So, the cops knock at my door

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

It’s 7pm, I’m decked out in jammies (cuz that’s how I roll) watching My Name is Earl with the Mrs and Kid Cheesesteak, when the doorbell rings.

It’s the police, doing a welfare check on my next door neighbor, a 33 year old single black woman. She already lived there when we moved in 13 years ago, it’s her dad’s house and her grandma’s before that. She lives alone, her parents moved to Maryland sometime before we moved in, but held onto the house for her. She’s college educated, has a job in NYC, a boyfriend, no kids, we don’t see too much of her, that’s how NYC schedules work for young professionals.

Seems she’s been missing since 6:30am, and her friends reported it to the police. We try to call her dad, no luck, maybe my number is out of date. We tell the police that no, we don’t suspect drug use, no sketchy people going in and out, just a quiet neighbor, you know? The police tell us they’ll likely force the door to check inside, and go on their way.

8pm, a fire truck has come and gone, to help force the door, I’m sure. The Mrs. is a wreck with worry. The bell rings again, we figure it’s the police. It isn’t, it’s my neighbor. She was walking back from the bus stop (we have a NYC commuter bus that passes nearby, convenient) and saw her front door open and empty police car out front, figured she better ask us what was going on before surprising a couple of cops by walking in the door. Not a bad choice all in all. My wife hugs her, cries and says “I’m coming with you.” I stay in with our kid because, you know, jammies.

Turns out our neighbor left her phone on the kitchen table when she got on the bus this morning. She said to herself “damn, this is going to be a bad day, my whole life is on that phone.”

So true.

2

So glad everything’s ok. As I got into your post I expected the worst.

3

She had not been in contact with anyone for all of 12 hours and police were checking up on her at her house? Damn, the times we live in…

4

Some non-elderly adult hasn’t been in contact with people for 12 hours and the police come looking for them and even break into their house? That seems really weird. I thought someone had be out of touch for days before the police considered them missing.

5

her fiends called the police instead of her workplace?

6

I know, right? We thought it was odd too, but Montclair is not exactly Newark, despite being near each other, and the police obviously didn’t have more pressing concerns at the moment.

My wife did tell me the police were not nearly as thrilled as she was to find out their missing person just left her phone at home.

7

NM. Ninja’d

8

Wow, sick burn.

9

So she wasn’t at work? It certainly seems like the friends would check there first.

I was on the other end of a situation like this, when a coworker had been out sick for a couple of days and then didn’t call or respond to calls on the third day. His wife was out of town, and we decided we’d better have the police do a wellness check, but only after contacting his wife (she hadn’t heard from him that day yet either). So, depending on the situation, 12 hours out of contact is not out of line for a wellness check.

10

:confused: I know what my friends do but not necessarily their workplace, & even for those that I do know where they work, I don’t have their work numbers, only their cell & email. Even if I do have their work number, I only have their number, not their boss’s or cow-orker’s number. If they’re out at a client or vendor or in an all-day meeting, they’re not picking up their desk phone. I’ve also worked at places that were an outpost of a much larger corporation. There was no HR in our local office. In this day & age of stalkers & needing to be cautious do you thing HR would confirm or deny anything to an individual who is not law enforcement?

Many police depts aren’t going to kick down doors for a normal, healthy adult who has been out of contact for only 12 hrs. A history of bad DV or drug abuse may alter their decision but if they kick a door & leave the property damaged or unsecured & you are subsequently burgled they would probably have liability.

11

Above was a family that had no contact for two days & the PD didn’t kick the door in.

12

Eons ago, a super-reliable coworker didn’t show up one morning. He was a T1 diabetic who lived alone. First thing the boss did was call him, and fortunately, the phone woke him and he was able to deal with his blood glucose and he got to work just fine, if late. But if he hadn’t answered, I have no doubt the boss would have either gone to the guy’s house himself or called for help.

I think we were all relieved when he got married.

13

OK, My google fu does not come up with any reasonable definitions that make sense. So what the heck is “bad DV”? I only can come up with “bad diverter valve”. We are not talking about a turbocharged engine here.

Rant/ Why the heck do folks assume that everyone know their personal/professional acronyms? /End Rant.

DV=Domestic Violence? Now that can make sense here. Is that what you mean? Why am I guessing here?

14

Maybe the neighbor does have an illness like T1 diabetes. As a neighbor the OP might not know, but her friends and family would.
I’m not understanding why they didn’t contact her employer, as well.
A Doper(dropzone) had the sheriff’s office send a well-check on me from a few states away. After just a coupla hours they were here, they called my DIL first. She arrived well before the deputy.

I suspect if/when the COVID pandemic expands into middle America we may see more of this.
We gotta watch out for each other, folks.

15

Let me just take a moment to give many thanks to any and all deities, spirits, and good thoughts that nobody got dead or shot or disappeared suspiciously!

With the news bogged down in stories of missing kids, missing moms, missing students, this story has a happy ending.

I like happy!
~VOW

16

This story sounds suspicious to me. The Montclair PD investigating a 33 year old single woman who has been “missing” since the start of the work day? That’s not “missing”, that’s “she’s probably at work not answering your calls”. My wife doesn’t even report me missing in that short amount of time.

17

I guess I’ll be the one to ask.

It’s 8 pm in Montclair and your front door has been kicked out of it’s frame. It might be shattered, your door frame might be shattered. Either way, wind and wet leaves are blowing into your living-room.
First, who could you even call? (because, yes, not having a front door that closes really is an emergency whether it’s Montclair or Newark) I’m sure it won’t be cheap… and full repairs and possibly door frame upgrades might need to be involved.

Second, I know that it will be a hefty bill… and it’ll have to be put on her credit card tonight… but ultimately who pays for it? Does the PD pay for it? The town? Who does she submit the bill to…?
Or… because it was a welfare check, does she just have to eat an unexpected huge bill…? How does this all work? Does anybody here know?

18

Let’s assume that her friends and the police were smart enough to check to see if she’d shown up for work. And let’s be clear that this was a welfare check, not a missing person report (which in many places no longer requires the person be missing for 24 hours).

Once when I didn’t show up for work, my employer was about to call for police to do a welfare check because I NEVER simply didn’t show for work. I also lived alone. Turns out the boss totally forgot I’d cleared a late arrival time with him a few days earlier. Work folks were very relieved to see me, and I was relieved to know people had my back.

I also knew a guy in his forties who lived alone and took a nasty fall. He couldn’t get to his phone and died alone the next day. A welfare check might have saved him.

I’m relieved the OP’s neighbor was OK and very glad the cops did a welfare check on her.

19

The police can drive a tank through your house, and they don’t owe you anything. Slight hyperbole, in that it was an armored vehicle, not a main battle tank. TL/DR, an armed robbery suspect barricaded himself in a random house, not his own house, and instead of waiting him out, the police fired tear gas and other projectiles into the house, used explosives on it, and rammed it with an armored vehicle. The article from October is the latest development, in which the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the police were not liable for any damage, because the damage was done in the course of enforcing the law, not as eminent domain.

So, yes, she probably will have to eat a bill for any damage that was done. Insurance might cover it, but it often has exclusions for government action, and things like that. A new door might not even exceed the deductible, so even if it was covered, it might still not be a reimbursable expense.

20

But it’s extremely unlikely that kind of damage was caused in this instance or would be during a routine welfare check. The reason the cops called the fire department in the OP is that firefighters have tools like this one that gain entry without causing damage.