stolen gear returned

Daniel

Daniel

Carpal tunnel level member
Location
Suburban Philadelphia (Wayne)
Had the bucket truck parked on a little private road, cul de sac last weekend.. Monday morning there was a lot of gear missing including, B1 saddle with biners, zubat, throwbag, lanyard with fixie, along with a block and sling, and another short spliced lanyard with steel snap (was tied to the bucket's anchor point).. Only 4 houses on the street, two of which were my customers..both elderly with no kids.. then one house had a 16 year old boy that has a lot of tools and equipment and does handyman work and yard work professionally.. I stopped over to talk to him, just as his mother was coming home last night.. Kid brought my gear out and apologized.. said he was building a tree fort with his firend who encouraged him to see if there was anything they could use to build it.. He seemed like a real decnt kid, that just made a bad error in judgment.

I talked to him and his Mom for 30 minutes, about the challenges in this society for young men, especially those growing up without a father... Lots of pitfalls.. I felt for both him and his Mom. Its just not an easy situation..

I AM going to look for some old throwline, climbing line and try to get him a saddle or two, and teach him to climb. Let him build his tree fort, and maybe even get him out with a tree crew next year on weekends. We'll see how it goes.. I really liked him a lot. Seems like with a little positive encouragement and training he has some good potential..
 
That is really really decent of you. I've had a bit of experience with criminals etc. Their survival skills and steet smarts are amazing. Master manipulaters. Fair warning, he was busted, that's different than him coming to you and appoligizing. Good luck it could turn out to be the most rewarding relationship ever or he might rob you blind in a year. Any tree guy that had to steal his gear for starting his businees is only going to add to our trade's shady reputation.
 
We had a backpack blower taken off of a truck a few weeks ago. One of my guys went down the street where a kid lives that mows lawns in the area because he saw him around the truck earlier. The kid was not there, but the blower was out back. He took it back, but it would've been great if he was able to confront him too.
 
Good on ya Murph. Either that kid had something special to make a very good impression or you are a bit of a saint. Like Tom said, how'd he get it?

I, sorry to say, am not nearly as high minded. My tool boxes were ripped open last week, 3 0200s stolen plus misc gear. I would gladly destroy the thief if I could. I think back to dumb stuff I did when I was young and I never did anything remotely like that. It's one thing for some punk to take a blower off of Mark's truck when the crew is in the back yard, but wholly another to rip open a locked, bolted door at night.

Vermin thieves are a fact of life but wow, what a gratifying public service it would be to shoot the bastards.
 
Seems that this is the season for ripping off. I find myself keeping an eye on my stuff more at this time of year than other times.
 
It sure does seem that way, I wonder why? I would think spring or summer would be the hot time for dealing hot gear.
 
presents in the shape of drugs! although people may tend to think bad times make decent people steal....most decent people do not steal even when desperate. I am really close w some officers and my local force...we were recenrtly robbed and then broken into again. He explained this to me a couple weeks back.....95/98% drug related to support habits. one girl they arrested had a 3000 dollar a week habit and no source of income.
 
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I hate to agree on this, but... I had been broken into as well, and they believed it was a drug dealer not far from me and a few friends. The detectives got my saws and most other items back and the arrested guy gave up some info to get off free. I approached him in the road as he drove by my house to tell him a few things and then decided that I needed to relax or I would be the one in jail. Well, last week I was coming home from work and saw two cop cars in a bank parking lot and his truck. They had him out of it and they were searching it. Turns out he was busted for multiple problems including trafficing and in a school zone. Do not pass go!
 
i remember Whiz telling me a great bit of advice on allways putting unused tools and saws back in the lock boxes when we were ash smashin in the toledo ghettos. sounds like it might be time consuming to keep locking the boxes up. you gotta ask yourself, is it worth it to take that extra minute to lock up the boxes? after all its only your chainsaws and gear.
 
The kid just mailed me a letter...
"Dear Mr Murphy,
I AM writing to apologize for stealing equipment from your truck. What I did was immature and stupid. I should have known better than to take something that did not belong to me, especially out of a truck belonging to an honest hardworking tradesman because someday I would like to be in your shoes, running my own company. I appreciate you not pressing charges and giving me the opportunity to come clean. I understand there is nobody to blame but myself for my actions and I fully intend to do whatever I can to make this right. Please let me know what I can do to fox this..
Sincerely
_________________"

Seems like a good kid huh?
 
When your gear gets robbed once, it makes you wonder just how soon before it's going to happen again.

I have internal and external locking rods on the bucket truck. The night I got hit, only 1 of 4 rods on that side were installed, instead of all rods being installed as is the norm 99.9% of the time. Yes, I should be shot for slacking. I have since experimented with taking all gear of value home with me at night and leaving the boxes unlocked, but that proved just not feasible. So I'm back to using all the locking rods all the time.

But with the advent of powerful battery powered cutting tools, the locks seem to be a slim defense.

What ideas do you folks have re theft prevention, short of parking inside a locked, alarmed, fenced building? There is no electricity were I park.
 
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