Saint Joseph, Missouri residents give police an ‘F’ in fighting crime and an ‘A’ in harassment

They just called again today,” said Angela Horn in an exacerbated tone as she held up her cordless phone in front of me to reveal the caller ID. “They still call me all the time."

Horn was talking about collection agencies. She’s been the victim in a rather extreme case of identity theft. The entire complicated and drawn out saga began 12 years ago. Horn said the first indication that her identity was stolen was when she received a phone bill for an account that another Saint Joseph woman had opened under her name.

“Basically, the police department in Saint Joseph said it’s not their problem. It’s basically my problem and there wasn’t anything they could do about it,” Horn said. “The initial telephone bill happened in here in Saint Joseph, so it should have been a Saint Joe issue, plus she [the identity thief] lived here. This is when they should have taken care of the situation.”

But the identity theft continued, spreading like wildfire through multiple Missouri counties, and eventually into Texas and Oklahoma. This led to Horn being on the hook for numerous credit card bills, loans and hospital bills as well as a marriage license and arrest warrants the accused thief was issued under Horn’s name. Although not as extreme, the details of Horn’s ordeal sounded very familiar to me.

In an earlier article, I wrote of my own frustration with crime in Saint Joseph. I experienced two thefts that amounted in a loss of $2000 in property. The police did not even show up the night I called from the scene where my vehicle window was smashed out and around $500 in musical instruments were stolen.

Following that incident earlier this past fall, I was the victim of a second theft. But this time, I was able to provide the police with undeniable proof of the thief’s culpability. In late December, a tenant in my old apartment complex signed for the delivery of an expensive piece of studio recording equipment meant for me. The person that did this, Chiro M. Richey, signed for the UPS package using her own name. Additionally, she's a convicted burglar and drug offender paroled from a four-year sentence in the state pen.

Despite the circumstances, the detective failed to arrest this thief, even though my old neighbors tell me of her coming and going from her apartment every day. He simply told me "We just don't know where she's at."

Isn't that a bit odd? If she's been paroled from prison, then they have to at least know where she's going to be once a month when she meets with her parole officer, right?

The fact that she was arrested on drug charges, plus the fact that she got out of a four-year prison sentence, caused me to put two and two together—she obviously wasn't given a "get out of jail free" card, and there was an agreement of some sort. And given that I see from looking at her Facebook page that a few people are accusing her of being a "snitch" and a "narc," it's obvious why the Saint Joseph Police have let this thief run wild. Chiro Richey is simply too valuable as a confidential drug informant to the SJPD for them to arrest her for stealing my property.

Additionally, this thief had the nerve to call my phone and leave a voicemail message telling me to "leave her and her friends and family alone." In my thinking, only someone who knows she's being protected by the police would do something so brazen, when she's facing arrest for a crime that could land her in prison for four years or longer.

This may be the same situation in Horn's case. Det. Richard Shelton apparently didn’t think Horn had too much to complain about.“She’s technically a victim of the ID theft. The true victims of the ID theft are the businesses and places where they lost money by giving loans, by giving goods, by giving services. Those places actually lost the money,” Shelton said.

“I don’t really know why he said that; I really don’t,” Horn said. “Those places are going to get their money and they’re going to get it from somewhere. And they’re going to get it from me—not her."

In addition to being on the hook for credit cards and the like, Horn says the identity theft has tarnished her personal record, causing her to lose a job and undoubtedly denying the Missouri Western criminal justice major any future job opportunities.

Horn and I are far from the only ones extremely dissatisfied with the return on our tax dollars though. As I’ve sat waiting in the police station lobby, I’ve visited with others waiting to ask why their case has received no action after more than sufficient evidence to arrest the offenders has been presented. We all hear the same excuses coming from the police that are oft repeated by the unquestioning local media.

“Basically we’re about 20 officers short,” and another problem is that we don’t pay our police or our fireman really comparable to what other places are paying,” said Joseph Mayor Bill Faulkner when I brought this issue up to him during a question-and-answer he gave following a visit he paid to the Missouri Western campus.

Too busy? Is this really the entire problem, especially in cases where criminals are busted red-handed, yet they still run wild months or many years later?

Cristin Chambers doesn't think so. This local cable tech support agent gave me an example of what some police may be too busy doing to arrest thieves when she told of her experience while stopped for a burnt out headlight about a year and a half ago.

"We were pulled over near the AutoZone on North Belt Highway," Chambers said. “My boyfriend was driving and I was in the passenger seat. I have hypoglycemia and at this time I was having a severe sugar attack."

Chambers said her boyfriend informed the officer of this medical emergency from the beginning of the stop. The couple, both in their early twenties, was on their way to get help for her condition.

Chambers said that instead of simply letting them go, or at least quickly ticketing them and sending them on their way, the officer informed her boyfriend that Chambers was shaking—not because she was experiencing hypoglycemic shock—but because she was nervous due to the possession of illegal drugs.

The officer demanded Chamber's identification and registration. "I could barely even think at this point, so I was trying to the best of my ability to find it which isn't easy to do," Chambers said. With her condition worsening, the officer then requested to search her car, which her boyfriend refused, saying that they didn't have time.

The officer responded to their refusal due to a medical emergency by stating that he would call in a K-9 unit to sniff the car for drugs instead.

"I had two police officers with me, and I believe about four police officers searching my car,” Chamber said. “And afterwards they came up and apologized because they found nothing and sent us on our way. But it was about 45 minutes of a waste and me getting sicker, and sicker and sicker."

I couldn't help after hearing that story that the SJPD spent nearly five man-hours that could have been used to apprehend criminals, and instead decided to nearly cause a serious medical emergency by violating the Fourth Amendment rights of two innocent people.

Horn herself recalled a more recent experience of hers similar to Chambers. She adopted a dog from the city’s animal shelter. The dog ran away and, unlike Horn’s identity thief, was picked up by city animal control less than 15 minutes later.

“My husband goes to get the dog, pays the fine, pays to get the dog out of jail, because you have to pay boarding costs too on top of the fine,” Horn said.

Horn said that when she adopted the dog, its hair was badly matted, so they took the dog and had it groomed. That wasn’t good enough for the city according to Horn.

“They yelled at him because the dog’s butt hairs were too long,” Horn said. Horn then took the dog to a groomer. Some time later, Horn says their son opened the door allowing the dog to escape again. Once again, it was quickly found by animal control, possibly because of the city’s policy of micro chipping all adopted pets.

Horn says that after they went to retrieve the dog and pay all related fines again, the folks down at the animal shelter were still not satisfied with their grooming of the dog.

“They complained about the dog’s butt hairs again,” Horn said. This time, the lady threatened to send a police officer down to my house to inspect the dog.”

If you the reader live in Saint Joseph, Missouri or any other city for that matter, do you feel this is a good use of your tax dollars? Which should be the higher priority for police; people who maybe, possibly, could have a gram of marijuana; teenagers not wearing their seat belts and dogs with over-length butt hairs—or repeat-offending convicted felons?

We’re told constantly that the police are here to protect and serve us, and that lawlessness and mass chaos would ensue absent the watchful eye of our trusted government officials. Horn, as well as everyone else I’ve spoken with regarding this matter, begs to differ when speaking of the criminal justice system and their personal experiences within it.

“It’s a joke,” Horn said. “That’s why it’s called the criminal justice system, because that’s who it serves. Their salary comes out of my pocket. I just think that it should be for people that need protection—and not for people that are out to frickin’ take everything you have.”