By all means keep the police involved. There's a reason he doesn't want them to know, but leave that to the cops.
Carl is in a small enough city that he will probably get some help. Where I live, in a suburb, the police would go out of their way to help. But in the big city next door, they wouldn't come out to take the report. It's not the cop's fault, they just don't have time to handle anything but the high-priority calls.
