It's always the victim's choice about whether or not to report an incident.Revet wrote:I never expected that this thread would veer toward a criticism of my father's decision not to make a police report--I sure didn't post the story to have others debate the Christianity of his decision.
I hope I'm misreading the tone of some of the comments and that they were not intended by strangers to impugn a very religious man's Christianity. There's quite a bit said in the Bible about people who think they have a right to judge others. My father is a dignified and stoic individual. He's been through hardship and injury that would have destroyed most people. The experiences he survived in the very many years he's lived taught him not to sweat the small stuff. But beyond that, he also felt he didn't have enough information to make an actionable report since it all happened so fast and he was completely taken off guard.
While he didn't say so, I can imagine that the elderly must feel embarrassed at being tricked like this. That's probably especially so when they've been victimized by trusting their fellow man too much for modern times.
From experience with elderly victims, I suspect that embarrassment and lack of knowledge of how police solve crimes both contributed to his decision not to report his experience.
Repetitive crimes are usually solved by gaining incremental knowledge from each one - more description and operating method details, etc. - and pattern information (locations, day of week, time of day, victim population, etc.). Something that your dad may have been able to add may have been a missing piece they'd been waiting for, even though by itself it didn't look to him like anyone could do much with it. While he probably wouldn't have gotten his groceries back, his report may have helped keep others from becoming victims of the same team, but, once again, the decision is his and I wouldn't attach any moral burden to it one way or the other.
