Basically, something happened down in Dallas, when/where I never was and my license plate was obviously given to police as having been there/involved along with the same make and general color of my vehicle.

The doorbell rang in mid afternoon and I answered it to find a very well mannered plainclothes policeman with a necklace mounted badge and LE marked Dallas Police windbreaker. He asked me if my name was my name, I said 'yes'. He asked me if I had a car of my car's color and make. 'Yes'.

'Can we talk?' he asked.

'Sure, hold on a second. I just need to cover this up' I said, untucking my T shirt, and stepped outside with him. I'm certain he had probably already run my name and found a current Texas LTC on file, so he was unfazed. No masks or social distancing either by the way. I am good with it, obviously so was he.

He said he had gotten my address from my car's registration and that the license number was provided in conjunction with some kind of 'incident' between two parties (and, he said, involving a kitten, mind you) at a national business on a major north south city artery road (Preston) within Dallas. The parties involved were all in the 18'ish age range.

Now I am intrigued.

He wants to know if anyone I know (or am related to) that are in that general age vicinity, have access to that vehicle. My wife and I are late fifties with no children. That's a pretty unequivocal, general no. We also have both vehicles in an always closed garage. We have not been to that part of town for at least some months anyway.

We then pretty much realized there's not much more to talk about. I gave him my phone number and he left.

So. For certain, he would not have been at my door without the plate number. That's about the only fact I have. They are public domain of course. My best and only theory is: if you own a vehicle of a certain make and general color and expect to be involved in mayhem, you might jot down that info from several vehicles you might encounter in parking lots or driving beforehand. In that case, you could have your ally offer a 'witness' statement. They would give any of several license numbers you pre-harvested to cops in an effort to throw them off the right track. If so, it was at least temporarily effective i.e. the detective at the door.

I'm pretty sure that I won't ever hear of this again. But, if I ever do, wouldn't license plate reader data in that area the night of prove I (or at least my plate) wasn't around for months maybe even years?

Just wondering what ya'll would think.

Wouldn't over think it.

Typically, if a witness gets a partial plate and description we would run an offline search to see how many matches we get, then run each one down and see if the registered owner/user fit the physical description of the suspect. There's probably 20 or 30 vehicles (or more) of similar color and make with partial license plate matches in the State.

Yeah, I'd go with they got a partial plate. They narrowed it down from there and you are 1 of a bunch of possibilities.

A kitten, I mean come on. A visit by a detective? I am dumbfounded. Wth is up with that. I can assure you there is more to the story. I mean, I love kittens myself. But this is messed up. I mean if someone got stabbed over ownership of a kitten that is one thing. So why not call it an assault or stabbing?

They're onto your marijuana grow.

quote:

Originally posted by old rugged cross:
A kitten, I mean come on. A visit by a detective? I am dumbfounded. Wth is up with that. I can assure you there is more to the story. I mean, I love kittens myself. But this is messed up.

Ha, he was obviously trying to be as succinct as possible, but I got the impression of two groups of 'yutes', posturing about something or other, and that animal cruelty vis a vis the kitten mentioned, was somehow involved.

He also let slip the term SUV, which my vehicle is not.

My first thought was someone may have provided police with a partial plate number and general description of the vehicle involved. Based on their database research with only a partial and general description, they came up with you ... and maybe a few others. Now they're looking for one they can tie to 18 year olds. ... maybe.

Many years ago while in the military and in the middle of a 6-month deployment, out of the blue I received a speeding ticket with an attached red light camera picture of the tag. The picture was not well lit and blurry. I couldn't make the numbers out on the photocopy of the original they sent ... but the thing was ... I'd put my car into Long Term Storage located on base and before we even deployed. I explained that to them and heard nothing further about it. But, I sure did worry for the remainder of the deployment about where exactly my car was. Returning from deployment, I found it hadn't been moved an inch.

quote:

Originally posted by 83v45magna:
My best and only theory is: if you own a vehicle of a certain make and general color and expect to be involved in mayhem, you might jot down that info from several vehicles you might encounter in parking lots or driving beforehand. In that case, you could have your ally offer a 'witness' statement. They would give any of several license numbers you pre-harvested to cops in an effort to throw them off right track. If so, it was at least temporarily effective i.e. the detective at the door.

I'm pretty sure that I won't ever hear of this again. But, if I ever do, wouldn't license plate reader data in that area the night of prove I (or at least my plate) wasn't around for months maybe even years?

Just wondering what ya'll would think.

Only thing in your control would be a Dash cam. I have front and rear cameras. I don’t break the law so I have no qualms about using it to show my GPS location or if there was something I was nearby then some other vehicle’s plates are recorded.

Outside your control the police can run stop light cameras, obtain footage from private cameras, toll tags, etc.

