Is my neighbor, my thief?

May 24, 2010 5:56 PM

If I suspect that the upstairs neighbor is the one who broke in and stole my laptop, do I call the cops and tell them my suspicions?

On Saturday someone broke into my apartment and took the laptop, ipod and cable modem. After dealing with the cops and pacing about, I'm new to this breaking and entering thing, the neighbor knocked on the door and said that someone broke into his apartment and overturned a bunch of shit. I was still pretty dazed and didn't ask if he called the cops.
Flash forward to today when I see him walking down the street wearing a bandage on his arm. The thief had cut his arm on the glass when he unlocked the door.
I'll grant that it could all be coincidence, but, I don't know.

posted by khaibit to Law & Government (18 answers total)

Cops are just going to go "mm hmm" and ignore you. What kind of evidence is that? You've got nothing.
posted by xmutex at 5:58 PM on May 24, 2010

Hey, you never know, right? On the one hand the neighbor might have cut himself cleaning up the overturned crap in his apartment. On the other hand, he might have stolen your stuff. Why not have someone who isn't you phone it in anonymously? You must've told a friend or relative about this, and someone who you can trust has probably seen the neighbor's new wound.
posted by griphus at 6:00 PM on May 24, 2010

Response by poster: I should add that he's seen the inside of my apartment, or at least the area that used to contain the laptop.
posted by khaibit at 6:11 PM on May 24, 2010

You must've told a friend or relative about this, and someone who you can trust has probably seen the neighbor's new wound.

What you're suggesting is arguably hearsay and isn't really a great way to get the cops to take this seriously. They question people for a living and a flimsy, semi-concocted story like this isn't likely to stand up to much scrutiny.

Anyway, what we're dealing with here is circumstantial evidence at best, but that's better than nothing. I suggest contacting the police to let them know.

But first, I would talk to your neighbor and ask him about what the police told him when he reported the crime. If he says he didn't report it to the police, then that's kind of a red flag. If he *did* report it to the police (or claims to have reported it to the police), mention something about it to the cops when you talk to them. On the off chance that he makes something up about talking to the police and they have no record of speaking with him, that information combined with the injury could be a reasonably good lead.
posted by dhammond at 6:14 PM on May 24, 2010 [2 favorites]

Feel free to call the cops and tell them, but don't get your hopes up that they will do anything about it. I see you're in a big city -- this makes it even less likely that the cops will take the time to investigate your hunch. Like it's been said before, the fact that your neighbor has seen the inside of your apartment before and he has a cut on his arm aren't exactly strong pieces of evidence. A cut on the arm isn't proof of anything nefarious, and a thief definitely does not need to have been inside an apartment before in order to swipe a laptop. I know how much it sucks to have your stuff stolen and you're probably feeling angry about it, but unfortunately there's probably not much you can do to make things right at this point.
posted by puritycontrol at 6:29 PM on May 24, 2010

You should definitely call the police and tell them of your suspicions. Even if they're unfounded the police should hear that there has been another burglary. Even if nothing comes from it (the most likely outcome, it's true) it should be in the report.

[also, new locks all around! Your landlord is on this, right?]
posted by Some1 at 6:47 PM on May 24, 2010

If he stole a cable modem, he's probably stupid enough to hook it up. Tell the cable company. They will have the MAC address of your cable modem on file, and may be cooperative enough to tell the police if somebodyconnects it to their network.
posted by cosmicbandito at 6:52 PM on May 24, 2010 [6 favorites]

For that matter, if you know your laptop or cable modem's 802.11 MAC addresses, you could sniff for them. If the thief is nearby (e.g., your neighbor, or for that matter someone else in the building) and they kept the stuff instead of fencing it, you could learn that. Dunno if that would be enough to get the police interested enough to come look, though.
posted by hattifattener at 7:42 PM on May 24, 2010

What you need is probable cause for a search of his apartment. A bandage on the arm is not PC. Stipulation from the cable modem people that your device is calling from his apartment, though, possibly is.
posted by dhartung at 8:25 PM on May 24, 2010 [1 favorite]

Did he have the bandage on when he knocked on your door? it seems like if there had been a big cut on his arm when he told you about his place being broken into as well, you'd have noticed it then, not a few days later.
posted by 5_13_23_42_69_666 at 8:44 PM on May 24, 2010 [1 favorite]

You cant sniff for MAC addresses over tcp/ip. Unless youre on the same lan, and DOCSIS cable modem networks are not ethernet lans.
posted by damn dirty ape at 9:02 PM on May 24, 2010

damn dirty ape, 802.11 = wireless. (I don't know why hattifattener didn't just say "wireless", but there you go.)
posted by mendel at 9:38 PM on May 24, 2010

Ask him to go with you t the police station to make a joint report of a double break in. His reaction to you both doing it together will be interesting.
posted by jannw at 12:36 AM on May 25, 2010

Call the cops and tell them everything you know, and everything you suspect. Even if they don't have probable cause to enter his apt, they can ask permission to look inside. If he says no, that will arouse their suspicions. If they are allowed in, and they find your laptop, even if they can't prove it's yours, that will let them zero in on a suspect. Also, if he lies to them about his own break-in, or the cut to his arm, they will be able to discern if he's lying. They are trained to spot lies. Even though you are in a big city, if there have been a rash of burglaries, they will be under pressure to chase down a suspect. I would not personally confront your neighbour yourself. First of all, you risk tipping him off. Second, you are not trained to spot lies.
posted by Sully at 5:50 AM on May 25, 2010

Nthing that you should tell the police everything you know and suspect and let them sort it out.
posted by fixedgear at 9:13 AM on May 25, 2010

>damn dirty ape, 802.11 = wireless.

802.11 is the ethernet standard which includes both wired and wireless.

>(I don't know why hattifattener didn't just say "wireless", but there you go.)

Clearly "cable modem's 802.11 MAC addresses" means no such thing. You cant just sniff for mac addresses like on CSI. Youre either on the same LAN or not. If the guy who stole your laptop is on your LAN then youve got bigger problems than stolen equipment. You should probably ask him to leave.
posted by damn dirty ape at 6:14 PM on May 25, 2010 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: As an update, I'm waiting for the detective to return my call. He called this morning out of the blue. I will tell him about my suspicions when I actually get to talk with him.
posted by khaibit at 10:32 AM on May 26, 2010

damn dirty ape: no, 802.11 is the [collection of] standards that's called wifi. Wired ethernet is normally 802.3. Bluetooth and Zigbee and WiMAX are also under the 802.xxx umbrella (.15.x, .16). I said 802.11 because that's the one that's most likely to be fruitful to sniff for: many (most?) cable modems have an integrated access point. I originally wrote a little digression about that but snipped it from my earlier comment because it seemed irrelevant. Of course whatever MAC address the cable modem uses on the cable side of things is probably not sniffable.)
posted by hattifattener at 11:10 PM on May 26, 2010