paul253, I think we might be talking about two completely different things. First of all, I never said that I know any of the facts, I thought that was obvious when I said "I'm not really sure if its wrong or not." I never said that I know how much time they spend on parking tickets, or if that number is too high or not. Anyway, none of that is really relevant to what I was trying to say. My point is that, regardless of whether or not its true, many people DO believe that MPD does not have its priorities straight. They will continue to believe that, whether you like it or not...yelling at them and telling them that they're wrong isn't going to change anybody's mind. If anything, it will make them think "my my, aren't we defensive?" and probably reinforce it further. And I completely agree that the police should not be lying to me and giving them false hope when they report a crime. But again, that's beside the point. To give an analogy, my work requires me to research and implement solutions to my customer's technical problems. If my customer calls and asks if something they want to do is possible, I tell them that I'll look into it and get back to them. If I can't find a solution, I need to call them and tell them that it's not doable, or else I upset (and potentially lose) customers. Similarly, a police department is a service, and the people are its customers whose problems (like a stolen ipod) they are there to solve. Even if there's no news, you need to follow up. That's just basic customer service. I'm not asking them to catch every criminal, I'm asking them to call me back and say "Sorry, we can't find the guy who took your ipod, but let us know if you find out anything new that might help." The complaints I'm reading here make it sound like theft reports just get filed away, never to be seen again. Because of this, you get stories that go like: Person A: So I went to Milwaukee last week, and my car stereo was stolen! Person B: Oh no! Did you tell the police? A: Yeah, filed a report. Haven't heard anything. They must have their hands full, catching those dangerous jaywalkers! B: Oh, those crazy Milwaukee cops. Hahaha! Re: jaywalking not being illegal - who cares. The other violations that you mentioned are what 99% of the world would consider either jaywalking, or something equally ridiculous. By saying "but jaywalking isn't illegal!", you're just arguing semantics. And if I ever do get a ticket for crossing a street with a red light, I'm going to make fun of that police department mercilessly until the day I die. They don't, never said they do. Not arguing that it's true. That's exactly why I put "knowledge" in quotation marks - no idea if its true, but people think it is. Not sure what you're getting at here. You haven't thought about it, so its impossible for anybody else to have?