A man living in California found a cardboard box sitting on his front porch, with his name and address on the label. When he and his “dog sitter” opened the package, they found 11 pounds (5 kilos) of marijuana.
Okay, so some drug dealers were using the home of some random schmuck as a dead drop. The presence of the dog sitter indicates that the regular residents were not around much lately. Bad luck for the wannabee drug kingpins that there were people about when the package was delivered, and the contents of the shipment was discovered before they could spirit it away all unseen.
The reaction of the random schmuck who was being used as a cutout is over the top, though. He turned the leafy drugs over to the cops, which is certainly something I would have done. But then he took his fiancee and abandoned his house for a time, which is certainly something I would not have done!
Why run away? Seems he is worried about grumpy drug dealers showing up at his door, upset that the weed is in the possession of the police!
The criminals have no chance at selling the drugs now that the stash was turned over to the authorities, so there is no profit motive for them to visit mayhem upon our quaking protagonist. And the main reason why they send drug laden boxes to vacant homes, to remain anonymous and unknown, would be for naught if they were seen by the spineless dog owner and his fiancee. (Or the neighbors, or the mail carrier, or if the license of their car was caught on a surveillance camera, etc etc.) If the drug dealers staged a home invasion to exact revenge, they would have to murder everyone they found in the house or passed on the street to make sure that their identities remained a mystery.
Isn’t murder a much greater crime than receiving 11 pounds of pot, and one with punishment that is extremely dire? I’m not a lawyer, but it is rumored to be such.
So this guy is worried that the criminals will hurt or kill him and his lady love, for some drugs that they will never be able to recover, with a much greater chance of being caught by the police, and with a greater jail sentence waiting for them if they are apprehended? Something tells me he doesn’t have much to worry about.
If this scaredy-cat sad sack had his wits about him, he would have looked up and down the street when he first collected the box from his porch. There is little doubt in my mind that a ne’er-do-well was keeping an eye on the goods, waiting until the coast was clear before collecting the prize. All he would have had to do was write down the license number of any car that started up and drove away when he picked up the box, or a car that had someone just sitting it it with no apparent purpose, and he would have given the police something solid to go on.
You’re thinking that the dealers will be rational. Probability zero.
I’m sure someone has studied this sort of thing. I would guess that the would be drug smugglers have new and exciting problems now that an investment of theirs has made its way into the hands of police, and that they are unlikely (as you describe) to exact vengeance on some random homeowner.
As Akatsukami states however, criminals are hardly bound by some sort of a code of ethics, and are not subject to pre-employment psych testing, and there may be one who is just strung out and frustrated enough that he looks for some payback – although I’m assuming a criminal THAT stupid has already been thrown in the can for attacking a drive through employee, or a road rage incident.
Gotta be some balance between reasonable precautions and paranoia – and I’m guessing the guy would feel pretty dumb if some chucklehead did kick in his door and he had failed to take any precautions.
Well, until he died, he would.
True.
These guys are demonstrably stupid, and you casually expect them to be rational about losing tens of thousands of dollars of their investment?
Do you honestly thin that they will not do anything in their power to recover their investment? Should they expect that your subject turned the delivery over to the police, rather than keeping it for his own purpose?
Drug Dealers operate under the basic assumption that everyone is as twisted as they are.
I consider your dismissive attitude to be ill-conceived and poorly expressed. No, strike that last; you probably said exactly what you mean.
One can only hope that the home-owner doesn’t listen to your dismissive slight on his character. You apparently consider him to be a Wimp.
I think he’s a survivor. Or at least he might be, if he ignores your judgement.
Gee, are you really that entirely clueless that you would expect him to be safe because he claims to have turned the drugs over to the cops?
Good thing they didn’t leave their deliver on YOUR front door isn’t it?
jtg, I think we know our host isn’t that clueless, he trains people because he knows that bad guys are out there. And I think if they came to his door they would be in for a bad day. That said, I think he did suffer a bit of a brain cramp in this case. We cannot ever assume the perps will act according to our version of rationallity.
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