Quote:
Originally Posted by jfre81
What if these aren't just your average burglars? There are small-time amateurs and there are professionals, and something like this is definitely within the grasp of an organized ring.
The biggest mistake people make with these guys is assuming they're all lazy and/or stupid. Those are just the ones that get caught most often.
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I misspoke (miswrote?) when I made the burglar comment. And I say that because my original thought was that these guys weren't burglars, but may have been up to something else. And that something else may have been illegal or this whole thing could be an unexplained mystery that stems from unusual, but legitimate circumstances.
But you're correct that not all burglars are lazy or stupid, in fact, many of them are neither. But while sophisticated burglars will have sophisticated methods, they don't run to the overly complicated. Burglaries, especially residential, are easy to commit; and, successful burglars go with what works and don't try to reinvent the wheel. The getaway vehicle disguised as a utility van makes sense if you get your burglarizing tips from movies and television, but in real life sophistication means obeying a few simple principles to keep from being caught.
The rules to being a proficient burglar have always been to not be seen, to stay away from occupied residences, and pick places that are easy to get into without being observed. With computerized fingerprint databases become more common, a smart burglar knows to wear something over his hands to keep from leaving identifiable latent prints behind. With surveillance cameras everywhere I would think that hiding one's face might become mandatory as well.
A sophisticated burglar is one who does an excellent job on target selection. Mostly obeying the three rules above, but it can also mean picking targets where it is known (or believed) he can find high dollar items for which he has a ready market. He'll also be really proficient in making a quick entry and he'll go directly to where he can find what he's looking for (people always put stuff in the same places, even the stuff they're trying to hide) get it and get gone.
A sophisticated burglar would almost never come up with something like a vehicle disguised as a CenterPoint van. He knows that if he does his job right that sort of thing is completely unnecessary because nobody will have seen anything.
Novice burglars will have varying degrees of sophistication in obeying the three rules and target selection. Many of them can get the three rules right, but few of them do it expertly, and most of them have unsophisticated ideas on what to steal and who they're going to sell it to.
A novice burglar is much more likely to come up with something like the disguised vehicle. Not that I don't see the logic behind the idea: "If anybody sees me they'll just think I'm reading meters." But it has a lot of limitations and if the job was being done right in the first place it wouldn't be needed.
Getting caught is mostly a matter of odds with the occasionally lighting bolt sort of bad luck. Novices have a greater risk of getting caught early on because they make more mistakes. If they quit before they get caught they beat the odds. The novice is more likely to get caught in the act, or leaving the scene. The sophisticated burglar has greatly reduced odds because he's doing the important stuff right. But even those small odds will eventually turn against him as his run continues. The sophisticated cat is not as likely as a novice to get jammed up in the act, but it does happen. Those are the guys who are going to be really driven, compelled, to be prolific in their criminality, and so they will be hitting 2-3 times a day, five days a week, or more. The novice might get caught on his third burglary, while the sophisticated crook might have been doing 20-30 a week for months before getting caught.
So the bogus CenterPoint van sticks out as being unusual. Maybe it was a group of novice burglars who thought they had come up with the ultimate plan. In which case they should be at home tonight re-evaluating that plan because it didn't work too well. Mostly because they violated at least two of the three rules, and then didn't have the cool to be able to pull off the "I'm here checking your meter" ploy and just hauled ass - further calling attention to themselves.
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