# At what point do you call the cops with nothing but a vauge suspicion? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [September 15, 2005, 2:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-point-do-you-call-the-cops-with-nothing-but-a-vauge-suspicion/321787 "2005-09-15T14:52:28Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 16\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![Monocracy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/monocracy/32/4493_2.png) [@Monocracy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monocracy)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2005, 11:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-point-do-you-call-the-cops-with-nothing-but-a-vauge-suspicion/321787/121 "2005-09-20T11:05:39Z")
Add me to those who think the OP is being paranoid. I don’t understand the whole “look-out” thing. Looking out for what? What do they do when they spot something? Call the house on a cell phone? Run inside? Make secret bird calls? I think you’ve been watching too many cops & robbers movies. Horn honking is part of no drug dealing that i’ve ever heard of. Dealers and their clients like to be at least somewhat discreet. Either you’re way off base, or these are the dumbest drug dealers on Earth. Back in my younger days, there were many houses where groups of teens and young adults hung out, usually at the house of a popular kid with lenient parents. Kids don’t hang out in public places, such as nice parks, because cops are constantly harassing groups of teens that do that, and force them to move on. Lots of times we would hang around outside and do something vaguely physical while shooting the shit. For us, it was hackey-sack, but i could see half-hearted basketball being another option. Sometimes drugs would be involved, mostly weed, but weed-smokers are pretty laid back, and don’t like to get involved in major situations … i’d be more worried if they were drinking over there. Weed dealing happened, not because they were drug houses, but because that’s where everybody happened to be. And the drug deals were between friends, it wasn’t as if strangers would drive up and buy a bag. And here’s a novel idea that no one has mentioned yet. Why don’t you go over and TALK to them? Bake a plate of cookies and bring it over. Introduce yourself and, if they’re friendly, get to know them a little better. Then politely ask them if they could get the horn honking to stop. Some people are rude because they just don’t know they are being rude. If you live in a neighborhood where you have to call the cops before you go over and talk to a neighbor directly, then you’re living in the wrong neighborhood. I think you’re being rude in immediately appealing to a higher authority rather than making an ATTEMPT to work out your differences with the offending party. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2005, 12:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-point-do-you-call-the-cops-with-nothing-but-a-vauge-suspicion/321787/122 "2005-09-20T12:44:27Z")
> [@Diogenes the Cynic](#): > > I’ve already dealt with this asinine bit of sophistry. The people in the OP aren’t bothering ANYBODY. If they were bothering ANYBODY, I would say call the cops. They aren’t. They’re bothering **Zsofia**. _Ergo_, she has the entire right to call the cops. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![Uncommon\_Sense](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Uncommon\_Sense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Uncommon_Sense)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2005, 1:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-point-do-you-call-the-cops-with-nothing-but-a-vauge-suspicion/321787/123 "2005-09-20T13:41:11Z")
> [@Monocracy](#): > > If you live in a neighborhood where you have to call the cops before you go over and talk to a neighbor directly, then you’re living in the wrong neighborhood. I think you’re being rude in immediately appealing to a higher authority rather than making an ATTEMPT to work out your differences with the offending party. Well, she’s worried that IF they are dealing drugs she doesn’t want them to even have the slightest notion that she’s on to them. If she gets to know them, _then_ figures out everyone in the house is high all the time and _then_ calls the cops they may figure she dropped the dime on them. I vote that she talks to the other neighbors first and sort of feel them out as to the possible goings on in that house. (if she hasn’t already, I didn’t read the entire thread) ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2005, 1:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-point-do-you-call-the-cops-with-nothing-but-a-vauge-suspicion/321787/124 "2005-09-20T13:49:20Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > They’re bothering **Zsofia**. No they aren’t. ---
