What's goin' on in the 'hood

I went to the inaugural meeting for our local Neighborhood Watch group last night and found it riveting because a) men in uniform were involved and b) I think I'm partly nosey. Ok, a lot nosey.

Come 7 p.m, I gathered up my portable lawn chair, a couple nearby neighbors and walked down the street to the cul de sac. A policeman was there to speak about Neighborhood Watch groups and he brought along a list of recent police calls to my neck of the woods. A couple blocks away, there was a heroin addict that finally was arrested on some sort of felony. There were a few neighbors that live near a house that is a couple of blocks away in the other direction from me that even I'm aware of due to the few times I enter the area from the north. These residents will affectionately be called 702 and they have quite a few complaints filed against them already. It is believed that they are renters and whenever I drive by, there's always a lot of people hanging around outside. Other than the young children playing by the semi-busy road and the loose dogs, I haven't seen the same living beings twice, I don't think. According to the neighbors, 702 likes to steal things from people's yard and smack their kids across their faces in broad daylight. Things like this happen so much that one person asked the officer how often does she need to call because there is always something like this going on.

A bit of a sidenote...Big A couldn't make this meeting due to a class but when I was telling him about the complaints from 702's neighbors, he brought up an interesting point...why is it that people who would easily fall under the heading 'White Trash' all have dogs that they don't really take care of? I, on the other hand, have a different thought. Why do they all hang blankets as curtains? I'm thinking that once I learn to sew, I will be handing out some basic curtains to every house I see that has blankets or Detroit Red Wings banner as a curtain.

Lastly, last night's meeting and the reasoning for maybe a group forming was due to Mart's house being broken into about a month ago. Mart lives down the street from me and he seems to be very keen on the environment but slightly "off" in a "he was once married to a mail order bride" kind of way but seems rather harmless. He lives there alone with his two large dogs. The rather interesting part was that his house was broken into on a Saturday, sometime between 6:30 a.m. and noon, after he had left with the two dogs to go to a dog walk fundraiser. When I told Big A this tidbit, he automatically said that it was someone that knew him. It had to be either that or someone was physically there watching and saw him leave with the two dogs and knew it was then safe. I felt bad for him because he was asking Officer Allen and later, the poice chief himself, about gun ownership and scenarios such as if he shot someone in his home, what would happen and if he did shoot the perp and he was still alive, should he shoot him again to kill him. The police chief nicely told him that gun ownership is completely up to him but he would want Mart to still call the police since they are trained to handle this kind of thing. When Mart asked about shooting again to kill the person, the police chief then made an interesting point, "If the person was on the ground and the gun was away from him, that would no longer be self-defense and you could find yourself in a bit of a bind at that point". I just hope I'm never in his shoes. I would say that I don't know him well but I could tell that this event shook him up a bit.

Speaking of the police chief...wowzah! I'd seen pictures of him in the paper and knew his name but I believe some of the women in the crowd (myself included) enjoyed the face-to-face with him last night. Oh yeah, and it was nice of him to take time out of his busy schedule to answer questions...yadah, yadah, yadah.