Here's the story...
We have a super nice lady who cleans our house. I always joke that she isn't good, but she is CHEAP! But mostly? She doesn't steal from us. So we like her and have used her for years. Sometimes, she and her husband, also clean our carpets.
Today was one of those carpet days. (Hope has DESTROYED the family room carpet.) Any how, because she had other cleaning jobs, she dropped off her husband at our place so he could do the carpets.
While he was there, he took a break and went out in our yard for cigarette. He also took Hope for a walk. (LIke I said, these are NICE people. He gratuitously was walking my dog!) But apparently my neighbors saw him...a black man taking a smoke in our yard... and freaked the fuck out. They called the flipping police.
Three...count them...1...2...3...THREE cruisers showed up. (Of course, to the defense of my sort-of-crimeless town, the one time Car-man left open the front door of the house, TWO cruisers showed up.) I guess the police took his word for the fact that he was cleaning our carpets. Maybe the carpeting cleaning machine convinced them. I don't know. But Car-man showed up just after the police left (he happened to come home for lunch to check on the dog, who has been sick). And that's how we found out what happened.
It is so ridiculous that someone called the police. First, of all, it was daylight and he was in the FRONT yard, in full sight of everyone. And he wasn't in a hurry or taking things out of the house. Heck, he didn't even have a car, so it wasn't like there was going to be a get-away. Best of all, he was hanging with my little white fluff of a dog. She's about as vicious as a lollipop. (Which I suppose can jab itself into the back of your mouth and go into your brain if you eat it while walking, or at least that's what my mom told my kids. But I digress.)
My neighbors are inexcusable, racist idiots.
I am so embarrassed.
Lewis Gates' house.
20 comments:
Good grief. That reminds me of the call I took one day (here at 911) from a guy reporting a suspicious person at the...wait for it...gas station. He claimed the gas station was not open (it does have 24 hour pumps though). When I tried to verify what was suspicious he told me the guy was black.
?
I said, are you serious? He said, yes. Well, with a lot of cuss words. And I said you want police to contact this guy at a gas station because he is black? and he said yes. I said, whatever, I'll let 'em know. Dispatch promptly closed it and did not send anyone.
What a jerk.
First off, I'm black. It's ridiculous that I need to say that out front, just so I'M not labeled a racist for even saying this.
Maybe instead of trotting out the race card immediately, you should look at it from a neighborly point of view.
I know I saw a previous unknown man (black, white, asian, hispanic, or otherwise) hanging out in my neighbor's yard in the middle of the work day, I'd be suspicious, too. Yes, the neighbor could have confronted the man him/herself, but if you're the older, frail, non-confrontational type, the police call is the safe one.
Why are you so quick to scream "racist!"?
How degraded he must have felt. So sad. So very sad and sorry you have a neighbor that stupid.
DI
Arggh...my sentence should read:
I know IF I saw a PREVIOUSLY unknown man...
Mike, Because the police told him the report was about a black man in our yard. Because I live in a traditional "white flight" area of my metropolitan area where people get stopped for "driving while black". Because this man has been in my home before, so "unknown" to who? And mostly because they don't call the police when this guys' WHITE wife is standing in my yard having a cigarette when she cleans my house. They don't know her either.
Ugh. Why are people such idiots sometimes?
I see Mike's point - we are told here to call the cops to report anything even mildly suspicious. A stranger of any race having a smoke in your front yard would be considered suspicious here.
Anyhoo.......the three cop cars is EXACTLY what would happen here. It's embarrassing when you are calling about something very minor and then it ends up looking like a drug bust is happening in your driveway.
We had a different, but over the top, incident in our neighborhood recently.
Our neighbor called us at 7:30 in the morning to tell us that the police were coming to inspect a suspicious motorcycle parked ON THE STREET between our two houses. The motorcycle had been parked on the street in the middle of the night, and they reported it at 7:30 in the morning. Fortunately the sherrif had better things to do, and then in afternoon, the owner of the motorcycle, whos spark plug had shorted out on his way home from work, came back to replace the spark plug and pick up his bike. (HE was incredibly appologetic, by the way, for BREAKING DOWN in front of our houses.)
My husband and I were cracking up imagining how our friends in the city would respond if their neighbors had called them to report a suspicious motorcycle parked on the curb in front of their apartment buildings.
Yes there is such a thing as an overzealous Neighborhood Watch!
Just ugh.
I could understand the call (I don't care what color the skin was) if the man was taking things out of the house, or vandelizing something. But seriously if he was just walking a dog and having a smoke,,,,really? though I don't know that I would advise anyone to approach a stranger (you just never know). But we have a system here with my neighbors that if we see something "out of the ordinary" we call the neighbor first. We all have each other's cell phone numbers, work numbers,and such. I have called a neighbor before to let her know I saw a strange car in her driveway (she works out of her house). She let me know that she had hired someone to watch her cat while she was out of town and said thanks for the call and keeping an eye on the house.
Some people just don't think first. I feel bad for the gentleman that cleans your carpets. I too would be embarrassed also.
I would use the neighborhood rats and find out who it was and shame them.
As for the poor man, fruit basket?
I second Mike.
A notable difference, the Gates call was by a neighbor who didn't recognized his/her own neighbor! Your case, a neighbor didn't recognize a person who did not live there.
I give kudos to your neighbor and scorn to Gates' neighbor for not knowing who live next to them.
Adding fuel to the Gates fire, he did not produce ID when requested. Stupid at best, arrogant at worst. Unfortunately, I think it is the latter.
Three cars might, just might, have been overkill though.
3 cop cars? Overkill much?
Ahhhhhh shit.
This is more amusing than infuriating, to me, just because I'm picturing his reaction. Maybe the neighbors were offended because he was walking with a white dog? lol
I like the lollipop thing-- my wife is always on lollipop patrol, while I couldn't care less. ("You MUST be sitting at all times! If you move, I'm throwing it in the garbage! The second step could choke you instantaneously!!")
Oh my... I hope the three police cars were enough to subdue the maniac and catch the wild dog.
Um? Wow.
I lived through the nonsense that you spoke of here in MA and sadly, I also lived through my friends 15 year old daughter being run over and killed by a car in our Small Town bit more than a month ago.
If the driver had not been the white super star athlete from the town over? I could tell a different story here. Had he been an hispanic lawn mower? Jail. This kid, and he's 19 and with a VERY BAD driving record only NOW has had his license removed.
So yeah I feel you.
my point being: racism STILL exists everywhere and hurts all of us.
Stepping off soap box.
Bravo. Good post. The pic was a nice touch!
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