Normally, I wouldn’t be awake at 3 AM, but having four cops banging the hell out of your bedroom window has a tendency to wake a guy up, once he can figure out what the hell is going on. So I finally get up, once I’ve managed to find my glasses and a pair of pants, turn on the porch light, and open the door, only to be accused right away of throwing some stupid party. I sure as hell know that there hasn’t been a party (or more than about three people) in my unit since I moved in seven months ago. Even more, unless a party got either started or raucous sometime between the time I got in from Albuquerque at about 10 PM and the time the cops saw fit to bang on my window instead of using the doorbell (which would have at least put me in a slightly better mood) at 2 AM, I’m not sure the guy in the unit behind me was throwing a party either. When I got in, the only cars present were the ones that are normally there. You’d think that, if someone called the cops to complain, I would’ve been able to hear something, though there are two exterior walls, plus some interior distance, seperating the units, but it’s about the same as the distance to any of the neighboring houses. It makes me wonder what I might’ve come home to had I decided to leave early in the morning from Albuquerque instead of late in the evening. Probably some stupid citation I’d have to go fight, wasting my time. As it is, I now can’t get back to sleep, as much as I’d like to. I wonder if there’s anywhere I can complain, or at least find out what the hell they thought they were responding to.
I mean, if the fuckers couldn’t hear any noise coming out of your place, you’d suppose ‘hmmm, false alarm’ or ‘guys, you sure we got the right place’ would’ve passed through their minds.
Instead, they bang on a perfectly calm house and ask about the party??? WtF???
You have my sympathy.
I think the first thing they said was something about a bunch of people leaving all at once. Still, though, I was still groggy and trying to figure out what the hell they were doing there, and assumed it would be a little more important than someone being too loud on a Tuesday night.
The only, only defense the cops might have is that you can’t tell from the front that there are two seperate units. That said, when I tell them several times that I have no idea what the hell they’re talking about (though I was more polite than that) and that if there had been a party going on, I hadn’t noticed when I got in earlier, after which I had been asleep since about 11, it would’ve been nice to be believed without having one of them go in. As all they’d see is a somewhat messy house with no evidence of a party, or anyone else, in there, I didn’t really care if it’d get them off my front porch and me back in bed.
That’s the last time I fall asleep reading with my bedside lamp (in all its 40 watt glory) still on. I’d be even more pissed than I am now if the house had been completely dark.
Are you taking Ambien? Maybe you were having a one-man sleep-party.
Maybe they were thinking, “It’s quiet in there… too quiet!”
Call the mayor’s office. I understand they spend most of their time responding to police complaints anyway, so you might as well add your complaint to the list. They will get back to you, though I wouldn’t expect much other than that.
Sorta the same thing happened to me once. Cop banging on the door at 5am, demanding to see “Bob.” He didn’t believe me when I said I had no idea who he was talking about, and got rather uppity when I refused to either let him inside or continue to answer his fool questions. I think he was just about to do something really stupid when his partner informed him that they were at the wrong address, and they wanted my neighbor. I didn’t even get an apology as they left. Dicks.
Just how loudly do you snore?
Maybe I should’ve given them a hard time, like “How do I know you’re not some of those impostors?” But I was tired, didn’t think of it, and even so, I doubt I would.
Yeah, cops can be obnoxious and annoying, but when you get to witness them being obnoxious and annoying to the punk that has been breaking into homes in your neighborhood, you feel much better about giving them a pass once in awhile.
No, no. It was that other punk…
We had one walk, univited and unannounced, into our apartment once.
We were living in a town known for drug use. We had nothing to do with any of that, though. The Bog and I were out in the back yard working on our garden when I thought I heard someone in the house (we had the downstairs floor). I told Bog and he went in with me, gardening spade in hand.
The cop nearly got skewered! He was in the dining room, which required him to pass through other rooms to get to. Bog was NOT a happy camper.
We asked him, as politely as we could muster, what he was doing in our place.
The response? “I’m looking for so-in-so. The front door was open, but when no one answered, I thought somebody might be in trouble, so I came in.” Yeah. Sure. Because we all know that if there’s no answer to a knock at the door, you just come in to check because someone could be dead! (or on the toilet, but that’s not as good an excuse)
Turns out, he was looking for the people upstairs, but refused to believe we weren’t them. See, they were dealing drugs and he was intent on getting someone.
We finally convinced him that we were not the ones he was looking for, but he took his time leaving, looking all around him the whole time like he was trying to find ANYTHING he could get us with.
Unbelievable.
I think I got you beat. I was awakened once by cops banging on my door. Four cops. In full SWAT gear. Once asks, “Er, is this 123 Anyroad St.?” I say, “No, it’s a block down.” They thanked me and left.
I went back to bed.