**Author:** ![Metacom](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ecae2f/32.png) [@Metacom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Metacom)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2005, 2:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-point-do-you-call-the-cops-with-nothing-but-a-vauge-suspicion/321787/125 "2005-09-20T14:40:04Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > If, on the other hand, you want to have throw childish insults around, take it to the BBQ Pit. [Ned Flanders][Okily-dokilee.](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=6600676)[/Ned Flanders] ---
**Author:** ![JThunder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e95f7d/32.png) [@JThunder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JThunder)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2005, 3:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-point-do-you-call-the-cops-with-nothing-but-a-vauge-suspicion/321787/126 "2005-09-20T15:10:05Z")
> [@Monocracy](#): > > I think you’re being rude in immediately appealing to a higher authority rather than making an ATTEMPT to work out your differences with the offending party. “Oh, please don’t deal drugs in our neighborhood! I’m afraid of what this’ll do to the community, and I don’t want to get caught in any crossfire.” Yeah. That’ll work. Not. ---
**Author:** ![JThunder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e95f7d/32.png) [@JThunder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JThunder)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2005, 3:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-point-do-you-call-the-cops-with-nothing-but-a-vauge-suspicion/321787/127 "2005-09-20T15:11:30Z")
Oops. Sorry, **Czarcasm**. As soon as I posted that, I realized it was over the top for this forum. My mistake. ---
**Author:** ![ivylass](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/9de053/32.png) [@ivylass](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ivylass)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2005, 4:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-point-do-you-call-the-cops-with-nothing-but-a-vauge-suspicion/321787/128 "2005-09-20T16:44:30Z")
I’m glad you called, **ZSofia**. You did the right thing. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Scrivener](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/eada6e/32.png) [@The\_Scrivener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Scrivener)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2005, 5:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-point-do-you-call-the-cops-with-nothing-but-a-vauge-suspicion/321787/129 "2005-09-20T17:05:21Z")
I’m in favor of being proactive and calling in your suspicions, even if you haven’t seen enough to make an open-and-shut case, because even if your suspicions are well-founded you wouldn’t necessarily be able to discern it, and if the worst-case scenario is being borne out, you want the cops to nip their operation in the bud, and shut them down before things get totally out of hand. I have three personal anecdotes to relate: When I was a very little kid, we had next-door neighbors, a pair of redneck brothers, who were suspected by my parents of dealing drugs or firearms or both, although we never saw any exchanges. Suspected customers would drive up their driveway at all hours of the day and night and whatever business which might’ve been going on was apparently conducted indoors. I know that my parents had reported their observations to the police, but they were more furious about the ways that these neighbors were endangering our safety than about drug dealing per se. (In all likelihood, other neighbors were lodging their complaints and suspicions as well.) These idiots were a general nuisance on a good day and a deadly menace on a bad one. It had gotten to a point where my brother and I were forbidden to play in our own yard, because these neighbors were so unstable and reckless (and because their livestock, including one bull, was neither legal in the 'burbs, nor safe to be around, nor securely confined to their yard). These neighbors were eventually arrested, though not necessarily for drug offenses (there were plenty of other obvious infractions going on, including cruelty/causing malicious harm to animals), and I never learned the details of their arrests and the outcome. Also, in my childhood neighborhood, a meth lab blew up, blowing the roof off the house and killing the three adults inside the house at the time. Fortunately, no one else was killed or seriously hurt, even though a lot of the meth lab’s neighbors had to replace their windows. A junior-high-school friend of mine was a same-street neighbor of the drug manufacturers. I have a friend who lived right next door to a crack house, for several years, and all she’d noticed was a lot of traffic in and out. She had never met the owners of the property and knew nothing about who lived there (it was a three-story estate which had been subdivided into separate apartments). Again, no apparent dealing… but it was there. She wasn’t even aware the dealers were eventually busted, until the property changed hands and she struck up a conversation with the new owner, and he informed her of what she’d been living next to! ---
