Would you ask?? How do your police feel about it?

horseandgoatmom

Well-Known Member
Dec 3, 2014
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Rhode Island,New england
In this day and age of keep your eyes and wits about you.
If you were driving to the bank or store and saw very close to your property a police presence then coming back a short time later it was even bigger. Would you stop and ask- I live right over there- my property runs right along the powerlines here my horses are out in their whole area--- "are we safe"???????????

Senario 2
There are 2 people taking photos of the houses along your strech of road- a week or so earlier a neighbor calls and says oh did you see the guy taking photos of peoples houses-- no where is he now
then 2 days later you see a bicycle crammed into the barriers by the bridge and it has saddlebags with
stuff strewn all over the road and hanging out of it.

This happened here and I waited almost an hr after looking all around my property to make sure no one was
walking around down the bottom of my hill popping bicycle quick to grab camera or something to take a photo of who knows what - the turkeys going thru or something.(I could see myself someplace wanting a stupid photo of something and running to get it leaving a mess strewn about and bicycle just crammed )

I walked up to the couple taking photos and asked can I help you? Oh we are just taking photos of
decorations (that does not add up only my house and one 5-6 down had any decorations) they took photos
of all the houses and walked up and took photos of train station too and that was not decorated either.
and neither of us had world class decorations.

The police came when I called on the bike and said yes this does not look right at all . and I told him about the neighbor telling me about someone taking photos- he said that happened to him and he walked out and asked
and he said its was a realtor taking photos of "comps" - the cop told him you need to have some Ident on you
and look like a realtor not a bum off the street.
He did tell me to call if you ever see anything like that.

I did call on the people taking photos cop came and talked to them_ they were in station waiting for train.
They claimed to be foreign student oh "just taking photos" cop said yes you were totally right to call.

The police presence the other day when I drove up and did ask am I "safe" one laughed and said
"SAFER THAN YOU HAVE EVER BEEN"
it did turn out they were gathering for police dog training and also were not upset that I did stop and ask.

Two years ago here twice in same week looked out and all sorts of police in station train being stopped way short of station commuters turned away. and one day it was bomb threat and couple days later
it was suspicious un-attended package!!

It does make me a bit nervous now.

I also when starting out on ride 2 days ago saw hunter walking down the street - flag him down to let him know there are horses/ goats nearby.
We talked for a few min he was ok not a jerk at all. He said he knows about the horses/goats. His tree stand is far far out and faces away from our direction.
 
I don't think its unreasonable to ask "am I safe" however the police in town here probably wouldn't be too helpful, however I found when I lived out of town they were more accomodating. I don't know if its just because a street in town they would have to answer dozens of people and out further they might only have to talk to one or two who could genuinely be at more risk through isolation.

We have really nice local bobbies, I stop and chat whenever I see them (not busy) and the few occasions I have seen things that worried me they have responded and called me back to let me know what happened;

My horsey neighbour saw a dark BMW pull into the drive of my yard and the guys get out, she had seen them earlier at the next neighbours down yard too so she approached and challenged them, the guy said he was taking a shortcut home (down our dead end lane!!!) and took off. I went into town and found an officer (as I find you get a better resonse face to face) and explained that there was a very elderly house bound lady that lives on site (alone at the time) and she would be very vunerable, they agreed to try to track down the car via CCTV and do drive-bys to check down the lane every few hours. Sadly they weren't able to track the vehicle but we never saw them again either.

In a power cut last winter I saw a group of people at the entracne to a store on the edge of town, they had flashlights and appeared to be forcing the doors so I called it in, turned out it was the store staff struggling to close the automatic doors which obviously dont work without power!
 
In a power cut last winter I saw a group of people at the entracne to a store on the edge of town, they had flashlights and appeared to be forcing the doors so I called it in, turned out it was the store staff struggling to close the automatic doors which obviously dont work without power!

Better to be safe than sorry! I am sure that no shop owner would have a problem with it either.
 
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Not sure I really followed the whole post, but in answer to your question - yes of course you are entitled to ask the police if you are safe. You cannot expect them to tell you a detailed account of what they are doing, but if you are worried about being in danger then they are there to reassure you.
 
