# So, the cops knock at my door **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [February 26, 2020, 12:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-the-cops-knock-at-my-door/848548 "2020-02-26T12:04:01Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Loach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/loach/32/350_2.png) [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2020, 9:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-the-cops-knock-at-my-door/848548/41 "2020-02-27T21:14:00Z")
> [@muldoonthief](#): > > Yeah, because [police wellness checks never go wrong](https://www.texastribune.org/2019/10/13/fort-worth-police-officer-shoots-and-kills-black-woman-home/). Sometimes parking a car goes horribly wrong. It’s not an excuse for what happened in that one case but we do maybe hundreds of wellness checks of various types within a year and nothing close to that has ever happened and we are just one medium sized town. > [@nelliebly](#): > > Sorry for the cut and paste. The system isn’t letting me reply with quote. > > This is almost certainly the case. I did some research online, and police normally don’t do a welfare check just because a young, healthy person doesn’t show up for work and/or a dinner date. From what I’ve read, police usually do welfare checks for urgent situations, such as > > • the person is at high risk for suicide, as in the person sent a suicidal text or recently attempted suicide and can’t be contacted > • the person has a health condition such as diabetes or a heart condition and can’t be contacted > • the person is elderly and can’t be contacted > • the caller’s child is at a residence and the residents can’t be contacted > > Your neighbor probably falls into one of the first two categories. > > For those who hate the idea of the police coming to your home to do a welfare check, tell your friends and families you don’t want them to every ask for one, even if you’re dying on the floor. Yes and no. We would do a welfare check on someone if requested. If someone calls in concerned we are going to go to the house. By that I mean knocking on the door. In order for it to go beyond that to the point that entry is being made there has to be a lot more than just no one has heard from them in 12 hours. I suspect that one of the friends said something sufficiently alarming that it was considered enough of an exigent circumstance that they could request a ping of the phone. Combine whatever alarming circumstance that came from the friend with the phone coming back to the house and no one answering the door and I would authorize entry. That’s just a guess of course. But I agree there is more that the cops were told than what the OP heard. ---
**Author:** ![TroutMan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/troutman/32/6721_2.png) [@TroutMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TroutMan)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2020, 10:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-the-cops-knock-at-my-door/848548/42 "2020-02-27T22:22:32Z")
Another extenuating circumstance beyond what **nelliebly** listed would be if there was reason to fear she was at risk of violence, like from an ex with a restraining order or other history of boundary issues. Sadly, that seems more likely than some of the other possibilities. ---
**Author:** ![a6ka97](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c2a13f/32.png) [@a6ka97](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/a6ka97)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2020, 11:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-the-cops-knock-at-my-door/848548/43 "2020-02-27T23:57:13Z")
If I was her friend I would have been worried. The 33 year old lady was probably never without her phone, making social posts multiple times an hour if not more and making her “presence” known to her friends/family. Then NOTHING! for hours on end, no communication or response to their inquiries. I would be worried also. Most of our neighbors (except for the rental house) we know of a least 1 family member of theirs in case of any issues with them. ---
**Author:** ![actualliberalnotoneofthose](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e79b87/32.png) [@actualliberalnotoneofthose](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/actualliberalnotoneofthose)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2020, 3:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-the-cops-knock-at-my-door/848548/44 "2020-02-28T03:20:58Z")
In a lot of places if your (minor child) kid goes missing no one will do anything for 24-48 hours. Why in the world would anyone need to do this for an adult who forgot her phone? I have BEST friends who certainly don’t hear from me every work day or necessarily receive a response within a day or so. ---
**Author:** ![Loach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/loach/32/350_2.png) [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2020, 3:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-the-cops-knock-at-my-door/848548/45 "2020-02-28T03:37:23Z")
> [@actualliberalnotoneofthose](#): > > In a lot of places if your (minor child) kid goes missing no one will do anything for 24-48 hours. Why in the world would anyone need to do this for an adult who forgot her phone? I have BEST friends who certainly don’t hear from me every work day or necessarily receive a response within a day or so. Which places are those? It’s federal law that missing juveniles and other endangered person be placed into NCIC as missing immediately. ---
**Author:** ![Mama\_Zappa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/71e660/32.png) [@Mama\_Zappa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mama_Zappa)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2020, 3:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-the-cops-knock-at-my-door/848548/46 "2020-02-28T15:32:40Z")
> [@jtur88](#): > > “Her friends” reported her missing. But not good enough friends that they know where she works? Something doesn’t click into place there… This. I have to think there’s something more to the story. Perhaps the neighbor has some health issues of the “nunyabizzness-itis” type, that the friends know about but you do not. Perhaps there’s a scary ex-boyfriend who might be up to for some fatal mischief :(. Perhaps the friends have their own issues that cause them to overreact. Perhaps the lack of communication for 12 hours is so wildly out of character for her that it truly would appear to be an emergency. I’d be surprised if someone ever tried to reach me at my “work” number. For one thing, it’s a virtual number (gets routed to a desk if I’m at the office which happens every year or two, gets routed to my cell phone otherwise), so someone attempting to call my employer would have quite a few hoops to go through to even “call” me - and in the OP’s scenario, the call would most likely get to my “left at home” phone, so that wouldn’t work. I don’t know if someone could even call one of my employer’s locations (they have a LOT) and say “Can you route me to Mama Zappa’s phone please”. On the “finding the person dead” concept, [a relevant thread from a year or so back.](https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=857100) ---
**Author:** ![Pantastic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3bc359/32.png) [@Pantastic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pantastic)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2020, 5:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-the-cops-knock-at-my-door/848548/47 "2020-02-28T17:55:57Z")
If there’s not more to this story, she definitely needs to cut contact with some people. Anyone who doesn’t realize that the cops on a black person for the ‘crime’ of not bringing their phone with them to work one day is probably going to get that person killed. And if they don’t get killed, they can get the Henry Gates consolation prize and get an arrest for ‘disorderly conduct’ for not groveling to a cop querying them about ‘how dare you be in your own home’. ---
**Author:** ![crywalt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crywalt/32/3224_2.png) [@crywalt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/crywalt)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2020, 8:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-the-cops-knock-at-my-door/848548/48 "2020-02-28T20:22:51Z")
> [@Darren\_Garrison](#): > > Wow, sick burn. I’m sitting in Newark as I read this and I have to note the OP is one hundred percent correct: Montclair is not Newark. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-the-cops-knock-at-my-door/848548.md?page=2)