**Author:** ![PunditLisa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/4af34b/32.png) [@PunditLisa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PunditLisa)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2005, 5:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-point-do-you-call-the-cops-with-nothing-but-a-vauge-suspicion/321787/130 "2005-09-20T17:40:31Z")
There’s a difference between a vague suspicion and a real suspicion. For instance, a kid playing basketball til 11pm in the middle of the summer isn’t that suspicious, IMO. A kid playing basketball til 11pm during the school year, in the middle of the winter, may be more suspicious. Cars pulling in and out of driveways before 10pm may mean nothing. Cars pulling in and out of driveways at 2am, and passing stuff back and forth, sounds more suspicious. I’d keep an eye on the place, but I wouldn’t call the cops unless I had something more concrete. Calling over a “vague suspicion” is too Mrs. Kravitz, IMO. There _was_ something odd about the Stephens, but at the end of the day, it wasn’t anything illegal. ---
**Author:** ![Clothahump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/51bf81/32.png) [@Clothahump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Clothahump)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2005, 5:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-point-do-you-call-the-cops-with-nothing-but-a-vauge-suspicion/321787/131 "2005-09-20T17:52:19Z")
> [@Martin Hyde](#): > > …snip… > But for god’s sake stop the ignorant ramblings about how “the man” is on an “evil crusade” against your “precious grass.” Nothing is more pathetic than some indigent drug abuser trying to disguise his lust for illicit substances as some sort of moral crusade against totalitarianism. Well stated, **Martin**. Well stated, indeed. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2005, 6:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-point-do-you-call-the-cops-with-nothing-but-a-vauge-suspicion/321787/132 "2005-09-20T18:26:52Z")
> [@Clothahump](#): > > Well stated, **Martin**. Well stated, indeed. [Moderator Underoos on]Official Warning-If you think playing the “I won’t go over the top _personally_-I’ll just agree with someone else who does it” game is some sort of “out”, guess again. I told you to cut out the vitriol in IMHO, and I damn well meant it.[/Moderator Underoos on] ---
**Author:** ![fruitbat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/58f4c7/32.png) [@fruitbat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fruitbat)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2005, 7:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-point-do-you-call-the-cops-with-nothing-but-a-vauge-suspicion/321787/133 "2005-09-20T19:18:28Z")
I get the feeling that most of the people who are crying that Zsofia should mind her own business have never lived in an urban neighborhood where a house full of drug dealers is a very real possibility. We had a house on our street that we suspected of being drug dealers, but instead of basketball we had bike runners. We observed loads of suspicious activity, and yes we did call the cops. Guess what? They certainly were drug dealers. They are gone now and they whole neighborhood has changed for the better. ---
**Author:** ![Ichini\_Sanshigo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/d9b06d/32.png) [@Ichini\_Sanshigo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ichini_Sanshigo)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2005, 9:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-point-do-you-call-the-cops-with-nothing-but-a-vauge-suspicion/321787/134 "2005-09-20T21:05:09Z")
Point of irony (kind of) regarding the whole basketball-in-the-street thing: When I was a kid, we played in the streets (and the alleys) all the time. Volleyball, jumprope, footraces, bike races, tag, basketball, and baseball, too. Kids _still_ play in the street. There’s a park about 3 or 4 blocks away from the house. SO why not go there? Because _that’s_ where the drug-dealers hang out! Our parents would rather have us playing in the street near the house where we could be watched by neighbors or older siblings, than at the park with the gang members. I don’t live in the best of neighborhoods, and yeah, there’s drug dealing and gang activity. But there’s also a lot of people coming and going at strange hours in the spring and summer, and it’s not necessarily drug-related. A lot of people were just relatives and various friends stopping by to say “what’s up”. The point is, the activities described by **ZSofia** may be associated with drug dealing, but they could just as easily be completely innocent. I’d be loathe to call the cops without much more concrete evidence of a threat or of wrongdoing. ---
