Amazon says it won’t help solve crime

If I ever set up a crime-fighting team, I’m going to recruit the smartest, bravest and toughest people I can find.

I also now know who I don’t want involved … Amazon.

The e-commerce giant made ugly holiday headlines last week when the Polk County Sheriff ’s Office said Amazon refused to cooperate with an investigation into an Amazon driver who was caught on video stealing Amazon’s own delivery goods.

Sheriff Grady Judd said he thought he had an easy case. All investigators needed was for Amazon to help ID the guy who stole stuff from one of customers.

“Because this porch pirate was an employee of Amazon, detectives believed this would be easy to solve — good for the Sheriff ’s Office, the homeowner, and Amazon — getting a dishonest employee off the road,” the sheriff ’s office said in a statement.

But Amazon refused to cooperate without a subpoena.

“I’m not surprised by much anymore,” Judd said, “but this lack of cooperation from Amazon floors me. All we needed was a name. They knew who committed this crime in Polk County, and they would not tell us without us serving legal process to their corporate headquarters in Delaware. This is just irresponsible on their part.”

I don’t always agree with Polk County’s spotlight-seeking sheriff. But he’s right on this one.

And I’ll tell you what’s strangest about this:

Amazon now looks like the worst-ever crime-fighter at the same time the company is trying to get police and sheriff ’s offices all over the world to buy its software and data services.

Amazon has a whole division “dedicated to supporting justice