On the last week of December, somebody broke into my house while my wife and I were out of town. I live in Del City and have an alarm system. The intruder came in through a window, tripped the motion sensor and ran out the back door with nothing. My brother went to the house and helped the officer fill out a police report. I am very thankful for the alarm system. It saved me thousands of dollars. When we returned the next day, I looked at the broken window. In the floor below the window was broken glass, coins, a keychain (without any keys) and a cell phone. I guess my brother and the officer though that it was my stuff. It wasn't. I called the police and they came to get it. Before they did, however, I looked through the phone and wrote down a bunch of the names and numbers including the actual phone's number.

I called the detective every few weeks to get a status update on my case. He was really busy with homicides so he shoved my case to the back burner (completely understandable). About a month ago he finally got to my case. He told me that he entered the cell phone's number into the "system" and nothing "came up." I asked him if he was going to actively pursue this lead and he told me no. I said, "so can I call these numbers and try to figure out who did this?" He told me that I can do whatever I want and that if I found out anything to call back. Heh...

Honestly, I was dumbfounded after talking to the detective...

I opted not to track this fellow down for two reasons: first, he didn't steal anything and second, because in the event that I did track him down, I wouldn't want to risk anything especially since he knows where I live.

For about the last month I suppose it's kinda been stewing in the back of my head. If this is how we treat robbers, then its no wonder people turn to a life of crime. I can leave all my contact information in a victim's house and if no one sees me, I can get anything I want.

So, yesterday I decided to call the city of Del City. I was recommended to contact the City Manager of Del City. I got a call back from the assistant City Manager (I think). I approached him with a non-aggressive attitude because, as I said earlier, they didn't take anything from me. Secondly, I simply want to find the basis by which they decide to pursue a case.

The most memorable comment he made was, "To play the devil's advocate, how do you know that phone isn't someone else's?" or something like that. I replied, "Yeah, someone ran through my backyard, saw a broken window and decided to throw his phone into my house." Then I said something about reasonable doubt and that was very unreasonable. He kind of chuckled.

Anyways, he recommended that I call the detective to ask him the specifics of how they decided to follow a lead. He also said that I could go up the chain of command if need be.

I guess I just wanted to vent as well as find out if any of you had any advice or comments.

Thanks!