I officially live in the hood

General General Discussion
1

My normally nice quiet neighborhood has turned into south central.

Monday night I took the dog outside only to see 3 police cars outside of my house, and they were checking a vehicle in the driveway across the street. I figured someone broke into their truck or something.

Tuesday the guy across the street comes over to let me know he set up spot lights in his yard and told me if it bothered me to let him know. When I asked what was going on he told me his truck had been shot multiple times, and he was blaming the guy that lives next to me. I really do not know how I did not hear gun shots the day before.

Tonight I hear gun shots, like 5-6 shots and hit the deck. This time it seems that the house next to me got shot at, the house of the guy accused of the first shooting. The police had the street blocked off for 4 hours.

2

I used to sit ouside my old house with my 870. Now its my rental and I live about 15 miles away in a good area. Sucks doesnt it? Hell shoot back, the cops cant say shit…:wink:

3

I couldn’t take the city anymore. It seems to be changing everywhere. Try moving to a rural location with few if any neighbors. People can be difficult everywhere but in the country you run into less of them. Good luck with your neighbors.

4

Wait until LE stops responding or takes 45 to an hour to do so hehe.

Had a drive by, called the police to report it, never heard back, neighbors called as well.

Had a drunk trying to make his way through my door, called the police, half hour later they called me back asking if I still needed an officer. I had a 12ga ready to go had the dumb ass made it through.

Call for a car thief running down the street and 12 patrol cars show up :eek: I guess pursuits are funner than paper work.

Welcome to urban paradise :stuck_out_tongue: I rather enjoy going outside and watching the “ghetto bird” make its nightly rounds. Even have the pitbulls and bars on the windows (things aren’t worth a damn, but they look scary) :smiley:

Have had a few cases in the past where I’ve had a officer talk crap about my neighborhood (hey our home is our home) but I’ve gotten over it. It’s really not that bad, it’s some what of an oasis in the middle of the shit, most of the neighbors are older folk, but that’s changing and newer jackasses are running around.

5

After working as a city pd LEO, I will never live in some, maybe any neighborhood there. I will comute to my job until I retire! Every day I come home and think to my self, how in the world do these people living in the neighborhoods I work make it day to day!

6

This neighborhood used to be mostly older families that own and live in the houses. Now everytime one dies or moves the house turns into a rental property. It is still a nice place to live, besides this nonsense, and I have no desire to move. Most of the people here keep to themselves and mind their own business, but most people at least wave or say hi if they are outside. I liked things alot better when military families were the ones renting the houses.

7

Sorry for my upcoming rant, but I am fed up with people who complain about police responce time. They are quick to calculate how long an officer took to answer a call, but never take the time to research and understand what goes on in a patrol car. Biggest problem with major city PD’s is understaffing, theres a surplus of people who complain about responce time, and a shortage of those who are willing to serve. Another thing people dont understand is how calls are prioratized. I will give two diferent versions of a scenario and explain why one gets a higher priority over the other:

Scenario 1: You get home and notice that your car which is parked in the driveway is littered in bullet holes, you call the police. The dispatch then enters this call as a low priority “criminal mischif” patrol comes to the scene after 45 minutes the call has been holding.

Scenario 2: You pull up to your drive way and all the sudden bullets start to hit your car, you call police, dispatch routes this call as a high priority “active shooter” police get there running lights and sirens anywere from 1-2 minutes.

8

I’m currently in an “any second it could turn to shit, on the fringes” type of a living arrangement. Apartment complex made up of mostly families, but there are a few dealers, and given the management I don’t doubt that if they needed money they would rent to anyone. But, it’s better then where I have been, and I know the type to watch out for.

My personal worst was on the west coast, in an area of a small city where the Meth dealers had actually stopped requiring money for Meth. Yes, you heard me right, the dealers cut the pawn shop out of the equation. They actually started allowing their junkies to “trade” for product. You have NO idea the shit that happened!!! These f@ckers would steal anything. I had a hippie neighbor, and he actually had someone steal a rock out of his garden for Meth.

I literally posted on the porch during the day, drank a beer and cleaned my shot gun for about two weeks (only gun in the house at the time). If we left town, I gave my friends 40-100 bucks to drive by my house and drink beer on the porch all night. Every time I came home, every screen was out of the windows. The kicker though was when a camper trailer that was a Meth lab exploded less then 400 yards from our house.

I left the West Coast to get away from Meth Heads. I hate them, I think they are the lowest form of scum on the bottom tier of this society. I have since decided after living on the East coast for 5 years, and spending plenty of time in DC, Philly, NYC, and Boston, that I will take a crack head, or a junky any day over a meth head.

My worst East Coast experience was hearing gun shots at 4 in the morning in Philly, and then at breakfast the next day when I brought it up to the friend I was staying with (who also heard the shots), she said: “Well we live in a good neighborhood in Philly, that’s all I can ask for.”