**Author:** ![Kalhoun](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/3bc359/32.png) [@Kalhoun](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kalhoun)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2005, 1:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-point-do-you-call-the-cops-with-nothing-but-a-vauge-suspicion/321787/135 "2005-09-21T13:22:25Z")
> [@Contrapuntal](#): > > You have simplified the facts to a ridiculous extreme. Please offer a reasonable explanation for numerous cars parking in front at all hours of the day and night, honking their horns to bring out a resident resulting in a brief exchange before the car drives away. Once or twice a day? Maybe. All the time? It is suspicious as hell. That is exactly what happened across the street from me. They were dealing drugs. In a week 50 or 60 \*\*different \*\* cars would stop for a few minutes and then drive away. > > Have you ever played street ball? I have. We would never choose to play in an _intersection_ rather than a proper court in a park. There is something other than basketball going on there. What she said was “There’s a whole lot of people who seem to be living/staying there, for one thing. They’re kinda loud. There’s cars driving up at all hours of the day or night, and nobody really seems to get out of their car - they honk the horn (GRR!) or maybe call on a cel or something, because people sort of come out of the house and they talk and then the other people drive off.” She didn’t say “50 or 60 different cars”. Maybe you’re reading too much into it. The facts we received do not indicate drug dealing. They indicate rude neighbors and a lack of supervision, but not drug dealing. Short conversations? Maybe they’re making plans to meet somewhere else. Maybe the drivers were looking for something interesting to do and didn’t find it there. There could be a million reasons. In a nice neighborhood, dealers aren’t going to bring that kind of attention to themselves. Yes, I played street ball all the time. And sometimes we played in the intersection. ---
**Author:** ![Kalhoun](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/3bc359/32.png) [@Kalhoun](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kalhoun)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2005, 1:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-point-do-you-call-the-cops-with-nothing-but-a-vauge-suspicion/321787/136 "2005-09-21T13:25:14Z")
> [@Martin Hyde](#): > > Maybe Zsofia _is_ being nosy. But “nosy” is a vague term, and either way nosy or not calling the police is definitely the right thing to do here. Maybe these people are just very active socially. But more than likely several laws are being broken even if no drugs are even being used recreationally in the house. For example many cities you aren’t allowed to have X number of unrelated people living in one home, I think Zfsofia said something like 6 guys (and apparently the two mysterious female owners) apparently live in the house? On top of that there are cars constantly outside honking, and basketball being played in the middle of the night. Depending on the volume of all this we could be talking about disturbing the peace. > > And lets be honest, more than likely these people are drug dealers. Diogenes has tried to turn this into some moral debate. Well let me end it here. 1) Drugs are illegal, 2) because people are too stupid to know what’s good for them, that’s right, people (especially potheads) are too stupid to know what’s best for them, that’s why government has to prohibit drugs. If you want to wax philosophic and cry about how drug use is perfectly moral, then you can do so. But I live in the real world, our court system and our legislators and our people have all decided that some drugs are going to be illegal and the selling of some drugs are going to be illegal. If you don’t like the social contract, the idea that government makes certain decisions that individuals aren’t capable of making, then take your hefty bag of weed and coke, build a raft, and drift out into the pacific somewhere and no one will bother you as you bake alive under the hot sun as you spend your last days high and wacked out of your mind. Government exists for various functional reasons that I’m sure most of us learned in civics class in High School. Ultimately part of being a functional member of society and not some pathetic pot smoking anarchist who’s greatest achievement in life would be to die and have their cadaver put to use by a local medical school is coming to accept that government gets to make decisions FOR you. Government gets to decide what is legal and what is not, government gets to decide how illegal acts are dealt with and punished, government gets to decide when and how we go to war. Of course the caveat to that is, theoretically we as citizens are what constitutes “government.” Societies create government to do what is best for society. They don’t create governments to decide moral issues of the day. Maybe pot smoking isn’t immoral, maybe it’s IMMORAL to prohibit pot smoking. But society has decided _for itself_ that pot smoking is bad for society, thus it is prohibited. > > But for god’s sake stop the ignorant ramblings about how “the man” is on an “evil crusade” against your “precious grass.” Nothing is more pathetic than some indigent drug abuser trying to disguise his lust for illicit substances as some sort of moral crusade against totalitarianism. Ummmm…What the hell have YOU been smoking? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-point-do-you-call-the-cops-with-nothing-but-a-vauge-suspicion/321787.md?page=6)