Quote:
Originally Posted by Bobblehead
Call the non-emergency police line, tell them the story, and ask them what, if anything, should be done.
They should know if they care about a plate that was reported missing.
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that would be the first option I'd consider. The second one would be to knock on his door without any malice, in other words approach him as if he's innocent of anything other than putting it up there in the hopes of finding the rightful owner. If you just say something innocuous like "Hey I noticed you had a plate in your window, and it's one I lost a while ago, could I have it back so I can take it in to be destroyed and have the cops take it off the stolen plate list?"
You'll probably be able to tell fairly quickly by his reaction whether or not he was just trying to track down the owner of the plate or if he was the one who stole it. Even if there's no 'stolen plate list' it might scare him enough to give it up. If he acts like a dink about it he probably was the one who stole it in the first place.
But even if he was the one who stole it you still don't want to say or do anything to cause trouble with him, because one of the worst things to have is a neighbor that you're feuding with, as things tend to escalate to ridiculous heights fairly quickly in this situation. if you get into a scrap over it, next time it might be your mirrors missing, or your windows smashed out. For that reason alone I'd call the police to find out how to handle it. It would be nothing for them to send someone over and tell the guy they saw the plate, ran it, and it came up stolen.