I’m not a tin foil hat person, and I really don’t think it’s Obama, or Bush’s fault, but this country is a powder keg right now!!!

9

Rural living is a great way of life. I could leave my door unlocked, garage door open, and keys in the cars and there would be a low probability of anything occurring. Crime around here is almost non-existent. The only gunshots we hear are in hunting season.

10

Right. In fact, if I leave my garage door open, my neighbor comes over and let’s me know. :slight_smile:

C4

11

We had a murder in the middle of the street in front of the house a few months back. The dogs woke me up at around 0100 and when I went to the front door to check what was going on it looked like a block fight. As people started running away I saw a kid laying in the middle of the street covered in blood. By the time we got on the phone and called the police the sirens were inbound. All I could do is stand watch at my front door with my pistol and make sure it didn’t spill over into my property.

12

A couple of years ago I hear gunshots outside my house…I run outside with a 12 ga and see a car hauling ass down my street and my neighbor’s cutlass had been pushed into the street. He had exchanged fire with the thieves.

A few months after that my other neighbor had a drive by….

13

I went to HS in an area like that, couldn’t even see a neighbors house. I think 40 cars were stolen and other random crap, all because everyone knew people feel safe.

14

I took the time to call the mayor, shootings are not something he deals with, and was direct to call my alderman. I contacted my alderman who is actually a really cool guy, and seemed really concerned about the situation, turns out he isnt my alderman but he told me he was mailing my alderman and the police chief about the situation.

I then called my alderman, who really had no idea where I lived, but I told her I talked to the other alderman and she finally realized I lived in her district. She had no clue of what went on, where it went on and would ask for a report from the police dept.

WTF, I can call the police dept my self and bitch, and they will actually get the call instead of an alderman claiming to call. Yes this makes me want to move to the county, I would if I could.

15

I went to HS in an area like that, couldn’t even see a neighbors house. I think 40 cars were stolen and other random crap, all because everyone knew people feel safe.

I live in the country, and we are prime targets for theft/burglary/whatever. We don’t dare leave the house door unlocked or keys in the cars.

Police response time is on the order of “Never”. I’m not going to bitch about it, we can hold our own against the thugs.

What keeps them in check? Two things: Guns and making everybody think you’re one crazy fucker. The area criminal element gets the word that if they venture onto your property, they ain’t leaving.

I don’t know the best ways to make people think you are nuts living in the city. The methods we use out here won’t work.

We move cars around frequently, so it looks like someone is always home. We shoot at odd hours and frequently. We have two dogs (worthless, actually, IMHO, but the sight of them does help). We greet unwanted visitors while visibly armed (when you come out of the garage with an axe over your shoulder, the Jehovah’s Witnesses leave and never come back). We run the meat seller trucks off the property right damn quick and scare the shit out of them.

We’ve almost never been messed with. Other than the time one of our old dogs (long ago) grabbed ahold of a tire thief…that guy left in a hurry.

16

bobvila- Had a suspicious car cruising the “neighborhood” around a month ago. I learned after the fact that there were 3 calls to the SD within minutes of each other. SD there within 10 min. Car was stopped, asked what their business was(no good answers), and they were told not to return. SD took all their info. SD feels it was a theft ring that was operating one county over coming to case houses and farms. Maybe where you went to school was not vigilant, but not here. We also have an excellent sheriff and a dept. with high moral. We like our SD.

17

Well that is not like where I lived, NO POLICE, NO SHERIFFS, the state police would drive by once a year or two.

18

I see salespeople, cult recruiters or similar, I just answer the door naked. :eek: I never see the same ones twice after they’ve hurried off, stuttering and shaken, and I’m not skylining myself by brandishing anything.

You can do amazing things with a little bit of ruthlessness and a knowledge of societal taboos, and have fun at the same time.

19

An indecent exposure charge would suck… but I still think it’s funny! :smiley:

20

I can’t even begin to remember how many times I’ve had to call the cops while working for stuff on fire, stuff spilling or blowing up, dudes with weapons, all sorts of ridiculous stuff. Response time virtually everywhere for the serious stuff was a uniform 2-3 minutes - with the sole exception being one location where the station was 25 miles away.

Everything else is what pisses off your normal citizen who, as you say, does not understand. Unfortunately “everything else” includes stuff that is still pretty damn important to people… like car theft and vandalism, burglary, etc., stuff that can be catastrophically expensive for people who are poor to begin with.

Understaffed or not, your major PD’s are not going to be making friends by having the entire night shift parked together and sleeping in their cars while one guy stays awake and monitors to the radio. While they’re not out patrolling, all this other shit is going on. It doesn’t happen everywhere, but where it does, it’s a pretty big fail.

I’ve also lived in places with no police at all, and it was a small town but not really that rural. We had no crime issues to speak of outside of domestic issues once or twice a year, everyone looked after everyone else.

There is simply nothing worth living in the ghetto, in my opinion.