What would you do ?

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Mark

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#120978 20-Jun-2013 09:05

I was just reading that Herald article about the burglar who found the body and called it in to the police.

Part of me hates the fact he's a low-life thief, but another part is hoping he get's let off lightly for having some decency in calling it in to the police even though he knows he'd get in trouble.

So what would you do ? Say you were up to no good and tripped over something bad .. would you dob yourself in ?

pctek

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#840062 20-Jun-2013 09:17

Sounds like a suicide.
Me - I would have just left the premises......

NZ cops can't solve murders, suicide, they wouldn't have even bothered.......burglar got himself arrested for nothing.

gcorgnet

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#840066 20-Jun-2013 09:18

Why not give an anonymous call?

Boeingflyer

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#840083 20-Jun-2013 09:39

"A senior police officer says it is unlikely charges will be laid against a burglar who broke into a Hamilton house only to find a body hanging early yesterday"

Jaxson

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#840095 20-Jun-2013 09:44

Dudes gone from zero to hero. If he's smart he'll start a series of crap morning radio interviews and maybe push for a book deal.

jeffnz

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#840100 20-Jun-2013 10:01

pctek: Sounds like a suicide.
Me - I would have just left the premises......

NZ cops can't solve murders, suicide, they wouldn't have even bothered.......burglar got himself arrested for nothing.

interesting comments, if you are serious then it brings up a topic that is in the news about bystander apathy or is it more a sign of the times that people don't won't involved.

NZ cops do solve crimes just not as good as the clever lawyers that defend the accused (most paid for by taxpayer).

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Klipspringer

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#840104 20-Jun-2013 10:07

pctek:
NZ cops can't solve murders, suicide, they wouldn't have even bothered.......burglar got himself arrested for nothing.

So he should have left and not said anything? I think if he thought about it for long enough he would have realized that he actually has no choice but to call himself in.

If he did nothing it would raised suspicions on the dead body, possibly making him a murder suspect when his fingerprints were found etc ..

Disrespective

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#840127 20-Jun-2013 10:33

Klipspringer:
pctek:
NZ cops can't solve murders, suicide, they wouldn't have even bothered.......burglar got himself arrested for nothing.

So he should have left and not said anything? I think if he thought about it for long enough he would have realized that he actually has no choice but to call himself in.

If he did nothing it would raised suspicions on the dead body, possibly making him a murder suspect when his fingerprints were found etc ..

^ this

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jaymz

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#840278 20-Jun-2013 14:03

Depends on the article you read too with this one. The Waikato Times article (http://www.stuff.co.nz/waikato-times/news/8818732/Hamilton-burglar-finds-body-in-house) "It is understood the burglar was so terrified of the grisly find that he screamed, alerting neighbours."

pctek

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#840445 20-Jun-2013 17:23

jeffnz:
pctek: Sounds like a suicide.
Me - I would have just left the premises......

NZ cops can't solve murders, suicide, they wouldn't have even bothered.......burglar got himself arrested for nothing.

bystander apathy or is it more a sign of the times that people don't won't involved.

NZ cops do solve crimes just not as good as the clever lawyers that defend the accused (most paid for by taxpayer).

The pizza guy.
The roadworks guy.
The farm guy (although that one was ore of a couldn't prove it.)
Kahui twins.

I could go on and on, they're always on TV asking for someone to come forward or the public to tell them who did it.

Bystander apathy? I doubt it, I have gotten involved when passing by crimes in action.

Ouranos

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#840493 20-Jun-2013 18:20

pctek: Sounds like a suicide.
Me - I would have just left the premises......

NZ cops can't solve murders, suicide, they wouldn't have even bothered.......burglar got himself arrested for nothing.

Rubbish. The resolution rate for homicide in 2012 was 93%, which is world class.
Source: http://www.police.govt.nz/sites/default/files/resources/crime-statistics/00-national-official-crime-stats-2012.pdf

gzt

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#840512 20-Jun-2013 18:58

Agree. Either way a burglar is not qualified to make a call on suicide vs murder so he did the right thing. Also a possibility the burglar could have been implicated and chased hard if any doubt over the sequence of events had arisen later. Last, maybe he was fully busted anyway. One thing's for sure he can look forward to the press following his career from now on. I hope he uses his 15 minutes in a good way and goes straight.

turnin

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#840550 20-Jun-2013 19:40

from memory the article said he "screamed" which alerted neighbours. Honestly I think good on him for hanging around. They say there is honour amongst thieves. It might even be enough to stop him doing it again :)

jpoc

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#846474 27-Jun-2013 22:34

jeffnz:
...
NZ cops do solve crimes just not as good as the clever lawyers that defend the accused (most paid for by taxpayer).

So far as I can see, in serious cases they do not even attempt to solve crimes. They set out to get a conviction - not to identify the guilty party.

They use the worst form of what academic criminologists classify as "hunch policing" - that is to say that, within moments of arriving at the scene of a serious crime, the investigating officer will determine the identity of the number one suspect and then assiduously ignore or fail to collect any evidence that might have the potential to clear the suspect or implicate another person. If it subsequently turns out that they do not have enough evidence to convict the suspect, they will make something up.

It has worked well in the past because Kiwi juries have become habituated to their duty of convicting the accused in serious cases. After all, if the suspect didn't do it, why would the police have charged them in the first place and then put them on trial?

Post the Bain retrial, it appears that juries can no longer be relied upon to play that game. The Scott Guy case appears to be an example of classical hunch policing being rumbled by a jury that was not automatically accepting of the police line.

It does not matter whether you think that David Bain and Euan McDonald are innocent or guilty you cannot deny that hunch policing and prejudicial evidence handling went on. In both cases, the police had a close family member of the victim or victims who was male, still alive, in reasonable proximity to the crimes and in the correct age range to fit common police (and public) prejudice. They failed to look for evidence that might have cleared the hunch suspect - no testing of the hunch suspect for gunpowder residues. They failed to look for evidence that might have implicated another person - no gunpowder testing of Robin Bain and no follow up of the evidence that pointed to another person in the Scott Guy case.

plod

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#846479 27-Jun-2013 22:49

turnin: from memory the article said he "screamed" which alerted neighbours. Honestly I think good on him for hanging around. They say there is honour amongst thieves. It might even be enough to stop him doing it again :)

no pun intended?

eracode

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#846503 28-Jun-2013 01:23

This was a Watershed Moment for the burglar. He should go to a website and get a 'I Was There' T-shirt. It would be unique.

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