Chicago, IL — Police in Chicago have recently come under criticism for setting up a “bait truck” in a low income area with the intent of enticing people to steal from it. The truck was left wide open with expensive goods like brand new shoes and appeared to be unsupervised. But there were police watching just out of view, waiting to catch anyone who might give into the temptation. Alderman Roderick Sawyer, 6th chair of the City Council’s Black Caucus, pointed out that police in the city have more important things to do than target low income neighborhoods with traps.
“This bait truck operation is an unacceptable and inappropriate use of police resources. In a moment where police capacity is clearly under extreme strain, these sort of tactics are the last thing we should be spending manpower and energy on,” Sawyer said. The operation was exposed by local activist Charles Mckenzie who recorded one of the arrests and posted it to his Facebook page.
The operation was defended by Susan Terpay, a spokeswoman for the Norfolk Southern Railroad police, who said that these areas were targeted because freight trucks have been burglarized there in the past. “The suspects saw a parked, unmarked trailer and then proceeded to cut open the safety seal with box cutters, broke into the back of the trailer and only then did they find retail shoes in unmarked brown boxes, previously secured and hidden inside,” Terpay said in an email with the Chicago Tribune.
One of the people arrested was a deaf man who can only communcate through sign language.
When he was arrested he told the officers that he had entered the truck in search of food. Despite the excuses from the Norfolk Southern Railroad Police and the Chicago Police Department, this situation is obviously a clear case of entrapment.
Entrapment is a legal term to describe the unethical law enforcement tactic of pushing someone to commit a crime that they otherwise would not have taken the energy themselves to carry out. Entrapment is “the conception and planning of an offence by an officer, and his procurement of its commission by one who would not have perpetrated it except for the trickery, persuasion or fraud of the officer,” according to the legal precedent Sorrells v. United States. Obviously, if this truck was not parked in this neighborhood on this day, it is highly probable that no freight heists would have taken place.
The strategy in place by local police seems to be a rudementary “minority report” system which seeks to prevent future crimes by taking “potential criminals” off the streets before they actually do anything. Karen Sheley, director of the ACLU of Illinois’ police practices project pointed out that the Chicago police should be more concerned with the wave of murders that the city has been experiencing. “Police in Chicago must focus on building trust and better relationships within the communities they serve, not engage in stunts like bait trucks. The Chicago Police Department admits that it can’t solve murders and violent crimes because communities of color don’t trust the Chicago police. These stunts won’t help,” Sheley said. The plan was even criticized by Mayoral candidate Lori Lightfoot, who is actually the former head of the Chicago Police Board.
“Especially after a weekend with seventy shootings and zero arrests, news of this bait truck operation is an appalling display of misplaced priorities and a step backwards on the path to trust and legitimacy,” Lightfoot said.
The operation was eventually called off when local residents realized what was happening and chased the police out of their neighborhood. In one of the videos that residents took of the operation, one man who was being arrested can be heard saying, “They left a bait truck with … a lot of Nikes in there. Why would you all do that in the hood, though?”
He raises a good question, it seems highly unethical to leave a truck filled with expensive goods wide open in a neighborhood where people are struggling to put food on their tables. There aren’t many people alive who can resist that type of temptation when they are in a situation like that one.
So.... lets find out who might be a petty criminal if they had the opportunity?
The real crime is the markup on those Nikes
Why would they waste their time in rich neighborhoods trying to entice rich people into stealing? Do you think maybe they put their bait car in places where car thefts are common?
Look carefully at the definition of entrapment, trickery, persuasion or fraud by the officer, lets look at what they did and see if any officer did any trickery, persuasion or fraud:
Did the police trick them? Did a cop pursued them to go break into the unmarked trailer and cut open the boxes to find what's inside and steal it? Did the police give them the boxcutters or did they have boxcutters because they went down to commit the thefts that this operation was targeting to stop? Was it a fraud by the police?
Nope, none of those things apply, not entrapment in the least. This was a good operation by the railroad police to stop freight thieves. My guess is the railroad police are tasked with railroad things, like freight theft and not usually murder unless it occurs on the railroad, do you think I am wrong?
Why would you all do that in the hood, though?
Because that is where the freight thieves are breaking into trucks. I think most people can and do resist breaking into freight trailers to steal stuff, even Nikes. How many freight trailers have you broken into?
A hungry mob is a angry mob . If you leave your cake out in the rain it's gone , you can't blame the rain for that . So keep your trash nikes and railroads on your own roof's and lawns if you don't want them stolen .
