Can Houston/Harris County Police Find Someone with only a partial license plate

[limeade]

I work in Houston,

First off, don't worry too much about them returning. I know most people think they will, but very rarely do crooks come back, it's just too risky.

As for your plate situation, there is another possibility. We have a Gang database where we store numerous fields of info, if someone was caught in that car, or pulled over in it with a gang affiliation there may be a lead that someone can follow. This system allows us to do partial searches....

For security details I'm hesitant to say anything else about the system, but suffice to say there is a possibility another avenue exists.

[burtonsnow2002]

[QUOTE=limeade;1141455]I work in Houston,

First off, don't worry too much about them returning. I know most people think they will, but very rarely do crooks come back, it's just too risky.QUOTE]

Thanks for the assurance. Its been a week now with no word from the investigator, I said this earlier that even with a partial plate and the make model of car it sure seems a lot harder than T.V. makes it out to be, I was looking at other unsolved crimes through crimestoppers to see if I saw a picture of the perpitrator and saw a lot of crimes with more information (whole plate numbers with car description) than I gave that were still unsolved and they still did not know the identity of the person. Well I can only hope that if he has done it to me, he probably has done it in the past, so he will most likely do it in the future and one day he will probably slip up and he will get caught. Thanks again to all for the information.

[burtonsnow2002]

So what everyone is telling me is that with the given information:
A partial plate
Make and Model (not 100% sure of)
and a description of the person

It still may be hard to locate the person in question? I understand there are other variables but I really thought it was easier to do, anyways its been a week now with no word so we are just going to trust that this person will eventually get caught in the act somewhere else.

[mobrien316]

So what everyone is telling me is that with the given information:
A partial plate
Make and Model (not 100% sure of)
and a description of the person

It still may be hard to locate the person in question? I understand there are other variables but I really thought it was easier to do, anyways its been a week now with no word so we are just going to trust that this person will eventually get caught in the act somewhere else.

The most likely way to find the suspect in this case is if one of the officers or detectives working the case says something along the lines of, “Oh, that sounds like John Doe’s car, and the description sounds like John Doe, too. He is the suspect in twelve other robberies in that general area.”

It is generally very difficult to locate a suspect based on nothing more than a victim or witness description. Although there are exceptions, most people are not very good observers and will often unintentionally provide vague or even empirically incorrect information.

I don’t know what your description was, and it may have been an awesomely detailed, head-to-toe description that was wonderfully specific and wholly accurate. Or it could have been along the lines of what most people call a “description”, which is usually something like, “White guy, about six feet, kind of skinny. Dark hair, maybe. I don’t remember what he was wearing. I don’t remember any scars or anything. I don’t remember if he wore glasses. I don’t remember if he limped. I don’t remember anything about his voice, or if he spoke with an accent…” You get the point.

I regularly have people who get upset with me because I can’t find their stolen jewelry after a residential burglary. How did they describe the missing items? “Gold ring. Gold necklace. Silver necklace. Tennis bracelet. Diamond ring with a 1-carat diamond on it.” Again, you get the point.

[burtonsnow2002]

Yeah...and come to find out, it may not even be a robbery, there was no threat or weapon involved. It may just be a theft crime