An ounce of prevention against a "Suspicious Person"

Legal & Second Amendment
#1

Blogger John Caile shares a great example of how trusting your gut can be a very good thing:

The woman he talks about followed up with the police who then created a neighborhood bullet with the suspect’s photo.

I don’t know how they disseminated the bulletin, but there’s a handy app I personally have on my phone that is for you to connect with your neighborhood:

I’ve gotten notices from neighbors about strange vehicles, coyotes wandering our subdivision (that’s very unusual where I live) and other topics that were geared to our area.

Would you take the time to report a suspicious person to the police? Would you post about it on a neighborhood app?

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#2

Leaving for work ~0330. Car running in front on house next door that I had never seen. Occupied x 2. Took license plate and called police NON-emergency to report. ~10 minutes later two squad cars show up. Quick interview and it turns one of them lived in a house just a block or so over and were sitting in the car chatting innocently before the male took her home from a date. NOT unusual to use the street I live on to get to get there, but they came further into the cul-de-sac and just turned around and stopped there. Driver was personally known to one of the officers.

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#3

I’ve called the police in a similar circumstance. I was a stay at home mom for a number of years and did freelance writing. So I was home with the kids all day. At about 11 am an unmarked moving van pulled up in front of my neighbors house and sat there for about 15 minutes. At one point the driver got out and walked around my neighbors house.

I called the police NON-emergency number (very good point about that) and also called my neighbor who was at work and couldn’t come to the phone. The police got there and talked to the moving van driver. Turns out it was a local furniture company very early for their delivery time. Their branded truck was in the shop and they were using a rental for their deliveries while it was being fixed.

The police came over and talked to me - and thanked me for calling it in! There are so many times people saw something suspicious but never called it in and things turned out badly. :confused:

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#4

Nextdoor is a great app! I’ve been using this for last 2 years. I’m up-to-date with everything what happens in my neighborhood.
We have local Police Dept and Fire Dept on our Nextdoor Community and they are giving us warnings and plenty of good advices.
I, personally do not spend a lot of time at home during the day, so never have had a chance to see suspicious person, however I see a lot of posts on Nextdoor describing such situations.
I’m glad I have great neighbors :muscle:

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#5

Same app I use, along with the same results. I have had to mute a couple of folks who tend to send URGENT messages about mundane stuff. Is it really URGENT when you are on the app looking for a painter for your bedroom or bathroom? Things like that. We have a lot of missing/found pets and items that get re-united with owners. Great connectivity with local PD/FD. All good things.

#6

I’ve used Nextdoor a few times and see all the alerts. Some of them are great and others are just a waste of time.
And yes, I will call the police if there is suspicious activity.
Once when off duty, I observed a traffic stop that was just not quite right. I saw what appeared to be a Louisville police officer stopping a vehicle but the police car was an unmarked old beater with expired out of state tags. As I passed and went to a location where I could turn around, I called it in to my dispatch to confirm whether it was a legitimate stop. It was legitimate. No one ever would expect a POS car from out of state to be the PoPo.
I, in an unmarked car, was once being followed by a car flashing headlights behind me. I pulled in to a parking lot and stopped in a tactical position and exited my car as the other driver did the same. When he got out, he had his badge on a chain around his neck. I verbally identified myself and exposed my badge on my belt. He was a vice officer and he saw the lights in my deck and I was not in the typical Crown Vic and did not have official tags. It was a little tense but we both laughed about it.

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