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Say what?

Do you recognize your neighbors by sight?

  • N/A -- I live in a high occupancy building; there're too many neighbors

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Total voters
    11

Xelor

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Ving Rhames was recently held at gunpoint in his own home by police officers who suspected he was burglarizing the property after a neighbor reported that a “large black man” had broken in, the actor said on Friday.

“I get up, I open the door and there’s a red dot pointed at my face from a 9-millimeter [gun], and they say, ‘Put up your hands.’ Literally.”

The police officer who allegedly pointed the gun at him was joined by two other police officers, a police dog and the captain of police — the latter who eventually recognized Rhames not from his film work but because their son’s respective high school basketball teams had previously played against each other, Rhames said.

Asked why police were there, Rhames claimed police told them they were responding to a 911 call about a potential burglary. “He said to me, ‘A woman called 911 [and] said a large black man was breaking into the house. And so we came,’ ”

“You can check this with the Santa Monica Police Department. They apologized and what have you,” Rhames said. “This is the God’s honest truth.”

“What if it was my son and he had a video game remote or something, and you thought it was a gun? Just like, I don’t know, Trayvon had a bag of Skittles.”

Seriously? The man's neighbor (several of them perhaps) called the cops who arrived in force -- not just a cop or two but five units.

Let me be clear: the issue here isn't how the cops handled the matter, it's that the man's neighbor is who called the cops.

I don't care how well one knows or doesn't know one's neighbors, in a single-family home sort of neighborhood wherein the homes are close enough and situated so one can see from one's own home to one or more neighbor's, one at least by-sight recognizes one's neighbors. One sees them in the yard, walking around, getting the mail, coming and going, etc.

Apparently black folks aren't allowed to lock themselves out of the house?
 
Seriously? The man's neighbor (several of them perhaps) called the cops who arrived in force -- not just a cop or two but five units.

Let me be clear: the issue here isn't how the cops handled the matter, it's that the man's neighbor is who called the cops.

I don't care how well one knows or doesn't know one's neighbors, in a single-family home sort of neighborhood wherein the homes are close enough and situated so one can see from one's own home to one or more neighbor's, one at least by-sight recognizes one's neighbors. One sees them in the yard, walking around, getting the mail, coming and going, etc.

Apparently black folks aren't allowed to lock themselves out of the house?
I might be able to recognize some of my neighbors by sight, but not all of them
 
Seriously? The man's neighbor (several of them perhaps) called the cops who arrived in force -- not just a cop or two but five units.

Let me be clear: the issue here isn't how the cops handled the matter, it's that the man's neighbor is who called the cops.

I don't care how well one knows or doesn't know one's neighbors, in a single-family home sort of neighborhood wherein the homes are close enough and situated so one can see from one's own home to one or more neighbor's, one at least by-sight recognizes one's neighbors. One sees them in the yard, walking around, getting the mail, coming and going, etc.

Apparently black folks aren't allowed to lock themselves out of the house?
Sounds like another beer summit with Obama!
 
I wouldn't recognize any of my neighbors, but I work an odd shift and generally don't pay any attention to what is going on outside.
 
I might be able to recognize some of my neighbors by sight, but not all of them

To be sure, there're situations whereby it's quite reasonable that one wouldn't know all of one's neighbors. My own neighborhood is quasi-suburban and in the heart of the city, so it's a place where many of us don't recognize one another; however, the folks living right around my house -- the ones on either side of me and behind my place -- recognize me and I them. They are the residents I call "my neighbors." Everyone else just lives in the neighborhood.

That said, the neighborhood has a lot of transients. Even so, folks at the very least stop by to say stuff like, "We're having a party on 'Thursday' night. You're welcome to stop by, but we wanted to let you know there'll be valets and caterers, etc. and more traffic that evening." Occasionally one sees the neighbor or their staff on their deck/porch, or pulling into or exiting their driveways and one waves, says 'hi' or something and so do they.

The neighbors who are further down the street or more distant, no I don't know them, but then I would never be in a position to see someone breaking into their house either (unless the burglar has bags in hand going through the front window as I drive/walk by -- very unlikely).

The neighborhoods where I grew up, also in the city, have a wholly different vibe. Those neighborhoods (Spring Valley and Forest Hills) are "suburban" in all respects other than being inside the city limits. People move in and raise a family, kids played at one another's homes and ride bikes around on the streets, build forts in the adjacent woods, etc. In Momma's current neighborhood, one just can't see someone trying to break in. In the one we lived in as small kids, the immediately adjacent neighbor would see a person breaking in on the side or from the rear and would know damn well whether the person crawling through the rear window resides there.

Santa Monica is sort of a mix. It's got places that are too private for anyone to be seen "breaking in" or it's typical suburban. I'd have to think that Rhames' place was in the latter sort of neighborhood, for obvious reasons. It's for that reason I'm incredulous the his neighbor did not visually recognize him. One way I can think of that happening: the neighbor thinks all black folks look alike. Truly, that's about all I can come up with...for a setting where one can actually see someone entering the house in an unconventional way that would fittingly give one fair reason to call 911.
 
Seriously? The man's neighbor (several of them perhaps) called the cops who arrived in force -- not just a cop or two but five units.

Let me be clear: the issue here isn't how the cops handled the matter, it's that the man's neighbor is who called the cops.

