re: Dilbert
as outlined before, it feels like going through all that trouble would be more effort in a small window of time than it's really worth, with no guarantee of success.
anecdotally, police probably aren't going to care about theft south of 10 grand from a storage unit, even if among missing items are those of irreplaceable or sentimental values. if it were a garage full of cars well north of that figure, i'd consider myself fortunate if they looked into it at all. they'd probably be more interested in stuff like prescription drugs or, oddly, porch pirates.
the vibe i've gotten from bootlicker and police commentary on this sort of thing over the years (especially through the BLM stuff) is smug, arm-twisting backlash against people for not wanting cops to *checks notes* break grandmothers' arms and brag about it back at the station to their giggling comrades. this is why they can't stop shoplifters! "you're making it so they/we don't want/are afraid to do their/our jobs!" to "they/we literally can't do their/our jobs because democrats won't allow it! better vote republican next time if you don't want your town to turn into absolute bedlam." if losing a bunch of books is the price to pay for police feeling less at liberty to inflict lifelong injuries upon jaywalkers, so be it i guess?
for all that, the police haven't really stopped inventing absurd and blatantly false reasons to pull someone over to fish. why do people have to practically give them a cargo manifest for a passenger vehicle? "do you know why i pulled you over today?" no, we really don't, but 55 in a 50 probably wasn't your real reason. "do you have any weapons in the vehicle?" today in trick questions—for keeps.
i'll readily agree that policing is probably a stressful, dangerous job sometimes, but so is firefighting or being a convenience store clerk?
