Suspicious Persons

[redlin67]

Me and the better half went to the range last evening and stopped for dinner afterwards. When we got home, there was an unknown truck in the neighbor's driveway and four unknown young gents standing on the street. I pulled into my drive and my neighbor on the other side was standing in the shadows in her driveway. I ask her what was going on, she was attempting to call the neighbor to my right, but wasn't able to reach him, so she had called the constables office to come by. I was carrying, so I stood closer to the street and watched the four gents. My left side neighbors husband ,who is HPD, also came out, I could easily tell he had his weapon in his pocket. After a couple of minutes, they must not have liked all the attention they were getting, so they loaded up in their truck and drove off. Right after they left, the constable shows up about the same time as my neighbor on the right walks up, he was out for a stroll. So we check his house, all was normal, no signs of break in or anything missing. If nothing else, we let the four strangers know that this part of the neighborhood might not be easy pickins.

[lonewolf]

Great job! I am an outside the house type person myself. The usual routine for a lot of my neighbors is this: garage door opens, car leaves, door closes. Door opens again in the evening, car enters, door closes. Lawn service comes by and mows, bill paid by mail. Totally oblivious to life outside the living room as far as I can see...

I spend a great deal of time in the garage (the man cave) since I don't smoke in the house (courtesy reasons). There is a LARGE upright freezer behind my work table, and my boys thought it would be neat to hang one of my used silhouette targets on it. The bullet holes really stand out since the freezer is white and the silhouette is blue. I had them take it down so we didn't scare the neighbors....... (or advertise that there are guns here)

[RPB]

very good job; you may have prevented an unwelcome "greet and beat" party for your neighbor.

Ive heard of many driveway robberies.

When I know neighbors are out of town or at work and strange cares/trucks pull up in front of their house, I nearly always find yardwork or some reason to go out ad wave to the unknown person and say hi, from a distance; once it was neighbor's son, fixing a ceiling while they were out of town. That neighbor brings me home made bread often now.

[C-dub]

Suspicious activity I notice, but strange cars are not as easy. There are teenagers and single 20 somethings in my neighborhood, so there are different cars around all the time.

[USA1]

The only thing I would add to this is to get the plate number and vehicle description next time.
That information can be invaluable.

[Excaliber]

Suspicious activity I notice, but strange cars are not as easy. There are teenagers and single 20 somethings in my neighborhood, so there are different cars around all the time.

What's important is not just a vehicle that hasn't been seen there before, but who's occupying it and what they're doing.

A new vehicle with a single female driver that comes down the street once at the speed limit and leaves the neighborhood is no problem.

A new vehicle with 4 young men in it who come by every 4 or 5 minutes at half the speed limit and slow down or stop in front of every home with all the lights off is a different story.

Neither is proof positive of either innocence or criminal intent, but the second provides articulable elements for believing a crime may be in the making.

[Excaliber]

The only thing I would add to this is to get the plate number and vehicle description next time.
That information can be invaluable.

Absolutely correct.

If you accurately record the tag number and get very few details on the vehicle, you've captured what's needed to track it down unless it's a bad day and the tag is not on the right vehicle.

If you accurately record the vehicle make, color, accessories, occupants, and damage but not the tag, you've got enough info to keep detectives busy for days or weeks trying to match the described combination of those commonly encountered items with the one vehicle you saw.

If it's safe to approach the vehicle (e.g., an unoccupied vehicle parked in the driveway of a neighbor you think may be away) strolling by with your dog and snapping cellphone pics of both the tag and the whole vehicle will earn you the sincere thanks of investigators if it turns out to be part of a crime.