I don't care how well one knows or doesn't know one's neighbors, in a single-family home sort of neighborhood wherein the homes are close enough and situated so one can see from one's own home to one or more neighbor's, one at least by-sight recognizes one's neighbors. One sees them in the yard, walking around, getting the mail, coming and going, etc.

Apparently black folks aren't allowed to lock themselves out of the house?

I would have appreciated a link so I could have read the entire article; still, I appreciated your op and the thread itself.

Actually I wouldn't recognize a lot of my neighbors. We live in a rural area, lots of land, fewer homes, many have been sold and resold in the decades we've lived here, and my health doesn't allow me to get out much any more. Still, I DO know the people who live "next door" to me, lol.

I wonder if this was the only "big black guy" in the entire neighborhood, and why his neighbor called the cops in the first place. A link to the source might have clarified that for me.
 
Maybe it'll teach him some common courtesy and introduce yourself to your immediate neighbors when moving in ... especially the ones that can look over into your yard.


For that many police to show up, the guy must be living in a high-priced - probably gated - community.
He should be happy that his neighbors are looking out for his property. (grin)
 
I would recognize my immediate neighbors, because we have all talked to each other (I claim 4 such neighbors, 1 family on each side, 1 directly across, and another next to them). That being said, the neighborhood pool (HOA fees at work) is on the other side of that neighbor across, along with our mailboxes. There are a lot of people I do not recognize going down that way from my neighborhood (and I would describe them as neighbors in a general sense). I doubt most would recognize me either. Most would definitely not recognize my FIL (who lives with us) since he rarely goes out for anything except work and works late shift.

My uncle had this happen to him before. My mother was a traveling nurse (she retired last year). This meant they lived in rental homes a lot, moving around every 6 months to 2 years for the last 20ish. They somehow locked themselves out of the house and this meant they had to break in. Someone called the cops on them. It happens. They explained the situation calmly and the police verified they were renting the house. Boom, done. The police showed up armed, guns pointed at them though at first. They cooperated and things were done.
 
Seriously? The man's neighbor (several of them perhaps) called the cops who arrived in force -- not just a cop or two but five units.

Let me be clear: the issue here isn't how the cops handled the matter, it's that the man's neighbor is who called the cops.

I don't care how well one knows or doesn't know one's neighbors, in a single-family home sort of neighborhood wherein the homes are close enough and situated so one can see from one's own home to one or more neighbor's, one at least by-sight recognizes one's neighbors. One sees them in the yard, walking around, getting the mail, coming and going, etc.

Apparently black folks aren't allowed to lock themselves out of the house?

These articles never address the details. Did they follow proper protocol and hide the white women after they called the cops or not?
 
It's important to be at least passingly familiar with your neighbors so you can look out for each other on basic matters, such as agreeing to hold packages for each other where necessary, alert them of parties where there may be noise, and of course to call them should a large moving truck pull up to their home in the middle of the night.

Not saying you have to be friends with them (in fact, I find it easier if we're not), but having each other's backs on the little things is nice.

I wonder what action was interpreted by the 911 caller to be "breaking in." I don't know Ving Rhames personally, but if I had to guess I'd say he's not in the habit of entering his home by throwing a large rock through one of the windows.
 
I would have appreciated a link so I could have read the entire article; still, I appreciated your op and the thread itself.

Actually I wouldn't recognize a lot of my neighbors. We live in a rural area, lots of land, fewer homes, many have been sold and resold in the decades we've lived here, and my health doesn't allow me to get out much any more. Still, I DO know the people who live "next door" to me, lol.

I wonder if this was the only "big black guy" in the entire neighborhood, and why his neighbor called the cops in the first place. A link to the source might have clarified that for me.

These articles never address the details. Did they follow proper protocol and hide the white women after they called the cops or not?

Apologies, DiAnna and MSgt (and other readers). I thought I'd included in my OP links to the articles I'd read on the matter. I see I didn't and that is my oversight; however, it wasn't intentional.

Here are the articles I read before creating the thread:

Reading the stories above, one will observe that I assumed the neighbor presumably saw something untoward-looking outside Rhames' home that motivated a call to 911.

These articles never address the details. Did they follow proper protocol and hide the white women after they called the cops or not?
Read the now-linked articles. (Again, sorry for not having included them at the thread's outset. Such an elision is not my typical modus operandi.) I believe in two of them you'll read that Rhames and the cops approached and spoke with the neighbor who called 911. That neighbor denied calling 911, which, insofar as it's almost certainly a lie, strikes me as a bigger issue than is the fact that s/he called 911 to begin with.
  • Rhames home/neighborhood is sure to be like those one'll see pictured at the links in post 5 in that there are only a small few neighbors, perhaps only one, who are even able to see a person attempting to enter or moving about inside his home.
  • It's unlikely the cops are going to accompany someone to "just any random neighbor's" house to discuss the matter.
I mean, really. The neighbor could have offered any number of reasonable things in explaining why s/he called the cops. "I saw someone walk past the bay window and didn't recognize it as you. I thought someone may have broken in, so I called the cops." At least a response of that nature takes ownership for the mistaken identification and unfamiliarity with a neighbor's visage. Mistaken identity when it's "owned" is something pretty much anyone will understand. Calling the cops on a neighbor's behalf is something anyone will understand. Standing there and to Rhames and the cop's face denying that one is the person who called when the cops know damn well who called suggests there's some sort of "something" calumnious (or, God forfend, worse) in one's conscience.
 
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