Imagine you are a bit of a night owl. One evening, a touch after midnight, the upstairs neighbors in your apartment building are stomping the ungodly hell out of the floor over your head. This, while somewhat rare in position and time, is not unusual on the whole; your roommate often complains about the stomping feet over her head at most hours of the day, and you get a decent sampling during what few hours you spend in the living room, watching TV.
This night's a little different, though. At one point you start to think, is the lady upstairs crying? Not long after you hear her yelling, "Leave me alone!" two or three times, the crashing footsteps starting to crescendo even relative to the volume they had been holding, and it's definitely not your imagination.
Shifting out of hypothetical mode and into the actual factuals...
It's pretty clear something's wrong. I, possessing a sturdier frame and most likely more martial arts training than the adult male on the upstairs premises, briefy entertain the urge to go up there and, if I see what I think I'm going to see, bash his head against the wall until he stops twitching. (Yeah, violence is bad- I get that way about this stuff, what can I say.) But that's probably going to cause more problems than it solves, and in any case, I have no way to get into their apartment.
The only real alternative is to call the police, so I do that. I decide against telling them anything about myself, save my first name (they have my phone number, obviously). I say I'm outside rather than under their feet; I figure this way the cops don't get my ID and it sounds even worse, since it's a lot harder to hear something like that from outside the building.
Twenty minutes later the cops show up. I slide out onto the porch about five minutes after that, as it's very dark and I'm basically concealed. But instead of overhearing some substantial portion of the conversation (the stairs and doors here are outside), the cops are already heading back downstairs, saying, "Sorry to bother you," and back to their car. I knew the odds of anything actually happening were slim, but still, this irritates me.
What all this leads to is one question: Could I, or should I, have done anything different?
The only thing that sticks out is that I could have given them my information, so that they would have less reason to believe it's just some idiot trying to get back at this guy for something when nothing's actually wrong. But the people upstairs don't appear to talk to anyone, save the kid and his couple of skating buddies, and I don't know what the reaction would be if the cops came to my door and made it obvious I was the one that ratted him out. There's the concern of retaliation against me, or worse, my roommate, but also the consideration that if he got abusive again, he'd try to muffle it so I couldn't tell what was going on. Obviously I'd rather no one get beaten up at all, but if it has to happen, better that I know so I can call the cops again. I could identify myself at that point and hope they take it more seriously. That's my logic, anyway; I've never been around this before, so I have no idea if it's flawed.
Thoughts/ideas?
0 TrackBacks
Listed below are links to blogs that reference this entry: Being Neighborly.
TrackBack URL for this entry: http://www.feministing.com/cgi-bin/movabletype/mt-tb.fcgi/15529
I don't know if it'd be legal, but if you were worried about the cops believing you, you could record an audio file of them fighting upstairs and give that to the cops. But the case could probably almost always be argued that it was just a normal marital (or whatever) dispute.
I think the best thing you could do is try and become friendly with the lady upstairs. Get her to trust you. She probably doesn't have a lot of people who she could go to about it. Then at the point where she does come to you, you can go to the police with her and because you already had a previous report on him and her you are more likely to be able to get something done about it
I like this idea. Unfortunately, the incident happened over a month ago- I wrote this post at that time, but I didn't have posting rights then, and just realized I have them now. I also have never seen her outside the apartment without her husband. I'll keep this in mind, but I don't think I can make use of it unless another incident occurs.
On the other hand, there's been no such incident, so presumably that's a plus. Hopefully it stays that way.
I agree. Let her know that you're on her side. It could help her immensly. It is really important for you to stay safe too. Maybe there's a phrase she could yell which would tell you to CALL THE POLICE NOW? That way you don't need to wait to be sure that there's a conflict, but also you don't jump the gun and call because she's yelling at the cat or at someone on the phone.
I can't think of anything you could have done to handle it better. You acted with a cool head and pretty solid reasons for what you did. As the others said, the best thing you can do now is make friends with the lady upstairs . . .
Also, if you keep calling the cops when this kind of thing happens then it may make it easier for her to get a restraining order if leaves him, as there will be a record of the abuse (not entirely sure how the US system works, so could be wrong about this).
I'm a bit of an idiot when it comes to things that gets my adrenalin pumping. I probably would've walked up and knocked on their door and asked what the f* was going on. And if I'd seen any evidence of anything violent I probably would've made a major scene about it.
I know it's stupid, besides the obvious reason I'm a rather smallish and weak girl, kind of like a terrier, I do have a loud bark when I et going.
You probably handled it a million times better than I would've.
I agree. Its good to know I'm not the only one.
The cops leaving after not doing anything is the normal outcome, sadly. Sometimes, there's othing they CAN do, because the fight has stopped by the time they get there and the victim refuses to say anything, or sometimes they simply don't take it seriously. You did a good thing, to even say anything. Keep calling them. I hope for your neighbor.
That kind of makes me glad the one time we heard a fight from our place, it didn't stop until the cops arrived (kind of, because it was in the middle of the night, kept us awake for over an hour, and affected my husband pretty badly--he's from an abusive household).
Only fight we ever heard them have, by the way, though I don't know what actually happened once the cops arrived.