Thanks for the replies, guys.

The items are a mix of clothing and electronics. All appear to have been taken from her room over the course of a few months. She dug up receipts and totalled to about $1250 for her items alone, with her other two roomies in the $200-300 range. As mentioned, she has receipts and photos her with or wearing the items prior to the theft. There are some things still missing, such as a pair of Beats headphones, that weren't in the room so she didn't include them in the total. In addition, other things have gone missing from common areas of the house like birthday cards with money and bottles of wine (some roomies are 21.) No fingers being pointed on those as there's no evidence one way or another. To you or I, the dollar amount isn't much but to a relatively poor college student it's a fairly significant amount of her net worth, on top of the violation.

The two days was not so much deciding to not report as not knowing what her options were and what she should do. The girls are all 20/21-year old college students and sorority sisters sharing a house, having lived in the dorm the prior year. It took a day to talk to some retired police officer friends who encouraged her to make the report. I don't think she feels anyone, PD or DA, "owes" her anything. She definitely feels like she took a large, irrevocable step by attempting to report a former friend and sorority sister to the police, and to have that report declined made her question why she went out on that limb, especially if the roomie retaliates in some manner. The roomie is definitely a vindictive type as has been seen with other relationships over the past 8 months.

Thanks for the suggestion to go to the DA - I'll see if she's up for that. As you might imagine, she's feeling a bit gun-shy now. She and her other two roomies have also contacted the landlord to see if he can be convinced to pursue an eviction, though to be honest I don't see where he has any upside to doing that and considerable risk and expense if the roomie fights back. And all have locks on their doors now, though they no longer feel they can leave things in the common areas of the house.

Again, thanks for the thoughts and comments guys. I was just very surprised that the officer declined to even take the report. I do understand the priority issues, though, living as I do in San Jose which has many problems with low staffing levels.

Cheers,
Jim