this post was submitted on 30 Jul 2026
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For what crime?
Theft. Pickpocketing. You've got a wallet that isn't yours, so you must have stolen it. Nevermind that the officer arresting you put it there and watched you pick it up, because it's your word against theirs.
It was a quick and easy way for cops to hit their quota, even if the DA didn't end up prosecuting. Although usually they'd at least try to threaten you into a plea just to help their conviction rate.
Edit: I've been the victim of autocorrect.
Edit to the edit: Every time I read this back, I find another typo. Anyone have good Android keyboard recommendations?
Great way for an officer to get fired and the city to be sued. Without proof that they didn't attempt to return it to the owner there is no theft.
Also most states have a time period for returning such property, and it isn't minutes it's days
....what? Where do you live that cops get fired? Certainly not the US.
And, yes, people have sued the NYPD. Often and repeatedly. That has only changed how they define their practices, not what those practices are. For example, NYPD officially stopped having quotas for stop-and-frisks after the lawsuit ~15 years ago, but everyone inside the department knows that if you have the fewest stops, you'll get worse assignments and are more likely to be passed over for promotion.
I grew up in central Florida and it used to happen quite frequently. Officers do shady shit, city/county w.e gets sued, grand juries force restructures and people being fired. The NYPD may be covering each other's asses better or something
I've been using the FUTO keyboard for a couple of months after Florisboard was driving me nuts with the typos (I refuse to accept that I have fat thumbs and dislexia). So far it's a huge improvement. It does take a while to 'learn' to change to the correct words when I hit space, and I'm always choosing the right word (when I remember to, lol) to improve the suggestions over time. Also, I had to get some good dictionaries for it. I liked Swiftkey a lot, but I not willing to bend over to the surveillance, so in my opinion, this is the best ~~FOSS~~ non-commercial option I could find.
Might be a bit pedantic, but it is good to note they're not actually FOSS, they're non-commercial source available.
The intent is somewhat reasonable, you can't use their source to make a commercial product.
That said, i'm pretty glad the FOSS community doesn't work that way.
Also of point, i trust them far more than any of the other non-FOSS options.
Thanks for the correction. I edited that part.
Heliboard.
My word against where's?
Thanks. I should just stop using lemmy on my phone. Autocorrect continues to make me look stupid.
I like Helioboard
I feel like if that sort of thing happens, you should be paid extravagantly. None of this "okay you can go" business after you've been fucked around.
Picking up a wallet? A succulent bursting wallet?
I found an article that backs this up. Still not sure precisely what the crime is. Theft, I guess?
https://www.policemag.com/news/nypd-lucky-bag-sting-snares-300-offenders
From the article they consider it to be theft if not turned in with all contents. So not arrested for picking it up, but also entrapment bullshit in my opinion since police love to keep unclaimed cash for themselves. Criminalizing that for regular people removes competition.
Yeah they're creating a crime to catch people at. Aren't there real crimes out there to solve?
The article is from a site called "Police Mag" and quotes NYPD representatives. I would take what they say about how successful, fair, and justly enforced these stings were with a grain of salt.
It literally says they stop-and-frisk if the "perpetrator" didn't immediately return the wallet to the officer. On a crowded street or subway, it's very possible to see a wallet on the ground and not see who dropped it, and now you're getting pulled into one of the most bullshit warrantless search practices of modern policing?
Well that’s easy to solve. Turn on phone camera as you walk up to it, look around and capture the surroundings, and then pick it up. There’s your evidence. The case would be thrown out.
The case would be thrown out if it made it to a judge with that evidence. But the stings were often a pretense to initiate a stop-and-frisk where additional charges are going to get trumped up. Then they'll lock you in a room where they just need to convince you that any one of those charges might stick, you'll have a criminal record, and your life is over. Now you're plea-bargaining down to a misdemeanor because the cops lied and intimidated you into avoiding a trial where your evidence would be presented.
The obvious answer is "lawyer up immediately," but many people can't afford lawyers. So now you're getting an overworked, underpaid public defender who wants to spend as little time on your case as possible. You know what they'll tell you? "Take the deal."
The system as it is right now is designed to favor the state. Judges and prosecutors have been trying to reduce the number of jury trials for decades, often arguing that they're cumbersome and time consuming. Fewer and fewer people get their day in court. Around 95% of US criminal convictions these days come from plea deals where no one had to present evidence. Instead of proving guilt beyond a reasonable doubt to a jury, the police and the DA just need to convince the accused that the state is too tough to fight.
The situation described in the article would not be entrapment. Presenting the opportunity to commit a crime does not constitute entrapment, usually you have to be coerced or tricked in some way.
The crime of being too poor to afford a lawyer.
New York Personal Property Law § 252; it doesn't have any name, it's just an unclassified misdemeanor.
But we actually have a word for this type of offence in Sweden, "fyndförseelse" (discovery misdemeanor? Not very easy to translate). Basically, if you find something, you have to return it immediately (if you're aware of who the owner is), and if unknown you need to leave it to the police as soon as possible. But the fun part is, if the rightful owner doesn't make a claim within 3 months, you become the legal owner and can do what you want with it.
My apartment is right by several bars, and my backyard is one of the more secluded places in the area, so I end up finding stuff all the time; clocks, jewelery, etc, from people who think it's more appropriate to piss on my wall and grass instead of using the bar's toilet. Most of them claim their stuff, and that makes me happy, and the rest I can choose to sell or donate it to the government.
So if the NYPD isn't lying in that article, I don't see any "gotcha" with it... other than there's probably more impactful stuff they could be doing.
Well it's something like entrapment. They're just creating fake crimes to catch people. It's like making a robot who antagonizes a pedestrian until the pedestrian assaults the robot, and then charging the pedestrian with assault even though it was a non-feeling robot.
Giving an opportunity isn't entrapment. It would be if someone said "hey dude, that girl there dropped her phone, do you want it?"
But yeah I get what you mean, and that's what I meant with "there's probably more impactful stuff they could be doing instead"... Because no one who does finders-keepers on someone else's personal belongings (when they can easily see the owner) is a good person tbh.
Normal people lose their stuff all the time; it's a good thing if opportunistic thieves think again before considering hurting an actual person, instead of just being a quota-filler.
Ok that's a little different than being arrested for picking up a random wallet on the sidewalk.