Truly WTF.
I had this twice, once was not my fault, second was, sort of.
I was downstairs watching TV when I heard a male voice calling from upstairs. Knowing no one was supposed to be at home I was freaked. Turns out my sister (who is deaf) just before going out had been calling the Deaf 911 instead of the information number.
Second one, I was getting ready to put my baby down for a sleep, I was tired too. I turned the phone ringer off and hit the alarm on so I could snooze. Except I hit the POLICE button. And the phone ringer was off so no one could call and check on me. I nearly ignored the pounding on the door.
OOps.
A good friend of mine lived on Davis Court; a few blocks over there is a Davis Street. My friend answered a knock on his door late one night; he was thrown to the ground and held there by a foot on the side of his head while his hands were cuffed behind his back. He told me he was able to see two cops whose weapons were pointed directly at him. He was finally, after a lot of verbal abuse, able to convince the cops that they were on Davis Court and NOT Davis Street. Further, although his last name was Jones*, he was NOT the Jones who lived on Davis Street. All of this happened in full view of his two children who were in grade school at the time and in full view of his neighbors, who were awakened by the cops shouting. When the cops finally realized they had things wrong, my friend was released; the cops left with the warning that he should “watch himself.” He never received any apology.
*Not my friends real name.
In my post-college years I lived in a house that I rented with 6 other young people. One night, I got home from work pretty late (after midnight); the house was dark and anyone who was home was asleep. I went to my room and started to get ready for bed.
About a 1/2 hour after I got home, there was loud pounding on the door. I went down and opened it, and there are two police officers standing there looking angry. “Where are they?!” they demanded.
“Um, where are who?”
“Don’t be funny, we saw them run in here!”
“What are you talking about?”
“Those guys who stole the streetsign. We know they ran in here!”
“When was this?”
“A few minutes ago!”
“I’ve been home for 30 minutes, and no one has run in here. Everyone is asleep.”
But, I offered to check, so I walked through the house. As I suspected, everyone was either asleep or not home. I went back to the front door to tell the cops, but they weren’t there anymore … they were sitting in their cruiser out on the street in front of our house. So I went out to the car, and one of them rolls down the window.
“I think you have the wrong house.”
“What?”
“You’re at the wrong house. No one is hear.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“??? Okay, whatever, I’m going back to bed.”
Never did find out who stole the street sign.
Nope. By not giving them a pass, you force them to refine their tactics. Police are there To Protect and Serve. Serves no one if one decides to toss a flashbang into my living room.
Cops wonder why they’ve got such a bad rep…
I was ambushed once while I was out jogging. It was about 6 PM – not even dark yet, and suddenly I was surrounded by cops yelling at the top of their lungs for me to stop moving and put my hands behind my head. I was very cooperative but they were total assholes, asking me aggressive questions (“Are you high?” “Were you tresspassing back there?” “Have you killed or raped anybody?”). Of course I was neither high or drunk, and all I’d been doing was jogging on the sidewalk in my neighborhood, like I’d been doing every evening for years.
They didn’t arrest me – after a few minutes of making me stand there like a deer in the headlights and grilling me about nothing in particular, they suddenly decided to leave with no explanation. I was pretty humiliated – when you’re a law-abiding citizen, you don’t ever expect to be treated like that, especially not by the officers who are supposed to serve and protect you.
I still have no idea what the ordeal was about – I wish I’d had the presence of mind to ask. I’m guessing they received a complaint about someone tresspassing in one of the nearby yards, and they assumed that since I was “fleeing the crime scene”, I must’ve been the perp. Either that or they were bored and felt like taking the piss out of some poor jogger for laughs.
I must (sheepishly) admit to once having had a party that was too loud. (There was a DJ, etc.) We tried to limit the noise by putting mattresses up against the windows, etc., and warned all the neighbors. Nevertheless, about 12:30 (it was Saturday night), the cops came, and we sent everyone home.
The only reason why I mention it is because they didn’t give me a ticket or fine or anything–just a little piece of paper that said, on one side, in English “You have been warned for having an excessively noisy party,” etc.
One the other side, in Spanish, it said: “Fiesta Escandalosa”
In English we were noisy, but in Spanish we were scandalous. Seems a lot more serious to me.
Sometimes it can backfire on the over-zealous cops, and you get the last laugh.
One day when I was a teenager, I was walking my friend’s dog in a field. I was suffering from hay fever, and my nose was running, so I sat on a log and fetched out my handkerchief to blow my nose.
Next thing I knew, two cops were running towards me from their car parked on a nearby road, and one of them lunged at me and snatched my handkerchief from my hand. “We thought you were glue sniffing,” said the other one, as the cop who grabbed at me looked down at his hand, now covered in my snot, and looked like he was going to barf.