July 21, 2006
"Lucky Bag" Operation So Not Cool
Last February, the NYPD announced that it was conducting "Operation Lucky Bag" to suss out criminals. The police leave a shopping cart, purse or bag on a subway platform to tempt thieves, and then arrest crooks who try to steal the items! Of course, lawyers are concerned about entrapment, and Gothaimst had wondered what if someone, trying to be a good samaritan, attempted to take the bags to the lost and found. Well, someone did - and she was arrested! The Downtown Express reports that 52 year old Helen Calthorpe was arrested after picking up a shopping bag at the Columbus Circle 1 platform.
Calthorpe, an actress who was going to her day job at about 1 p.m. on June 14, saw the Verizon shopping bag, looked in and saw a box for a cell phone and an iPod beside it and picked up the bag. She was immediately surrounded by four police officers, one in uniform and the others in plainclothes.In other words, if you see anything on the platform that you'd consider taking to the lost and found, don't touch it because it could be a police sting. And if it's not and a real thief take it, well, you're crap outta luck.“They kept asking, ‘Where are you going with that bag?’ and put me in handcuffs with my hands behind me,” Calthorpe said in an interview last week during which she insisted she had never been arrested before and was victimized by police.
She recalled that she had been in a hurry to get to her job and intended to look into the bag later to see if there was a receipt with an address of the person who lost it.
“I was going to call up and say I’d found it — the same thing happed to me a couple of years ago when I lost my wallet in the subway and a man from Queens called me to say he found it,” Calthorpe said.
Photograph of unclaimed cereal on a subway platform by David Gallagher on Flickr
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lol the nypd is leaving suspicious pacakges on subway platforms now...
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Great Policework, You'd think they'd follow her for a bit...
What about the concept of abandonment? The old addage losers weepers...
You cannot "steal" something that was abandoned. Everyone of those arrests should be tossed out and appear very pretextual.
The owner of lost propery always has first dibs, but it's true "finders keepers" applies to abandoned property. Plus, you can use the defense of entrapment if you're not predisposed to the crime (which basically means if you haven't been busted for the same "crime" before). Ain't it grand that the NYPD is actively trying to make us even more nasty and withdrawn to strangers?
This is lame as shit. There must be a more efficient way to catch thieves other than setting bullshit traps (try patrolling and investigative work rather than "luck"). I could totally see myself becoming their victim the same way.
Holy smokes!
A couple weeks back I was in the uptown 8th street N/R/W station (well, technically, I guess, the N don't stop there no more, but that's neither here nor there) and there was a Verizon bag with an ipod box in it lying on the bench unattended. I'm glad I didn't pick it up.
i find ID's & Credit Cards all the time on the ground in midtown. i usually drop them in the nearest mailbox (my wife once received her lost driver's license in the mail this way).
i don't think i will pick up anything anymore now after reading this story.
NYPD: "To Seize and Entrap"
The NYPD really have nothing better to do with their time than set traps? Operation Douche Bag is more like it.
I'm a big supporter of cops, but this is freakin retarded. Entrapment is the least of it.
Is the bag just sitting there on the platform with no apparent owner? How can picking up an ownerless bag be considered theft?
I've brought bags with no apparent owner nearby up to the token booth. Someone did that for me once after I stupidly left my bag on a platform when my hands were full. So the NYPD is making good samaritanism against the law? And what exactly is the charge supposed to be? How can you steal something that isn't in anyone's possession?
How far away from MTA employees are these sting operations? They should put it within range of the burgundy-vested, we can kill 2 birds with one stone. Damned if you do, damned if you don't.
This would be entrapment if the person was coerced by police into committing a crime, which they would otherwise not have committed if the police didn't entice them. Since picking up an abandoned package isn't a crime, this doesn't qualify as entrapment or an arrestable offence in the first place. I usually give a lot of leeway to the police, but this is just stupid. It will be tossed out in court and the police will have wasted both their time and the person accused of the crime.
Unfortunately, most police office don’t have a full understanding of the law beyond ‘stealing is bad’. Their intentions are usually good, but their execution is lacking.
i had a dream that i somehow ended with a bag that had an ipod and some other high tech stuff in it like a portable dvd player or something. i had it in my house, and i was thinking, i didn't steal this, but if i have it here, it is stealing, so i should take it back to the store. i was thinking it would bring me bad luck because i didn't pay for the stuff. now i know what the dream is about.
one brilliant idea for the nypd is to put naked hot women in the subways, and see if anyone will sexually harass them or proposition them for sex. that way you can catch the male perverts. and then you could do the same thing for 14 15 year old boys and girls to catch the pedophiles. the whole justice system should be centered around the genius of nypd.
Some time ago I picked up $200 cash from the floor near the entrance of a bank. I brought it to one of the bank employees and told her that someone must have dropped it. She gave me a receipt and told me that if after 3 months no one claims it, the money belongs to me. Three months later, the money was still unclaimed. I received the $200 which I donated to charity.
Funny all these busts happen at the Columbus Circle station. I was stopped there, too.
Just 2 months ago, I saw a portable DVD player left on a subway bench. I was going to pick it up but a MTA station cleaner saw it and looked around to see if anyone saw him. then he took it.
Guess from now on if I see a wallet or cell phone, I'll make believe I tripped on a crack and kick it onto the tracks.
Thanks a lot NYPD for making good guys the bad guys.
You CANNOT 'steal' personal property that has been left abandoned in a public place with no apparent owner in sight. Legally, any 'theft' charge arising from such action is unsustainable in court. This only constitutes harassment AND a waste of valuable police time & resources.