At one time some asshole(s) was (were) throwing kittens onto IH-35 in Austin, maybe 10-15 years ago. The kittens were being thrown onto flyway through downtown. There was also a bum that was dropping rocks on cars from bridges.

quote:

Originally posted by old rugged cross:
A kitten, I mean come on. A visit by a detective? I am dumbfounded. Wth is up with that. I can assure you there is more to the story. I mean, I love kittens myself. But this is messed up. I mean if someone got stabbed over ownership of a kitten that is one thing. So why not call it an assault or stabbing?

An pure bred kitten can be worth thousands.

Have you confirmed your plates are still on your vehicle?

quote:

Originally posted by 911Boss:
Have you confirmed your plates are still on your vehicle?

Yes. I opened the garage so he could see whatever he wanted to see himself.

I know he knows I was carrying inside the house and also heard the beeping associated with the door sensors on both the front door and the garage. Whenever that happens and we didn't open any doors, I generally fly down to the front door and check, even if I was in bed. I'd bet he surmised that this is always an armed response.

I wouldn't worry about it too much. A witness probably just mis-read a license plate and ended up giving them your number by mistake (or as has been previously suggested, they only got a partial plate). It happens a lot, which is why we try to get more of a description than just a license plate. So they sent somebody to your house to check it against the rest of the details they had. Sounds like you and your wife nowhere near match the description of the suspects, so I imagine you won't hear anything else about it.

Funny story...10 years ago when I was in FTO, I was in working with my training officer in the car. A call came in for the county to go check for a car wanted in conjunction with a hit and run down in Lafayette, which is about two hours away. The plate info they had matched my car...which had been parked in my garage all day. Just to cover all the bases, I drove up to my house and showed my training officer the car. He confirmed there was no damage, and that was the end of it.

quote:

Originally posted by Hobbs:
Many years ago while in the military and in the middle of a 6-month deployment, out of the blue I received a speeding ticket with an attached red light camera picture of the tag.

When I was 19 or so I still lived with my parents in Northern NJ, about 30 miles outside of NYC. They went on vacation to Mexico for a week. My dad had a nicer car than me, so me and a friend took his truck to Manhattan one night when they were gone (my dad didn't care if I used his truck). About 6 months later my dad asked if I took his truck. I told him I did. Apparently I got a parking ticket while I was in NYC, although it was not left on the windshield. If I had seen it, I would've paid it.

He said he received a parking ticket in the mail and was going to fight it. He could prove he was in Cancun at that time! He was all ready to send them all kinds of paperwork showing he was out of the country at the time of the infraction. I think he was a little disappointed when I told him it was me as he was ready to fight it!

What Pyker said.

He was following up on a partial tag....the kitten thing might be legit case info or he threw it out there to see a reaction.

I wouldn’t worry

Very common type of follow-up. We probably send a dozen such out a shift across my city.

Eyewitnesses are notoriously unreliable. It's like a game of "Telephone". I agree, partial plate or incorrect plate.

I'm sure the detective genuinely appreciates your time, he can cross a name off his list and keep on after the more likely suspects.

As far as license plate readers...not really. They are really only good for saying a certain plate was at a certain place at a certain time. But there are usually multiple routes to any given location, and sometimes the readers aren't working. Unless your plate hit on a reader somewhere else at around the same time, making it impossible for you to be at the scene.

What's really a killer is temporary plates. Paper tags or whatever is used around you that aren't registered with the DMV. Some crooks will keep one on hand and put it on when they do their dirty...and they don't hit on license plate readers at all. Aggravating.

quote:

Originally posted by 92fstech:
I wouldn't worry about it too much. A witness probably just mis-read a license plate and ended up giving them your number by mistake (or as has been previously suggested, they only got a partial plate). It happens a lot, which is why we try to get more of a description than just a license plate. So they sent somebody to your house to check it against the rest of the details they had. Sounds like you and your wife nowhere near match the description of the suspects, so I imagine you won't hear anything else about it.

Funny story...10 years ago when I was in FTO, I was in working with my training officer in the car. A call came in for the county to go check for a car wanted in conjunction with a hit and run down in Lafayette, which is about two hours away. The plate info they had matched my car...which had been parked in my garage all day. Just to cover all the bases, I drove up to my house and showed my training officer the car. He confirmed there was no damage, and that was the end of it.

^^^^^This. Or he knows you have an illegal SBR and its sitting on your pallet or cocaine.

Sent you an e-mail

I worked in IT in the DMV forty years ago. We routinely ran searches against the Registration database with little more than make, model and color.

Whatever was a hit for the search parameters was given to the police. They got the exact vehicle details and owner information and would decide which ones were something they might want to investigate.

They were probably just running down some matches that were close to the description they got from the witness and passed to the DMV.

They had a partial plate or no plate at all. The DMV database has 50 or so similar cars in the vicinity and they decided to talk to you to see if it was in fact your car involved in the crime. They likely crossed you off the list and do not consider you a suspect. The detective went down the road to the next house with the same registered car and asked them the same set of questions.