background: staying in a roadside motel in the US. Man and Woman in the next room are screaming at each other. 1:30 in the morning. Not my problem.
But I did get voyeuristic and plant my ear on the wall. Most I could comprehend was “your daughter, but what about MY daughter?” from the woman. That’s what I thought I heard.
I was like, if I am certain I can tell that someone is beating on someone, and trying to kill them, or you know just violence is happening, then I’ll call 911. but I was far from certain. all i could discern was crying and screaming.
Hour later, someone is pounding on my door. is it someone in distress? I am in the least accessible and least desirable room in the place. It’s probably one of those two neighbors, but which one?
Anyways, I’m in the US, so I have one or more guns, but I don’t keep them loaded or accessible. by the time I had something ready, I think the neighbors were about to pass out. they currently are quiet after hours of screaming.
So I’m not a fan of cops, but not entirely against them. Situations in which I did call the cops:
-Neighbors were screaming at each other, 3 a.m.; their 6-year-old girl was out in the street crying.
-I heard broken glass and looked out the window, and saw a pair of big man’s boots going into what I thought was a single woman’s apartment.
Imminent danger. Call the cops.
I’d call the cops on the noise alone. Its their job to decide whether to, and how to intervene. Of course, the police in my country aren’t trigger happy morons, so that does change it a bit.
yeah the noise is not enough. it’s literally not a crime in this area and therefore not the interest of police.
personally i’m inured to the idea of people screaming at each other. don’t like it, don’t care. I don’t think it really hurts anybody outside of the screaming people. is that a crime in some places?
It violates noise laws where I live. I have called the police because my neighbours were having drunken, obscenity filled screaming matches on their driveway at 3 am. The police have come and told them to knock it the fuck off or they will drag one of them off the jail each time. They haven’t done it outside where they can disturb their neighbours, we are far from the closest, since the third or fourth time I did that.
Not sure what the exact law is, but there are noise restrictions after 10pm in my area. So not just domestics, lawnmowers, reving car engines, drumkits etc are all prohibited. Its at the polices discretion to how they handle it, whenever I have called it in, usually the cops tell them to be quiet, and that theyll swing by a bit later to make sure its peaceful.
Ask yourself if you’d be ok with someone dying in the situation, because that’s the only thing cops are good for
That’s actually a good barometer.
If it’s a thing where it’s potentially violent, like a guy with a bat smashing up parked cars, call the police.
A crazy man talking about how the Lizard men have taken his stereo, I’m calling the non-emergency number or ask 911 to send behavioral specialists.
If you see something, say something. I’ve called for lots of things - old man barely walking down the street when it’s >100F outside, guy in a bullet proof vest and a hoodie when it was super hot out, couple screaming horrible violent things at each other, … Basically any time i think, “huh, someone more qualified should check on that.”
ETA- in that case i would have called the front desk.
Yeah. I work in schools. If you’re near a school and you’re wearing a vest and a jacket when it’s crazy hot out, I’m calling the popos. Fuck you!
What makes you think the police are more qualified than you or the people involved. Calling the cops like that will get an innocent person killed. I called the cops for dumb reasons when I was younger but now that I know better. I’ll only call if I see serious violence. Otherwise I’m just calling someone else’s executioner.
I’m surprised you didn’t knock on their door yourself and say “hey, me and the other neighbors are concerned”.
I’m also sure a motel has terms and conditions as well as faculty of its own. Calling someone wouldn’t have been unforgiven.
I have a slightly different perspective/experience with police. I might not see their justification as perfect given they’re appointed on a statehood basis and I don’t see the state’s authority as binding, but all my experiences with them have been somehow positive, more positive than I can say my experiences with civilians are, especially those who try to backseat drive how order in the world works. If I have a threshold like is asked, it’s the time I called them to tell them a park faucet was broken and leaking, the kind people might use for a hose, and people were livid at me the next day when the faucet was barricaded with “out of order” barriers, like they’d rather massively waste a resource than give up an asset.
Interfering in a domestic dispute is a really, really good way to get assaulted.
Yeah, but it would be distress-based. I for one can’t imagine myself not being human about things.
That’s why you generally would want to call cops; it’s supposed to be their job, and they’re supposed to be trained to do shit like that. No, they often aren’t, and don’t do their job, but they’re probably better equipped to deal with it than most non-police are.
I have gotten in the middle of something before–a driver in a huge pickup truck trying to run over a motorcyclist that he was angry at–and shit is not fun. It’s one of the few times that I wish that I remembered to carry concealed regularly, or at all.
