Uncle Roger's Notebooks of Daily Life

Vigilanteism

Last night, I shot a thief. Rachel spotted him stealing cans and bottles from the neighbor's recycling bins. I handed her Sara, went outside, walked right up to him, and shot him.

Of course, I was using Rachel's camera at the time. I took a couple of pictures of him and told him he was going to jail. He said "oh, sorry, sorry" and started cleaning up the mess he'd made. I told him we were going to talk to the police and he kept saying sorry. I said that wasn't good enough. He fell to his knees and begged to be let off.

Mind you, I had no intention of bothering the police with this twit. He was an older man who claimed not to speak English. I told him to put back the cans and bottles and he put a few back. I said to put them all back and he got indignant, indicating that he had gotten the rest elsewhere. I said I didn't care where he stole them from; he wasn't going to keep them.

He began untying plastic grocery bags from his cart, muttering all the while. He loaded up the recycling bins with most of his stash and I told him to beat it. I told him that if I ever saw him again he'd end up in handcuffs for sure. He scurried off with his little cart and I went back inside.

Lest you think me mean, let me explain that the garbage collection company factors the profits it makes on the recycling program into its charges for overall garbage collection. "Collection rates are set to encourage recycling." By redirecting materials out of the system, this person would funnel profits into his own pockets rather than those of Sunset Scavenger, causing rates to be higher than they need to be.

Keep in mind also that in California, consumers pay a deposit on cans and bottles which can be recovered by taking the empties to a recycling center. (This, of course, is what the old man would have done.) So the person who paid the deposit should indeed be the one to recover it, even if in the form of lower garbage collection rates and the convenience of curbside recycling.

Lastly, a number of the people on our block are older folks, retired, and probably with limited incomes. It certainly isn't fair for someone to come along and cause me and my neighbors to suffer higher garbage bills for their profit.

Related Links Sunset Scavenger

[ Posted: 07:30 | home | print ]

Kinda mean

Have you ever heard of Karma, Roger? I also think that taking photos of people (especially strangers) without their permission is at minimum, rude and, possibly, a form of assault. Lastly, sometimes homeless people have severe mental illness and intimidating them in the way you did might be the straw that pushes them over the edge to harm themselves or somebody else. Worth thinking about.

Posted by Craig

perhaps it wasn't the nicest thing in the world, but there are boundaries that even the most liberal hippie freak in the world won't let another human being cross. everyone has these boundaries and they are all irrationally real and frustratingly different for everyone. i don't think roger is bragging about what he did, and i don't think he needed to justify himself as he did. homelessness is a big issue in san francisco, and showing "compassion" by blindly ignoring their abuses -even if they can't help it- isn't going to solve their problem but will cause problems for the people who still need to live their lives.

Posted by dugh

In defense of defense

First, let's get the legal issues out of the way... There is a great guide to photographer's rights at http://www.krages.com/. (Sorry, links don't work in comments and I don't have the time to figure it out; I'll post it as a separate entry Real Soon Now.) Basically, "The general rule in the United States is that anyone may take photographs of whatever they want when they are in a public place." Specific to this discussion, "Members of the public have a very limited scope of privacy rights when they are in public places. Basically, anyone can be photographed without their consent except when they have secluded themselves in places where they have a reasonable expectation of privacy such as dressing rooms, restrooms, medical facilities, and inside their homes." Meaning that if you don't want anyone to take your picture, don't go outside. Of course, commercial usage of such images, including publication is another matter and gets more complicated, which is part of why my portfolio of stock photography contains no images of people. Interestingly, I learned that there is no prohibition on taking pictures of children, celebrities, or police officers. You are also free to take pictures of criminal activity. Which brings us back to the subject at hand. Another, more important issue -- that I neglected to mention in my original post -- is that of liability. Should someone hurt themselves in the process of stealing from the recycling, the homeowner can be held liable. Even if such a claim were to be thrown out, there is still time to be spent in court, in dealing with the insurance company, and so on. The likely, best-case scenario would be that any such claim would simply be paid by the insurance company and then the policy cancelled. It is not unthinkable that a homeowner could be found negligent and be stuck paying a huge settlement. I came very close once before to losing my house because of homeowner's liability. I did end up losing my insurance and had to get very expensive insurance that would have done nothing except payoff the mortgage in the event of a fire; I would have been left with nothing and I paid through the nose for the priviledge. So, I am rather cautious about such things. This is a subject that has received a fair bit of discussion among members of the neighborhood association, including some who are lawyers. The consensus is that it is a real issue and a real concern, especially in our neighborhood where homeowners are thought to have deep pockets. I understand that there are people who are homeless because of mental problems, but this guy was neither homeless nor mentally unbalanced. This guy knew what he was doing was wrong, played his little innocence act, and only got annoyed when I wouldn't back down and let him keep his loot. So, if it comes to a choice between racking up karma for an afterlife I don't believe in and protecting my children's future, it seems black-and-white to me.

Posted by Uncle Roger