And we'll never have that recipe again!
Anyone in America can get all the food they want for free. They obviously go down to steal from the trucks on a regular basis, let me get this correct we are to blame the victims of thieves? Nothing was left out, freight was in a freight trailer in a freight yard, freight thieves were busted stealing freight, this is a non story.
Everyone has his own irresistible cookie-jar , even you , as you don't wanna leave a truck loaded with szceshuian hot dip sauce parked unattended near me .
We all know how to trap a rabbit , so a desperate man you trap with what he despairs the most . It's not a non story , it's a question , can they do this , i think they can't cause it is not the solution to the problem . It's creating one big prison .
I bet if they put the right jar down for you they can catch you to .
Nope, there is nothing I would break into a freight yard and break into a truck to get. Why defend people who are just straight up cargo thieves?
This is the police doing exactly what they are supposed to do, in response to complaints of a string of thefts they set up an operation to catch the thieves and then caught them. Do you imagine that this was the first time these thieves broke into the freight containers in search of merchandise to steal?
what have you stolen?
I see no shush thing as a freight yard on the picture or in the clip , just a truck and trailer parked on a open road . In my opinion , if the sea takes away your stuff the solution is not in draining the whole damn sea . You put op higher dikes and protection . So if this stealing is to be stopped , better protection is needed . Why not put up a decent fence and take some local unemployed people to guard it ?
Thieves are created by opportunity , if you leave this opportunity open or even create one on purpose you will have to build bigger prison's . Ho ! wait ,.... they did , America the land of profitable private owned prison's .
Well i am glad to here that you are a Saint , That you think you are completely sane when you demand your government to drain the sea for your safety , because you can't swim .
In my life and learning i might have done things that did financial damage to others a bit , when i was young the world looked like one big cookie jar . So yes true experience i learned that those jars have no value , there al traps created by the system we are forced to live under . for most my life i lived as a honest working class hero , as i still am .
If you kill someone over the mistake he made ,he will not learn a thing or teach others .
Besides stealing property or things one can also steal pride and dignity witch i did never . So i ask back , what did you steal ? or are you really a SAINT ?
This is the railroad police doing a targeted cargo theft operation, this is the police doing exactly what they are supposed to do, they had reports of thieves, they targeted and caught those thieves. Kudos to the cops.
There are very few unemployed people left in America looking for work, unemployment among those without an education is at an all time low.
These thieves were not created by the police parking a trailer there, they were thieves already, that's why the police were there, to stop the rampant thievery. That's their job. That's why the people who own the trucks and trailers pay taxes.
Trying to relate this to private prisons is stupid, it's really neither here nor there, there were criminals here stealing things, they should be arrested and go to jail whether or not prisons are profitable or not.
Luckily the police didn't kill any of the thieves and someday they will be free again to make choices and they will no doubt have the opportunity to do wrong again and harm others, but maybe they will be reformed by then right?
I don't steal things, if you think its ok I hope that the police catch you stealing and put you in jail to think about it for a while.
People have agency. They're always responsible for their actions.
To liken them to a natural process is to dehumanise them.
" To liken them to a natural process is dehumanise them "
i wonder which sick dictator's mind made this statement ?
Like forcing order and law makes them human ?
Doctrine and domestication makes a human human ?
Just visit a us prison , there is no human behaviour behind bars , they only learn to fuck or get fucked hard , literally . How can you ever release that kind of thinking back in society ?
Or do you really think the process of imprisonment creates more humanitarian people ?
Or did you spell it incorrect ?
To liken them to a natural process is humanise them , get free bro ;-)
Exactly, they had a choice about breaking into that trailer and they choose the wrong thing, there is no excuse or justification for it.
They are still trying to chance it all in to a prison , for profit true cheap prison labour .
It's not a conspiracy , it's openly done from the bottom upwards in a way so anyone above will scream for more .
Until you find yourself on that bottom one day and someone left a open cookie-jar ;-)
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@johnvibes it wont be long under those condition when the baited start baiting the bate-ers. Then people will be seeing the historical meaning of hosting someone on their own petard.
I see it all the time here in Corpus. The cops will harass the homeless or working man and just stand there and watch the guy selling crack, or heroine on the corner right by the school. It's even worse if the dealer is wearing certain colors, they'll literally get in their car and drive away for fear of interrupting the gangsta's business flow. Some kind of war on drugs, when you flee from the enemy for fear of retaliation.
Yep they would rather arrest poor people just trying to survive than risk their lives going after murderers! 70 shootings and no arrest?