Excessive Robberies in Blaine County

[TinPan]

This just seems like an IC issue to me as far as I for one am concerned. If people are headed north with guns and there’s nobody around, then shit, sounds to me like the solution is to just shoot back. No harm in forming a neighbourhood watch rolling around.
 

One of the easiest solutions would be to just have the PD and SD appropriately spread out across the entirety of San Andreas as opposed to just everyone congregating in Davis until there’s an unmarked car on every street corner, but that’s just my opinion on the circumstances; not like me identifying an issue would change much considering that it’s natural for a cop to wanna operate somewhere that has a higher chance of them getting some action versus somewhere that isn’t always active 24/7.

[Entity]

On 3/4/2021 at 7:48 PM, TinPan said:

One of the easiest solutions would be to just have the PD and SD appropriately spread out across the entirety of San Andreas as opposed to just everyone congregating in Davis until there’s an unmarked car on every street corner, but that’s just my opinion on the circumstances; not like me identifying an issue would change much considering that it’s natural for a cop to wanna operate somewhere that has a higher chance of them getting some action versus somewhere that isn’t always active 24/7.

I have personally wanted to do something about this and have spent lots of my on-duty time patrolling through the county in the last three months. There's a lot of people complaining about the amount of robberies that go down in the county but I personally, in the 300 hours I have spent online, have never stumbled upon or responded to an active robbery call. There have been around 5 or 6 calls regarding robberies that have already happened and more often than not, the only thing you can do is get a statement and again, more often than not, that statement is something like "an unknown black car pulled up and a fully masked guy robbed me and left" - nothing to go on.

 

Lots of SD people would prefer role-playing in the county, myself included, but only if there was something going on. Everyone's looking for action and it's normal - I'm not talking about shootouts and pursuits but rather getting involved in some role-playing scenarios, whatever they might be. Due to the low population and large size, however, there aren't lots of role-play opportunities for on-duty LEO characters in the county which is why most choose the city. The IC means are there for these alleged excessive robberies to be stopped, but whoever is experiencing this and would like to see a change has to actually use them and combat the issue on an IC level. It's not something that can be fixed OOCly and it's not something that can be fixed through a forum discussion.

[marbella mondays]

In my opinion? Set up a neighborhood watch, and combat the criminals. It's easier said than done, but it's not impossible.

[DasFroggy]

On 3/7/2021 at 9:35 AM, bidi bidi bom bom said:

In my opinion? Set up a neighborhood watch, and combat the criminals. It's easier said than done, but it's not impossible.

Incoming forum report for deathmatching in 3... 2...

[eTaylor]

1 hour ago, DasFroggy said:

Incoming forum report for deathmatching in 3... 2...

Think that’d be a hard case to argue in a report. “I tried to rob him but he shot meee!”

[Fancy Toothpaste]

14 minutes ago, eTaylor said:

Think that’d be a hard case to argue in a report. “I tried to rob him but he shot meee!”

Kinda depends on how far players are allowed to take this "neighborhood watch" idea to be honest. If I'm sitting on my front lawn and a dude in all black, face covered, driving a BF pulls up in front of me and then gets off his bike to what my character would assume to be a robbery attempt, am I allowed to shoot him? Do I have to wait until I see a gun before I'm allowed to turn him to swiss cheese? If I have to wait until the dude's drawn a gun and pointing it at me doesn't that mean I breached fear RP or powergaming by reaching for a weapon while someone has their own aimed at my character's head?

 

I think admins might differ in opinion on that, as would players.

[eTaylor]

1 hour ago, Fancy Toothpaste said:

Kinda depends on how far players are allowed to take this "neighborhood watch" idea to be honest. If I'm sitting on my front lawn and a dude in all black, face covered, driving a BF pulls up in front of me and then gets off his bike to what my character would assume to be a robbery attempt, am I allowed to shoot him? Do I have to wait until I see a gun before I'm allowed to turn him to swiss cheese? If I have to wait until the dude's drawn a gun and pointing it at me doesn't that mean I breached fear RP or powergaming by reaching for a weapon while someone has their own aimed at my character's head?

 

I think admins might differ in opinion on that, as would players.

What rule would be stopping you from drawing your gun in anticipation and having it at the ready? 

[Fancy Toothpaste]

2 hours ago, eTaylor said:

What rule would be stopping you from drawing your gun in anticipation and having it at the ready? 

It can work, except it opens you up to a whole bunch of IC shinanigans which makes it a double-edged sword.

 

Someone pulls up on you and you flash a gun on them they're libal to do one of four things:

1. Leave and not come back.

2. Leave and come back later to kill/punish you because you pulled a gun on them.

3. Leave and call the cops.

4. Stay and initiate a gunfight with you, even though you've already got a gun out.

 

Almost everything below 1. is questionable roleplay, but it happens. Robbers often don't value their character's the same as the people they are robbing.

 

I once had a dude continually circled my character's house about 6 or 7 times while blacked out on a motorcycle. Friend of mine pointed a gun at him and got him to take his mask off. Let him go after that. He later came back with a friend, saw me at the same house and tried to kill me even though I wasn't at the scene to begin with.

 

In the end, "robbery prevention" doesn't work unless it ends with the robber getting PKed. There's always a decent chance they'll come back later now that they know you have a gun and there's something to "gain". There's always a chance they'll 180 headshot you while you're trying to type. There's always a chance they'll get mad and call the police on you. If the world was sunshine and rainbows everyone would value their character's life and roleplay fear appropriately but that's not really what happens, so drawing your gun on people to get them to fuck off only opens you up to even more trouble down the line.

 

TL;DR it doesn't help all that much.

Edited March 9, 2021 by Fancy Toothpaste
typo

[Late]

4 hours ago, Fancy Toothpaste said:

It can work, except it opens you up to a whole bunch of IC shinanigans which makes it a double-edged sword.

 

Someone pulls up on you and you flash a gun on them they're libal to do one of four things:

1. Leave and not come back.

2. Leave and come back later to kill/punish you because you pulled a gun on them.

3. Leave and call the cops.

4. Stay and initiate a gunfight with you, even though you've already got a gun out.

 

Almost everything below 1. is questionable roleplay, but it happens. Robbers often don't value their character's the same as the people they are robbing.

 

I once had a dude continually circled my character's house about 6 or 7 times while blacked out on a motorcycle. Friend of mine pointed a gun at him and got him to take his mask off. Let him go after that. He later came back with a friend, saw me at the same house and tried to kill me even though I wasn't at the scene to begin with.

 

In the end, "robbery prevention" doesn't work unless it ends with the robber getting PKed. There's always a decent chance they'll come back later now that they know you have a gun and there's something to "gain". There's always a chance they'll 180 headshot you while you're trying to type. There's always a chance they'll get mad and call the police on you. If the world was sunshine and rainbows everyone would value their character's life and roleplay fear appropriately but that's not really what happens, so drawing your gun on people to get them to fuck off only opens you up to even more trouble down the line.

 

TL;DR it doesn't help all that much.

Or worse a report. Even though the taxi depot is subject to a robbery attempt AT LEAST once every two weeks, if I were to start pulling guns on people the second someone I don't recognise drives in I am sure it would end up in a forum report sooner or later under the pretense "that's so stupid you don't pull guns on people coming to a business." This is true, but said business shouldn't be robbed constantly.

[DasFroggy]

9 minutes ago, Late said:

This is true, but said business shouldn't be robbed constantly.

This is the crux of the issue - crime is occurring too frequently, far beyond the measure of anything remotely realistic. I suspec tthat if we compared the crime rate of Los Santos to a literally lawless region, the Los Santos crime rate would still be exponentially greater.