What is the name of your state?Ohio
I know this is long but it's necessary.My house was broken into about a month ago and they really trashed the place. They actually spent a good deal of time there, cooking food, drinking my liquor and taking a dump in the toilet and leaving it for me to find. So I called the police, they took a report and as I was telling the officer some of the things I noticed off hand that were missing his eyes got big and he tells me that he thinks they may have recovered some of my stuff, that they had caught some kids earlier with what they suspected was stolen merchandise but that they didn’t have a victim yet. This officer then radio’s in to the station and come to find out some kids were seen eyeballing another house a few streets over and an older couple confronted them and they took off dropping a bag of stuff in the process, so they didn’t actually catch the kids. Also, the officer was able to lift some fingerprints off of some of the liquor bottles. After the police left and I started to clean up I discovered that one of these punks (either real stupid or drunk from my liquor) left some of his school notebooks behind, complete with his full name and student ID# on them. So I called the police back and they weren't able to come back and get the books until the next day - it was a different officer that came this time. Finally my case got assigned to a detective and when I spoke to him, he knew nothing about the notebooks or about the property they recovered that was believed to be mine. The detective got kinda nasty with me saying well this isn’t in the report and he doesn’t handle cases were there are suspects involved and that the case would have to be transferred to someone else (as though it were my fault this info wasn’t in the report). Another week later the case is transferred the new detective who also knew nothing of the books or property and said he would have to check into it and would call me back in a week. Let me mention that I wrote this kids info down before I turned the books over and I had given it to both detectives. The following week I again had the exact same conversation with the detective …don’t know where the books are have to check into it. This week he finally tells me that he found the books (at the property room of all places) and that this kid goes to the high school a few streets over. He said that he would have to contact this kid and his parents to have them come in for an interview but that if this kid says his books were lost, stolen or he let someone borrow them then there isn’t anything he can do, that he has no physical evidence. So I’m asking “what about the fingerprints?” he said “well if there were fingerprints then they would have been given to me.” I had to remind him that it states right on the police report “prints of value obtained from the scene” and then I told him that there were papers in this notebook dated 9-9-05 (Friday) and that my house was broken into on 9-12-05 (Monday) and did he really think someone stole this kids books over the weekend and brought them to my house on Monday? His response was “well, I’m not trying to play detective here, I’m just telling you what this kid could say.” So here’s the question, what are my rights / options here? Can I sue this kids parents in civil court if the police do nothing as it appears thats how this is going to end up? I’m real pissed about how this case has been handled but I’m a little worried about making a stink of it and in the process having a bunch of cops that are pissed at me, should I go though the chain of command on this one?
I know this is long but it's necessary.My house was broken into about a month ago and they really trashed the place. They actually spent a good deal of time there, cooking food, drinking my liquor and taking a dump in the toilet and leaving it for me to find. So I called the police, they took a report and as I was telling the officer some of the things I noticed off hand that were missing his eyes got big and he tells me that he thinks they may have recovered some of my stuff, that they had caught some kids earlier with what they suspected was stolen merchandise but that they didn’t have a victim yet. This officer then radio’s in to the station and come to find out some kids were seen eyeballing another house a few streets over and an older couple confronted them and they took off dropping a bag of stuff in the process, so they didn’t actually catch the kids. Also, the officer was able to lift some fingerprints off of some of the liquor bottles. After the police left and I started to clean up I discovered that one of these punks (either real stupid or drunk from my liquor) left some of his school notebooks behind, complete with his full name and student ID# on them. So I called the police back and they weren't able to come back and get the books until the next day - it was a different officer that came this time. Finally my case got assigned to a detective and when I spoke to him, he knew nothing about the notebooks or about the property they recovered that was believed to be mine. The detective got kinda nasty with me saying well this isn’t in the report and he doesn’t handle cases were there are suspects involved and that the case would have to be transferred to someone else (as though it were my fault this info wasn’t in the report). Another week later the case is transferred the new detective who also knew nothing of the books or property and said he would have to check into it and would call me back in a week. Let me mention that I wrote this kids info down before I turned the books over and I had given it to both detectives. The following week I again had the exact same conversation with the detective …don’t know where the books are have to check into it. This week he finally tells me that he found the books (at the property room of all places) and that this kid goes to the high school a few streets over. He said that he would have to contact this kid and his parents to have them come in for an interview but that if this kid says his books were lost, stolen or he let someone borrow them then there isn’t anything he can do, that he has no physical evidence. So I’m asking “what about the fingerprints?” he said “well if there were fingerprints then they would have been given to me.” I had to remind him that it states right on the police report “prints of value obtained from the scene” and then I told him that there were papers in this notebook dated 9-9-05 (Friday) and that my house was broken into on 9-12-05 (Monday) and did he really think someone stole this kids books over the weekend and brought them to my house on Monday? His response was “well, I’m not trying to play detective here, I’m just telling you what this kid could say.” So here’s the question, what are my rights / options here? Can I sue this kids parents in civil court if the police do nothing as it appears thats how this is going to end up? I’m real pissed about how this case has been handled but I’m a little worried about making a stink of it and in the process having a bunch of cops that are pissed at me, should I go though the chain of command on this one?