[NY TIMES] A Truckload of Nike Shoes, Left as ‘Bait,’ Stings Chicago

You are a piece of work. You think that dangling a carrot in front of a desperate man is justice?

Our government shouldn't be inducing desperate people to commit crimes, they should be finding ways to inject hope into these communities. It's a travesty that you support these kinds of tactics. It's easy to sit high on your moral high horse while you sit behind your computer in air conditioning and a cool drink by your side.

Yet you accuse me of holding the poor down?

Are you saying you never break the law? Never speed? Never have cheated at anything? Never have smoked a puff, or moved doewn to better seats in a stadium? Have you never lived a perfectly moral life?

If you haven't, then you should be punished - how can we live in a world if the rule of law is not perfectly respected? I didm not realize you are perfect. I wonder if no one could trick you into committing a crime.

 

So the gov't can find people's weaknesses and then exploit them into suckering them in, huh? Again, are you saying you are without any immoral weaknesses? None whatsoever?

What if I coerced you into a crime? Does that justify it, of course not.

If you want to stop the crime, stop the crime.

 

They were trying to catch individuals who had already committed the crime.

Multiple past break-ins.

Not like the rail company dreamed up a crime to trick/tempt people into doing. They were trying to catch the folks who were already robbing them.

Throwing around moral righteousness about "easy for you to say" is a poor substitute for an actual discussion.

 

Sounds like they caught a bunch of poor people - how much of our tax dollars are going to discover that the poor are desperate and willing to commit a crime to get shoes?

Maybe instead of Nikes they can put a pick-up truck filled with Skoals and root out all the criminals in Appalachia eh?

 

Then why use Nike shoes if the first place?

If a railroad company is allowed to park a truck in a poor area to bait thieves into being caught, then why are you against other companies doing the same anywhere else? It sounds like you support this practice to root out poor criminals. I am saying fine, but let's not limit it to black neighborhoods then, let's get all the poor who are willing to steal and round them up.

 

victim blaming....

 

I absolutely don't believe I have any moral higher ground or that I don't understand it but that doesn't make it right. I also understand why people sell drugs due to economic/broken family systems/education but that doesn't mean I agree with people doing it. If you get caught then I believe it is 100% on the person due to the fact that we as a society have agreed that that would be breaking the law. Same thing as stealing. And government using people's weakness is a shallow argument because Houston has been doing that to break up prostitutions hotbeds in the city yet their is no outrage to the belief it helps with sex crimes and human trafficking. Whether it does or not I don't have stats either way.

And being coerced is a stange belief that we don't as humans have free will. You choose to commit a crime. Your outcome is based on your own free will. Be coerced into stealing due to own hardships does not justify stealing.

My problem is with the article saying that even though it was not Chicage PD the damage has been done. Which I feel does nothing but make any type of unity between both the law enforcement side along with the public side further and further apart. And although Vic Mensa is heart is in the right place due to the massive problems Chicago has with crime and law enforcement in the city, believe it's misguided due to belief that they were taking resources from violent crimes to arrested people from stealing.

 

Yet again, the regressive-left have a point in victimfying the perpetrators.

These perpetrators are the victims of a criminal-glorifying culture.

Time to find something else to celebrate.

 

This. Well said.

 

It's one thing to get poachers and drug dealers with bait, it's another thing to get people who just live in a poor area.

My question to you is - why not leave some skoals lying around and arrest them good ole boys when they take them? Why stop here? Why not lay traps for all immoral people?

 

Wow. Was there a problem with skoal trucks being broken into in Appalachia? If there was/is, I'm sure there will be an attempt to stop it.

There was here. The Rail Company had a problem with their cars being being broken into. In this very area. They tried to stop it. Not a hard concept.

You are offering false comparables. With some implicit and explicit insults thrown in.

You didn't address the very real point that "stings" are used by police (and in this case, a Rail Company) to capture criminals and deter crime all the time.

The sex trade example offered by nickb was one. How about a rash of purse snatchings occurring in a park?

Would you oppose having an undercover policewoman being used to catch the criminals? Maybe they were hungry.

Not everything is race driven.

 

So you are saying we should send some undercover prostitutes to Appalachia and they can sell sex for $3, then arrest all the men who go for the offer right? I am all for it. Let's round up 25,000 men shall we?

 

Why was the container full of Nike shoes then? Why wasn't it full of snow boards, Dr. Pepper, or Mos Def albums?

 

Come on, I'm as progressive as they come but would never advocate a separate "acceptable" tier of criminal conduct as you seem to suggest. Theft is theft. I have a hard time defending the actions of thieves. I grew up fairly poor and in an impoverished Houston neighborhood (Sunnyside). Neither me nor my friends believed that our circumstances entitled us to a "five finger discount" without consequences.

Is it an injustice that our history of slavery and years of racism, bigotry, and discrimination has created some of these dire situations in many cities? Of course, and we should continue to rectify and eliminate the conditions and ramifications of poverty. Sting operations like this are obviously not the solution but excusing or justifying theft is probably not either.

 

I think as OP mentioned, the truck was unmarked so, if accurate, it wasn't a "racist" ploy to tempt the criminals with Nikes.

Maybe that was what was stolen before? I don't know. Don't have a great answer for that one without more facts.

Article says that several men were just grabbing unmarked brown boxes.

Article goes on to say that "bait bikes" were used in San Francisco and that even "bait cars" are used to capture criminals.

 

Yeah. That was clearly what I was saying.

 

But they do use undercover vice officers all the time to catch prostitution.

You know where they do it? Where there is a known prostitution problem.

Kind of like trying to find out who is breaking into your rail cars. You do it where your rail cars are being broken into.

You make a lot of really good points on serious issues. Do you really feel that strongly about this one to suggest it is wrong to try and stop ADDITIONAL theft of one's property?