Did you report it as a trademark infringement?
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Iāve called, once.
At my previous house, the neighbors next door were pretty dysfunctional. The wife clearly had some substance problems, and the dadā¦ I dunno. Who knows?
Anyway, one morning at about 1am their whole family is in the middle of the street screaming at each other with the (young) kids trying to calm the adults down. It was not a good scene. I really didnāt feel like I had the choice to not call.
Not a big fan of calling, needless to say.
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Once when I was out the door to go to work and was āwait where did the car go to?ā so yeah had to report that. There was no theft insurance on it as it had like 160K+ miles and was looking well used inside so not worth a lot but I figured it was out for a joyride rather than being stripped cause who is gonna steal a near 10 year old Saturn SL1 for parts? The officer actually came over to the house for a statement and such. It ended up parked about 8 blocks away parked hidden under a tree that was obscuring it and of course the call me at 2am when it was found.
The officer was all apologetic about waking me up but I knew they had to call and contact NOW when they find it. At least it was a nice quiet walk at that time of morning.
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I call the cops if there is actual physical violence going on in my neighborhood (street fight, guy going off on his gf) where I think significant and immediate harm will happen. Otherwise, in Oakland, nope.
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I would call the police. The coming when called is the part of policing that I value.
The parts I donāt value are all the things we already know about: over-active policing, stop and frisk, lying whenever itās convenient, redefining words for their own purposes and to justify their actions, policing for the benefit of police, freedom from prosecution for obvious misdeeds, reliance on force and weaponry, complicity of judges and prosecutors in protecting police from effective prosecution, disproportionately targeting people of color, using arrest-and-release-without-prosecution as a tool of social policy, ignoring the psychological cost of a stop on people who are stopped, the complete fabrication of reasons for otherwise-illegal stops, shooting dogs if police feel unsafe, shooting men if police feel unsafe, dehumanizing the citizenry in the minds of police, using fines and the court system for revenue generation, presumption of guilt rather than of innocence in face-to-face encounters, focusing on enforcing order (whatever TF that means, I guess it means authoritarianism) rather than taking opportunities to increase the peace and well-being of the populace, the drug war, civil forfeiture, and on and on and on.
Jeez. How to weigh the pros and cons LOL?
āāThis is the last straw. No more proactive anything,ā said a veteran sergeant who works on the South Side, who like his colleagues spoke on the condition that he not be named.ā
Can I get that in writing? What they call proactive I call oppressive. As things stand, just come when called.
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At least you know where you stand withe the criminals
Which has a penalty of death or imprisonment for life (whichever comes first).
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Exactly.
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No, and hereās why. When I was 19, I was arrested for something (not gonna go into details, but it all worked out). One of the arresting officers got my phone number and address from the booking details and started calling and dropping by to see if I was āokayā and if I wanted to āhang out.ā This went on for a month or so and finally stopped. I was young and stupid and did nothing about it, just prayed he would go away, and luckily for me, he did. I felt so powerless and that dude eradicated any faith I had in the police. So, no, I donāt call the police except if in a car accident and someone else insists we do it.
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Iāve lost count of how many times Iāve called the cops in my lifetime.
They still have Prince Albert in the can.
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With some neighbors Iām afraid calling the cops will only cause problems to escalate. Iām not speaking from my own experience but my parentsā (in Florida, of course).
They had a crazy and aggressive neighbor who they had good reason to believe prowled around their house when they were out, among other things.
Several people in the neighborhood were afraid calling the cops would set him off.
I think this is fascinating. Most of your examples include calling the police when someone else might be in danger and you were concerned for their welfare (unless I misunderstand, a common occurrence with me). You did NOT call the police when you were directly and seriously in danger. Many of the examples here are the same: With the exception of car accidents or theft, when an official report is often required to navigate insurance companies, calling when someone elseās welfare is at risk is most common. I hesitate to draw conclusions from 27 posts to BBS, but a) clearly Iām about to do so; and b) I think thatās instructive about a certain demographicās relationship with the police.
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My Gram used to call it handling them āwith a long handled spoonā; ie, you donāt willingly deal with them unless thereās absolutely no other viable option.
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And these ladies, our grams, our very own golden girls, were so wise.
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No. I never have. Nothing good can come of it.
Every interaction I have ever had with police, or āinvestigatorsā, has left me with the distinct impression that they are, at best, careless and incompetent or at worst, aggressive and dangerous. Either way; last freakinā resort as far as Iām concerned.
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I generally try to avoid it. āIt is knownā that they donāt really take anything less than assault/murder seriously, so I find the whole exercise demoralizing, pointless, and needlessly opening the door for something unfortunate to happen.
I did call them last year for getting ripped off buying a macbook pro on craigslist, partly because the case seemed like such a slam dunk. Did the deal in person, in hindsight there were signs but I did due diligence and completed the deal, only to figure out later in the day that they had hacked the āAbout This Macā profile and the serial number, with the bonus that the serial number showed up on Appleās website as still having 2 years of AppleCare. Despite the fact that the transaction was in jurisdiction, I had the personās phone number, could demonstrate that the person was lying due to various files they left on the computer, and they still were selling things on craigslist, they insisted on sending me to the FBI and/or FTC. Most of the phone numbers the officer gave me were out of date and didnāt work. My buddy who is a P.I. suggested we do a sting where he would pose as a buyer and we could surprise him and at least shame the guy into admitting it and refunding the resale difference between models, but I was trying to de-stress and I also suspected that the person was a minor in high school- so I was concerned about appearing to be stalky.
I also tire of their constant victim blaming. If something gets stolen, itās always your fault for not being more on the ball. Or like my neighbors a few years ago, he goes out one night, leaves his car because he drank, bike gets stolen out of car, they show up next morning and hassle him like theyāre just sure he was driving drunk or something.
In general, I would avoid calling them simply because, like a wild animal, your encounters with them might usually go fine but you just never know when theyāre going to lash out irrationally. You might get Officer Friendly, or you might get the worst of the worst, or you might get Officer Friendly but heās been having a really terrible day. Better not to take that chance unless itās really necessary.
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I called the cops when my car got stolen (what else can you do, really?)
I called 911 when I was in a Vietnamese restaurant where a gang fight broke out in the parking lot (one guy was beating another guy with a bat while a group pinned him, and they were also smashing up cars and things, it was very bad). The cops never showed.
I called the cops once when I saw some guys smashing into a pay phone and stealing the money out of it. The cops never showed.
Now Iād call the cops if there was a robbery or a violent altercation. Iām an older white person so Iām now in the group theyāre theoretically āprotectingā rather than āprotecting from.ā But I wouldnāt count on seeing them unless it was really serious.
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Yes. Most oftenly for domestic violence. I turn the radio down and tolerate all the yelling they can muster, but I call as soon as I hear the tell-tale signs of glass breaking or someone being thrown against the wall.
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Yes, indeed; and I miss mine dearly.
RIP
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I try to appreciate the vast range of human depravity with which the police deal on a daily basis, which clearly informs their approach to āsuspects.ā I donāt want to deal with child molestors, or rapists, or all those other people profiled on Law & Order SVU and I do value that there are people who do. However, there are simply too many instances of brutality, incompetence, and sheer victim-blaming that you describe to ignore. In the 25 years since my own experience, Iāve met 3 other women who have had police contact them for a date after an encounter, be it arrest or a traffic ticket. While this may sound like the premise of a cheesy Hollywood rom-com, the reality is much different. Itās terrifying. And three women is a lot. I donāt know that many people, I promise.
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I havenāt yet. Thereās very few things I would consider calling them for. I donāt trust the police.
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