Saint Louis MTG

My roommate is in love with True TV's cop shows. I just saw one where the entire show is based on a group of officers in a GTA sting operation. These guys have multiple cop cars, specially rigged bait vehicles, and a mobile operation base (AKA semi truck.) They go to a "random" neighborhood and have a fake emergency and have the actor leave the keys in the bait car. Then they wait all while this truck is driving for the WHOLE STAKEOUT. Then after an undisclosed amount of time, a couple of dudes randomly show up and steal the car. A cop then texts a number and the car dies. Then the guy reacts and gets arrested on hidden camera.

Titanic waste of money:
Multiple officers being paid to wait for one car to get stolen just so we can pay for the criminal to eat and sleep without working for the next 3-6 months.
Retardedly high tech gas guzzling semi truck being run for multiple hours at a time.
Rigged bait car.
Time waiting for theft. It's only 3 minutes on TV, but how long do they wait irl?
Yes, financed by tv ads, but that should go to more cops like programs when something was already committed.

Ethical:
What are the chances that apprehended criminal would have stolen a vehicle today without police intervention? Yes, GTA is a crime, but there is no real victim in this case besides we the tax payers. These guys should be working on crimes that have already been committed.
If there was a known serial car thief, I could understand a targeted sting operation. However, dangling free money in front of any random dude is terrible. To put this in perspective, a car is property with value. $10,000 is also property with value. If you saw 10 grand in a bag lying on the ground, are you going to take it? Of course! How would you feel if a cop arrested you for theft? The story is that they just took that 10 grand out of the city's account, so you are stealing from the city right? They'd catch more "criminals" with my idea with less of the wait time. Additionally, they wouldn't need nearly as many guys or semi-trucks. Seems like a superior plan.

You mean, how would I feel if they arrested me for stealing after I stole something? Like a guilty dumbass.

So where's the line then? Do you feel guilty for picking up a quarter? 20 bucks is the legal limit for suing. What about that?
EDIT: Another thought: How credible would you look if you said that you were going to turn the money in as opposed to driving off in the car with the same argument?

The line is pretty much drawn at what a reasonable person would draw it at. If I had a way of KNOWING who dropped the quarter (saw it fall out of their pocket when they were getting keys, for example) I would return it. No reasonable person would put up signs saying 'quarter found, ID it and you can have it'. They MIGHT do it for $20-$100. For larger numbers they should let the authorities do it. No one would buy the 'I'm just bringing this car I found parked over there to the authorities', but it would be reasonable to expect someone to do that with 10K in a bag. But a car? Not a chance... The actual ownership of a car is easily discovered with about 1 minute of work. Money, not so much without a deposit slip inside (which, weirdly, has happened). Thankfully my money doesn't leave the store without being in a bag WITH a deposit slip, hehe. So if I do somehow lose it I just might get lucky and someone would return it...

There's a fairly substantial difference between cash and a truck. Cash is already a liquid asset, which means it's harder to track and a lot harder to premeditate the theft. A truck sitting on the street on the other hand is not something that can quickly and easily be sold. You can't just scrape off the VIN # and sell it to someone. That truck is most likely going to a chop shop.

And yes, if I saw money, no matter how much money, laying on the ground - with no identification (IE: Not in a wallet) - that shit be mine. OTOH if I saw a credit card, I wouldn't do shit with it. One's being 'lucky' and the other is being stupid.

There was actually an NPR story recently that I listened to about this happening to a guy and his girlfriend.
There was a suspicious car parked directly outside their house for days. They called the cops multiple times, they asked all their neighbors if they knew who it belonged to, etc.
The cops never showed up to check out the car even though they said they would multiple times. Finally after about a week of this car sitting there the guy goes to check it out and sees that the keys are inside. He put on gloves before touching the car because he didn't want to have his fingerprints on a car that could have a dead body in it. He went so far as to get a screwdriver to break open the trunk to find out if there was a body in there. At this point the cops showed up and arrested him for theft (the reason they showed up then was because there was surveillance equipment in the trunk).
Long story short, the next 3 years of his life were screwed having to deal with this situation in the courts and he now has a felony on his record.


Our law system blows chunks.

I heard that story too. From what I remember, using bait cars is pretty common, although I think they just use cameras to monitor it as opposed to a team of live police officers. The other couple (the one that drove the car around) was pretty stupid but the couple that you mentioned didn't deserve a punishment that harsh. From what I remember, the wife/girlfriend had a hard time getting a job in education for years because she had a burglary charge on her record.

I seriously doubt that. I think shit gets scary at about the 1G mark. Even then, 10 grand isn't really that many bills which has to do a lot with one's guilt/nervousness.

Mootrain has a point here as far as liquidity. But that just makes my idea easier for people to fall into.