Even if they are somehow so paranoid and/or racist as to believe that the firetruck and uniform might be stolen and the ID might be fake… they could just call the fire department and ask if they sent an inspector to their address today.
Don’t they have some sort of law relating to trivially wasting the cops time? If not, they should have. A hefty fine would certainly be in order. Sending cops on useless calls is expensive.
Great post, nightmare fuel.
can you describe this man?
he’s black!
We’ll be right there! Please stay inside the house and peak out the curtains every now and then!
It is not at all unreasonable to verify a public responder’s identity. I am sure we have all heard the stories of police impostors pulling people over, and the subsequent advice to lock your doors and call for verification if things feel off.
I witnessed a bike thief dressed in a legit paramedic uniform steal a bicycle.
And there have been instances of impostor firefighters with false ID like:
Point being that even though this guy was probably racist and not taking good stock of the situation, the best thing for him to do in that circumstance is to call and verify.
I commend your restraint.
@kjh Unhealthy piss greenish-yellow is no colour for a fire engine! And, look, they’ve even written “fire” back to front one time! Obvious fake appliance! Somebody call the Cops!
@kenny I thought this was about the dangers of gun control?
Call the fire brigade, maybe.
No, he’d let them put the fire out, then claim that they stole things from his house while they were in there.
Certainly. This is doubly true of phone calls - if someone calls me claiming to be my utility company, bank, phone company, etc., unless I expected them to call me at that exact time, I’ll hang up and call back at their published corporate number.
And for people knocking on the door, uniforms can be easily faked, which is a surprisingly effective way to gain access to just about anywhere.
But I think a big, relatively-new-looking fire engine would be enough to make me trust the guy. I don’t think you could steal one of those very easily, certainly not easily enough to make it worth the effort just to get into some guy’s home to steal stuff.
And even then-
Exactly, no reason to escalate to law enforcement yet. Trust, but verify.
Where the hell is Green Arrow…we need him to tell this stupid sack of **** “You hare failed this planet” and thrash him.
I am beyond speechless at things like this. Not unreasonable to check the ID of someone wandering your property, uniform or not and it’s not like he was in his turnout coat, helmet etc I would imagine but the more generic daily uniform. but beyond that it segues into a bad comedy.
And yeah, the big ol’ fire truck is kind of a dead giveaway. Except for this guy apparently “Where did you steal that there fire truck, boy?”
Wasting police time is an offence in England and Wales. And Canada.
@blondie: I initially misread this as “A hefty fire…” . Either would do, I suppose.
Maybe it’s some variant of Capgras delusion? It’s not a real fireman, but some duplicate, perfect in every way except skin tone.
'Tis a sad thing that you needed to post this twice in approximately 24 hours.
@blondie: There is such thing as making false report to the police. It doesn’t appear that merely summoning the police for racist reasons will earn a white person any sort of slap on the wrist, though, unless they’re doing it very frequently.
I’m sure that there’ll be another opportunity in a day or two, unfortunately.
police departments need to start fining those people for frivolous calls to the PD.
I originally posted this as a comment on another thread, but it brought up so interesting discussion so I figured I’d post its own topic. I use to work as a 911 dispatcher and I once took a call from a lady who was complaining about a black man walking down the street. He was doing nothing wrong…except, as she put it, “he’s black and walking down the street”. She insisted an officer be dispatched to speak with her and we had a policy that we had to dispatch. Soooo…I sent the only black officer on duty. It was out of his area, but a computer message to him and the supervisor made it obvious why he was going. When he arrived she went nuts and called again screaming that there was now a black man knocking on her door. I said, “yes this is the police officer you requested.” Ultimately I had to send the supervisor out because she refused to open the door and was throwing a huge fit on the phone.
Of course the big red truck is entirely unmistakable, but really, I’d be unlikely to identify that as a firefighter’s uniform.
