on if it’s worth risking their career. The data says they are looking the other way more and more. They are initiating fewer stops and crime is increasing. I’m not sure what people thought would happen.
Come on, while I agree it could be that the DA or judges being the problem, have we seen the following done by the police in our cities lately, unlike in the old days:
actually walking their neighborhood beats or assigned areas. And no, we really don’t need 2 of them together when they both can cover their own areas for better coverage.
conducting a lot of undercover ops to catch drug dealers or those who break into cars. If word got out sting operations were up I really think some criminals would be more hesitant. You gotta press charges of course…
To me, the police have gotten soft (and perhaps for good reason) and lazy. Who hasn’t heard or been in a fender bender and the cops don’t want to really do anything about it and they just tell you to go through insurance?
Why should they risk their career and life doing that stuff? It’s to the point now that they can’t use their gun. Even if it is justified, it is a career ender. What did liberals think was going to happen with criminal justice reform DAs and massive riots if police harm someone? The DNC had the mothers of the movement on stage and celebrated them. Democrats have been siding with criminals over the police to get minority votes. Now we see the consequences.
Well, as they say, that is the job. My poker buddy’s son who is an officer in the city wants the action, not some sleepy neighborhood where nothing happens. Tenderloin, baby, is what he wants and gets…
Not to change the subject, but you are right, everyone is getting soft. Man, my Malaysia apparently has done away with mandatory death sentences. WTF! That, is why I like the country!!! Hello??