I have found our local police excellent on every rare occasion I've ever had to talk to them. They have a heck of a job to do in the bigger towns and I applaud it, quite frankly, I don't know how they put up with some of the trouble they get! Around here it's a slower pace of life, yet they are still needed obviously. They've always been extremely helpful when I've had cause to ask or approach them regarding anything.

I once saw something I thought was suspicious about fourteen years ago - maybe longer!lol (time flies). When we lived at our old house we used to always take our car to the automatic car wash in town every Sunday. Anyhoo, one week we were queued waiting to use a booth - and there was this odd happening. A car pulled up to a screeching halt and two or three folk jumped out. They had a large sports style bag with them which they flung into another car parked nearby and then they just dumped the first car and drove away. Nobody else seemed to notice and it was broad daylight! I was a bit scared as I wondered if they had seen us, we were sort of peering through the windscreen - don't think they did see us but I didn't want any trouble (vivid imagination me thinking they might have clocked our number plate and know if we had rung the police!).
I didn't do anything about it cos it could have been perfectly innocent. They could have just been in a rush - but there was something odd there.

Another time we were on our way home at one of the huge roundabouts with trees planted in the middle and sides - semi rural I suppose. Well, as we came to the junction the car in front opened its passenger door and hurled a large black bag out into the undergrowth at the side. Most odd!
 
We had an odd event outside the back door of the cafe earlier in the week: the police appeared to be arresting, releasing and re-arresting one individual. Eventually the staff told me they were worried, I asked and discovered that they were training!

I wouldn't hesitate to ask the police anything.
 
I saw something like that once Trews, 3 older youths came running roud the side of the pub to the carpark and jumped in a car and sped off, odd but not illigal, I felt pretty bad when I found out the next day they had held up the co-op next door with a knife
 
I saw something like that once Trews, 3 older youths came running roud the side of the pub to the carpark and jumped in a car and sped off, odd but not illigal, I felt pretty bad when I found out the next day they had held up the co-op next door with a knife


Oh crikey!
 
Yes, ask the police - here they will generally tell you if you need to know anyway as they will ask about if anyone has seen anything if is relevant :)

And whilst the police would attend the photo incident - without a detailed description, names, vehicle registrations sadly it can be no more than "suspicious circumstances" with an area search done to locate them until more information comes to light. Police can't magic investigation leads out of nothing (despite what a lot seem to think :D)... That said a friendly chat, explanation and reassurance goes a long way in the circumstances :)
 
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We had an odd event outside the back door of the cafe earlier in the week: the police appeared to be arresting, releasing and re-arresting one individual. Eventually the staff told me they were worried, I asked and discovered that they were training!

I wouldn't hesitate to ask the police anything.

And yes, someone I know had a training fight in a car park - there was a group of rowdy actors, one of which collapses part way through the drill... Some poor HGV driver saw the officer struggling with the three youths and one then collapse, he parked up and ran over with a first aid kit for the ill one and then started laying into the other two!
 
It's not an issue here, they come into the village to check firearms holders and that's about it. Our police just about do as they are told. ;)
 
I probably wouldn't notice any suspicious stuff anyway. I lived in London for 15 years though and if you let yourself get paranoid about potential terrorists and people acting strangely, you'd never leave the house!
 
I probably wouldn't notice any suspicious stuff anyway. I lived in London for 15 years though and if you let yourself get paranoid about potential terrorists and people acting strangely, you'd never leave the house!

Acting strangely?? there's plenty of that going on, but best be careful as often it's me acting strangely :D Everyone has binoculars on every window ledge, you can do NOTHING in this village without everyone knowing.
 
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Acting strangely?? there's plenty of that going on, but best be careful as often it's me acting strangely :D Everyone has binoculars on every window ledge, you can do NOTHING in this village without everyone knowing.

It is like that here and what they don't know they will invent! I should imagine they all knew we were selling up last Monday - even before the estate agent landed!!!!
 
I grew up in rural Devon and it was just like that - I couldn't get away with anything without my Mum finding out!
 
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