Take your bullshit and get the hell out of my neighborhood!

The BBQ Pit
1

We moved into Chez Doors in the fall of 2002. The neighborhood was decent. It was not the best in town, but not the worst, either. It’s between Dickinson College and the high school, so we get a fair amount of traffic, but it’s not that big a deal.

Over the past year, that’s changed dramatically. Last fall, we had several fights after high school football games. I don’t mean just kids being loud. I mean actual fighting where the police had to break it up.

We’ve also had cars broken into. I lost my old laptop and my iPod. I’ll take the hit for this in that my car doors were unlocked. In retrospect, that may have saved my car from being vandalized to get to the laptop and the iPod.

My next-door neighbor recently found gang graffiti on her shed, and this isn’t the only occurrence.

This past Monday is the second-to-last straw. There was a shooting on my block. I don’t have details, and the shooting happened at the other end of the block, so I didn’t hear anything.

I don’t know what the final straw will be. All I know is that I’d like to live in a safe neighborhood that isn’t overrun by gangs, and where I don’t have to keep the phone in my hand so I can call the cops when the fighting breaks out.

Even better, I’d be ecstatic if the cops would just patrol the damn neighborhood. We live two fucking blocks from the cop shop. I’d think they could just cruise the area on their way back to the station, but apparently not.

I apologize for the lack of creative invective. Rest assured, I am seething with rage to the point where I may end up asking to speak at the next borough council meeting to find out why the cops aren’t patrolling the area, and how we can set up a neighborhood watch. I’m willing to do the work if it means a safer neighborhood.

Robin

2

Good luck, MsRobyn. I hope you and your family are able to get a safer neighborhood out of this. When is the next borough council meeting to be held? In the meantime, take care of yourself and Baby Doors.

And the Airman, of course.

ETA: P.S. why would you leave your electronics in the car, locked or not?

3

That one’s easy – small town sense of security. Madison is a city of 200,000 and people still leave the car and home doors unlocked all the time. I think it’s a requirement that you actually be ripped off before you lock your doors, unless you grow up in really big cities where you can learn by others getting ripped off first.

4

I no longer keep items of value in my car anyway. The most I’ll do is lock the car if I have my work laptop with me and I have to make a quick stop for gas or whatever. But yeah, Boyo Jim got it. I wasn’t expecting it, so I assumed I had no reason to worry.

I was wrong.

Robin

5

Well, from what I’ve read of the Airman’s posts, I assume you are an armed family. Stay sharp and practice regularly, is the best advice I can offer you. Don’t let the police be your only line of defense against criminals.

6

We are definitely armed. In fact, Airman’s Glock is within arm’s reach.

Robin

7

Yes, neighborhood watch and also form a local neighborhood poltical action group. It really helps. Make sure you donate to your local Pol’s campaign.

There might be some volunteer “Commissioner” positions- if you can get one of those, getting more police presense in your area is a cinch.

8

In one of the more astonishing developments of my life, Robin actually asked, in defiance of her previously held convictions, how to go about getting a concealed carry permit. I think that speaks volumes.

While I am in principle on board with that, before I offer up one of my handguns she has several trips to the range and some instruction ahead of her. I’ll let her think about it for a few days before it goes any further than that.

But yeah, this neighborhood has gone to hell in a handbasket (a slight exaggeration) rather quickly. I’m not much for being the one to start a movement because I generally don’t dedicate enough time to it and it dies of apathy, but I’m thinking that a neighborhood watch might be a good idea. I’ll talk to the neighbors and see what they think.

Two blocks away from the cop shop, and we can’t count on the cops to do anything. Surprise, surprise. The only time that you can count on the cops on our street is Wednesday and Thursday when they issue parking tickets. That they do quite efficiently, like clockwork. :rolleyes:

9

Keep some outside lights on all the time. They don’t need to be mercury vapor lights. Compact fluorescents will do. If there are shrubs near the house, prune them down, so they’re harder to hide behind. You don’t have to live in a fortress. You just have to be “not the easiest target in the neighborhood.” It’s like that joke about being chased by a bear. You only have to outrun the other human.

10

Some people say that the job of the police isn’t to protect you from criminals, it’s to clean up the mess. I wouldn’t say this is true of all cops, because the cops I know are all very dependable. But some people say this. Keep that in mind.

11

Well, it says “Airman” so you have leadership training, and the time has come. Set up a meeting with the Chief of the Po Pos and tell him what is going on and that you hope by next month the situation is resolved favorably and permanently. What’s going on here is a few bad apples at the high school (probably with parents with enough power to keep the kids out of trouble) which will set up a tradition of crap to be outdone for ages. If these punks don’t get knocked down a peg, expect trouble for a long time.

Now, if after the meeting a month goes by and there isn’t substantial improvement, then go to the city council every month and complain every month.

12

I grew up in MadCity and we always locked our doors. When I visit now I can’t see why anyone wouldn’t lock their doors all the time. Madison today is nowhere what it used to be.

Where I live today is pretty good, but the distant horizon is not too promising. Too many kids without direction and the PNW meth problems are taking their tool.

13

Airman and MsRobyn, first, best wishes, be safe.

