Why I See Little Point In Operation Unite…
Well I'm sitting back tonight watching twitter out of the corner of my eye and the few posts that are turning up in #OpUnite tonight are a little interesting. Even if it does seem that the NT Police and VicPol are the only ones down with the whole twitter thing.
Interesting in the way that I disagree with operations like this. The figures may disagree with me at this point but I believe that publicity stunts like this do very little to reduce crime related to alcohol in the centers. The reason for this is quite simple, if you where gonna go out and have a real big night would you make anything different because of OpUnite. I know I wouldn't.
Some may, but it would simply involve taking it easy or staying home for the weekend away from the multitude of police that will only be here for a couple of days tops. Then it goes back to the usual force that's out and about and the numbers of people being caught and crimes being prevented goes back down to it's usual figures.
It makes the community feel as though the police really are doing something when in fact it's only happening this weekend. If we really do need more cops in the centers to attempt to quell the violent drunken rabble that seems to inhabit the CBD perhaps we should, get more... Not just re-assign some for a weekend to make it look like our police forces are united against this kind of thing. But in their defence it is the best they can do.
To the state parliament, perhaps if we actually had more cops we wouldn't need operation unite and instead we'd have the lower crime levels that are inevitable after an increase in police numbers.
Feel free to throw some numbers my way if you really think publicity stunts like Operation Unite make any difference in the long-term, but IMHO they do nothing but provide the media unit with some nice stories to make it sound like it is making a difference out there. And maybe it is, but I'm betting it's just for tonight...
Also, to those who care on Facebook now my posts are getting posted as notes again...
So my car got stolen…
Because everyone wants to know this story I thought I should just chuck it into a webpage and that way I'm not constantly retyping it!
I got to Respawn LAN in Bundoora to help setup about 330 on Friday afternoon. I parked my car in car park 3 and left my gear in it as I was only going to be a couple of hours. It was left in a really visible spot so I thought, meh, it's not going to get stolen.
I came out at about 530 to find my car missing, thinking that it had been towed because I hadn't paid for the parking I spoke to campus security. They don't tow cars so I reported it stolen to them then called the police.
Reported it stolen to police in person about 2 hours later. Went back to lan to help setup and have a few, as you do after having your car stolen with all your gear in it. At this point I'll lay out what was in the car for you
- Inspiron 1520 Laptop
- 1 tb external drive
- 2 brand new pairs of sennheiser headphones
- Laptop cooler
- 5 port switch
- ALFA usb wifi adapter
So... I had a "few".
A couple of mates return to the lan and mention an armed robbery in the Preston area at Dan Murphys. Apparently they pulled up and where told to go away by a bystander. They watched as a man left the store with what looked like a gun and some cash.
After a little bit of conversing someone brings up the description of the car... You guessed it... Green Ford Laser 4 door hatch with spoiler...
So I know have a "few" more...
Head home early the next morning and catch a train to Wangaratta to go home for the weekend, now that I don't have the car to drive home.
Get into Wangaratta and just as I pull in I get a call from Detectives at Preston police station saying that the car had been found.
Get back onto another train and go back to Melbourne. Takes about 5 hours or more of traveling to get out to Preston, make my statement, get taken to the car.
Whoever broke into it just forced the drivers side lock, took everything in the car, including the stereo which they where kind enough to rip out of the dash for me, and also took the plates.
I drive back to the police station and get told that I can't drive the car home to Wangaratta due to the lack of plates. Which sucks. So catch the train back to Hawthorn and now I'm home.
Going to get the car from the police station on Monday. Anyway that's about the whole story.
In short, never leave valuables in your car... NEVER
Update 5 Oct - The car is now back with us, with new plates... And you can also check out the small Vicpol press release regarding the robbery. Also as I was leaving the police station I noticed a kfc wrapper shoved in the door compartment. Which is strange coz the car had been cleaned a couple of days before, thoroughly so that wouldn't have been there. Also strange coz I don't eat KFC burgers, neither does anyone who normally drives the car. So handed it in to the cops in the hope that the morons went through a drive through and left some nice CCTV footage for us 
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Stubbers101 on Twitter
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