What if someone picks up the property in order to take it over to the booth & hand it over to the attendant?. What if someone goes thru the property trying to find any owner contact info to try and return it?. Hell, what if they decide to keep it, after all it WAS abandoned in a public place!.
What comes next?. Cops pretending to have heart attacks on the subway platform in order to bust anyone who tries to give them CPR ...FOR PRACTICING MEDICINE WITHOUT A LICENSE?.
Unf*ckingbelievable.
Well, they say ifyou see an unattended bag to report it, right? So report it to the token clerk and watch them empty the station and bring in the bomb squad.
That was my first thought when I read this piece. The new slogan on the subway is "If you see something, run the hell away!"
I guess the cops have to do something on days when they can't arrest "reckless bicycle parades"
What, the NYPD acting like a bunch of idiot thugs? THAT NEVER HAPPENS.
They do it for free, right? Someone tell me we don't actually put our taxes up to pay these pointless morons? Would someone who can vote please do something? Thanks.
As has been said before, where is the oversight??? Has Ray Kelly really screwed things up so badly that an operation like this is deemed 1) legal 'enough' 2) a good idea 3) of even having a remote chance of a successful prosecution. Are NYPD officers really this stupid?? I guess that is a resounding YES.
I hear the next step will be to leave suspicious-looking but harmless packages in the subways. If you report it but accidentally let slip the wrong word in there, like "I'm not sure, but it looks like a bomb," you'll be arrested for making a bomb threat.
The new NYPD: Numbskulls, Yukels, Putzes and Dunces.
lc: If that's a true story, you're an awesome person.
lc: If that's a true story, you're going to be really disappointed when you find out there's no such thing as heaven. Shoulda kept the $200.
The police know that those who commit serious crimes in the subway will also commit lesser offenses of opportunity. So the police "bait" the stations where they are investigating serious offenses. The police first set this trap at the Jamaica Center station, where there had recently been an brutal rape of a deaf woman. The cops understand that their trap will also catch a number of nosey do-gooders, but if the suspect turns up without a record of theft, the DA will never indict. And think about it this way - if the police leave the White female busybody alone while arresting the thuggish looking young black man, they would be guilty of profiling.
And, you know this how????
you suked a kops kok?
"Reality Check,"
Some of us like to be able to sleep at night. I'm an agnostic who doesn't believe in an afterlife, yet I did something similar. I was lounging outside an office building on a Saturday when I saw a small family walk into it. A couple of minutes later, I noticed money on the ground outside the entrance. Three crisp, new $50 bills. When they came out, I could have kept my mouth shut and been $150 richer, but I asked them if they were missing any money. They described it perfectly so I returned it. They were grateful since they needed to pay a doctor they'd just visited in the building. Bummer, but at least I can live with myself. Who needs heaven?
Gee, more union workers showing their obvious worth and merit to the city of NYC. Nothing new here.
Cops, TWU employees, and the worthless ConEd fucks - whom I'm assuming are unionized.
The only two groups worthy of any praise whatsoever are the FD and teachers who are making the best of an impossible situation.
brightliner: you didn't do it so you could sleep at night, you did it so you could retell the story and make yourself seem like a good person.
but about this story. i call bullshit on it. although nyc cops have plenty of free time, i find it very hard to believe that they would waste their time doing something that obvious wont hold up in court and only make the PD look bad. im waiting for a more reliable news source.
One reason "all these busts happen at the Columbus Circle station" is because there is a Transit Bureau precinct house there.
Now what people should now do when they see a bag left is to go and report it per the "if you see something, say something" campaign since I thought that is what we are supposed to do now when you see an abandoned bag, as it may be something bad. The up side is the first time this happens and the station gets evacuated because of a suspicious package the media would have a field day when they find out it was left by the NYPD.
We should Flood 911 with reports of suspicious packages then call the media.
Sit back and see what happens.
Thanks again NYPD for making the good guy the bad guy.
They almost got me with this once, using a Century 21 bag full of shoes (*drool*) at Fulton Street. But it just didn't occur to me to take someone else's shoes (or that they would fit, or even be decent shoes, etc.). When I went to go on the train, someone said "Oh miss you forgot your bag!" and I said "Nope, not mine". If that person offering to me had been a cop, THAT would have been entrapment, I think. I bet it was an undercover cop. Bastards!
I looked it up, to clarify my recollections from endless studying for the bar exam. Taking home lost property **IS** a crime in NY if you don't give it to the police within 10 days. In addition, how they are getting people here is b/c the same law provides if you find something in a "transportation facility" you have committed larceny the moment you leave the facility with the item. Regardless of your personal intention to track down the owner, donate to charity, get free new shoes (*drool*) or whatever.
The woman they arrested - Calthorpe - should get off because she didn't leave the station with the property so I don't think she can possibly have violated the law this "Operation" is based on. Maybe this cops should be out there helping the people in Queens and preventing real crime.
One poster wrote: the same law provides if you find something in a "transportation facility" you have committed larceny the moment you leave the facility with the item. My comment on this is:
I imagine this law was geared towards airports or train stations like Grand Central where someone might leave luggage for moment while they go to a ticket booth or the rest room, not so much towards subway stations which are very transient places, and where unattended items really tend to be lost or abandonded.
The sting operation is shameful. It will catch a lot of poor (literally and figuratively) people who wouldn't otherwise commit crimes, but who figure that the stuff in the bag is lost, and so they might as well salvage it, not to mention people who would actually try to return it if they found ID in the bag.
You know, what they should do is put $100 bills on the street outside police stations and judges chambers... and see how many of these get returned!
hi i was a victim to didnt know nothing about it on oct 2 as pist i was shopping on my way hom same thing the verizon bag trick no good i was pist
off coundnt belive it you should of heard me yell stop setting people up.terriabe