Neighbors. A Neighborhood watch is a wonderful thing, because it brings neighbors together with a common purpose. The key to that game is the “Neighborhood Watch Potluck Lunch”. Paper plates, barbeque if someone has and wants, rotate the location around the different households different weekends, get together and talk to your neighbors. Exchange phone numbers, set up a phone tree, explore the situation, discuss possibilities.

People think a Neighborhood Watch is an organization, with all the problems and hassles that implies. It is not.

It is you and your friends and neighbors getting together on a regular basis, to stay informed, to discuss how to watch out for each other. Discuss, I might add, over a piece of chicken and a cold beer. Doesn’t need a charter or a treasurer. Just potluck lunches. And beer.

In addition, you two should go together and talk to the Police Chief. Make an appointment. Give him your business cards. If you have photos of the problem, or police reports or timelines or other evidence or documentation, take those. Not necessarily to pull them out … just to have them if you want to pull them out, or if he asks for them. (“He” is shorthand, of course, lots of good women Chiefs out there these days.)

The theme of the meeting should be “What can we do to solve this?”. Ask his advice, he’s the expert. What can you do to help him, what can he do to help you? Ask to meet the policemen and policewomen who patrol the local area, even the ticket guys. If they know you and you know them, things go smoother. Know who to call.

Two of you, together and determined … I’d put my money on you over most Police Chiefs …

Neighborhood and police together … I’d put my money on y’all being able to push the darkness back a ways, take back the neighborhood, take back the night …

w.

14

:eek: Ouch. Sorry to hear that.

You just gave me a newfound appreciation for the dead silence and perpetual boredom of Middletown!

Stay safe, Airman and Robin.

15

Sounds like the last neighborhood I moved from. Except surprise! the high school hoods continued shooting only at each other, and I ended up moving because my house was surrounded by paranoid old busy bodies that watched my house like a hawk.

Fuck neighborhood watches.

16

I know how you feel and it sucks. I live in the same small town I grew up in. I walked the streets to school, to the store and to friends houses without a care in the world.

Cue thirty years later and my truck was stolen from driveway a year and a half ago. My sons bike was also stolen six months before that. When I read the paper there have been several people two streets over in both directions that have been robbed at gun point. There have also been two small convenient stores robbed with a gun as well.

The entire town is five by five miles, how many criminals can we have. I am sure some live here while others come from surrounding towns.

It makes me a little depressed that when we bought our new grill that we have chained it to the deck with a padlock in fear of it being stolen.

School is out in a couple days and I dread the noise that comes with it. I am not sure what makes me more frustrated. The sound of the kids carrying on during what I hope is play or when I hear a kid cry out and I run to the windows praying nobody is hurt or being hurt.

I have three dogs but they are all old and I doubt they would be much of a help during a break in. Hell there was not a peep out of them when my truck was stolen and it was locked. They broke out the back window to gain access.

We have a strong police force with up to date cars and equipment but they seem more interested in giving tickets to people that leave their empty garbage cans out to long or god forbid put their garbage out a day early. I read the council minutes and not only is the garbage can “problem” addressed almost every time but the majority of it concerns abandoned and foreclosed homes. I can understand wanting to keep the city nice looking and to eliminate places that people can vandalize but how about the people that are getting items stolen right out from under them.

17

Chiming in to third the neighborhood watch. We solved a similar problem in my former neighborhood primarily by starting one. You need at least one very nosey neighbor (to do the bulk of the notation part), at least one incorrigible gossip (to keep everybody in the loop) and at least one neighbor to coordinate with the police.

You want to coordinate with the police because the moment they see that you have some semblance of a program they will increase their presence. I know you don’t believe this (I surely did not) but it’s really true.

One of the more interesting things for me to watch when we set up our group was the transformation of the perception of some folks from sort of antisocial behavior (the nosey parker and the shameless gossip) into a useful role, which in turn changed the way those folks interacted in the neighborhood. It also made the neighborhood more pleasant to live in. YMMV of course but I found it to be worth the effort.

18

Carlisle really has changed then. I lived there from 2001-2002 and the greatest danger I ever felt in was of death from boredom. That’s a shame. It was a nice little town when I was there. Well, except for the weekend when the Custom Compact show was in town, but those people were more amusing than threatening.

Is Blondie’s still up and running?

19

Another vote for the neighborhood watch. Get the police involved in it.

I lived in an apartment for 15 years. Never once had a problem. But my roommate was mugged less than a block away about a month before I moved in. What had been a bad neighborhood was becoming far worse. Gang members who were kicked out of other neighborhoods were congregating near me. Shortly thereafter, a neighborhood watch was organized. The police got heavily involved in it. From that point forward, it was a safe place to live.

20

I think you are over reacting. None of the things you describe are good, of course, but getting shit stolen out of an unlocked car is something that will happen pretty much anywhere. There wasn’t a shooting in your neighborhood, either. There were shots fired. There’s a difference.
Check out the shit that happens in Beaver County. The offenses listed are mild. Now that the weather has finally warmed up, there’ll be more riff-raff loitering on the streets, tempers will fray from the heat and humidity, and the summer “shots fired” season will begin in earnest.