I live in downtown Greensboro and witnessed a very surprising turn of events last evening. I was upstairs doing some work and my girlfriend was downstairs watching HGTV. Around 10:30 pm she yelled upstairs and said, “do you see the police over by X’s house?” I said yes and looked out the window to check things out. All I could see is the flashing lights from the police car and figured someone got pulled for speeding. 10 minutes or so go by and I hear this commotion and at first I didn’t know what I was hearing but I did know it sounded like a mixture of a policeman yelling and someone jumping over my neighbors eight foot tall privacy fence. I quickly ran downstairs to see what in the world was going on. I looked out the front door and saw 3 police cars. I then went to my back door to scope things out and that is when I saw my neighbor (in her 60’s at least) looking terrified and holding a white hat that had fallen off someone’s head as they jumped her fence and fled from the police. I took the hat from her and told her to go inside (at this point I had no clue who was in either of our backyards). I went back out front and handed the hat to the policeman (and noticed they had one person in custody) and said, “Can I ask what is going on?” He then says, “I will come talk to you guys in a bit” which I was completely fine with.
The next thing I know another police car shows up along with a police dog. The officer and dog proceed to walk through my back yard (gun drawn) and out the back searching for who knows what. Eventually eight police cars lined the street and they looked to be searching very hard for someone. As I stood inside looking out the window the policeman talked with the man in custody and he seemed to be of no real interest to the police (he was handcuffed).
After 30 minutes had passed my girlfriend kept asking me to go ask what was going on. I didn’t want to bother the police again… after all I was told that they would “Come talk to us in a bit.” Not wanting to wait she walked outside and politely asked what was going on and the same policeman that I spoke with said, “Just a routine traffic stop” and he said nothing more. Are you freaking kidding me? This left my girlfriend feeling extremely unsafe and I think her feelings were warranted.
Would it have hurt for the policeman to come up to our door (I turned the light on outside to emphasize that we were up) and tell us that everything was fine and a bit of what had taken place? I don’t need to know the specifics… but I would like to know who the heck jumped my neighbors fence and if they were a serious threat to anyone’s safety. How do you think my poor neighbor felt? All she knows is that someone jumped her fence running from the police and that eight police cars were sitting in front of her home.
I am troubled by the lack of interest that the police officer had to calm those affected by this “routine traffic stop” and feel as though this is just one of the 900 things wrong with our police department. (Sarcasm ahead) If it is routine to have eight police cars, 10+ officers and one police dog on the scene for a traffic stop, the police department needs some serious training.
I would like to thank the City of Greensboro for this first hand experience and making my girlfriend scared in our own home.
The next thing I know another police car shows up along with a police dog. The officer and dog proceed to walk through my back yard (gun drawn) and out the back searching for who knows what. Eventually eight police cars lined the street and they looked to be searching very hard for someone. As I stood inside looking out the window the policeman talked with the man in custody and he seemed to be of no real interest to the police (he was handcuffed).
After 30 minutes had passed my girlfriend kept asking me to go ask what was going on. I didn’t want to bother the police again… after all I was told that they would “Come talk to us in a bit.” Not wanting to wait she walked outside and politely asked what was going on and the same policeman that I spoke with said, “Just a routine traffic stop” and he said nothing more. Are you freaking kidding me? This left my girlfriend feeling extremely unsafe and I think her feelings were warranted.
Would it have hurt for the policeman to come up to our door (I turned the light on outside to emphasize that we were up) and tell us that everything was fine and a bit of what had taken place? I don’t need to know the specifics… but I would like to know who the heck jumped my neighbors fence and if they were a serious threat to anyone’s safety. How do you think my poor neighbor felt? All she knows is that someone jumped her fence running from the police and that eight police cars were sitting in front of her home.
I am troubled by the lack of interest that the police officer had to calm those affected by this “routine traffic stop” and feel as though this is just one of the 900 things wrong with our police department. (Sarcasm ahead) If it is routine to have eight police cars, 10+ officers and one police dog on the scene for a traffic stop, the police department needs some serious training.
I would like to thank the City of Greensboro for this first hand experience and making my girlfriend scared in our own home.
