Did I Do the Right Thing (false alarm 911 call)?

[D555]

So I'm eating breakfast and out my window I see 2 guys pull into my neighbor's house I've never seen before in this old, shady looking, Honda. Both of them are wearing black, one of them enters the house and the other stays out standing next to the car. I don't see my neighbor's car in the driveway nor do I hear him at the door so I assume he's not home. As the guy goes in the other guy is still standing in the driveway by the car looking around so I assume he's the lookout. Then when I see the guy peering out the upstairs window to his friend down in the driveway, I called 911. Just as the police arrive I see my neighbor come out from behind his house with the guy...oh crap. I go out, talk to the cops, and he tells me they were cable guys. What kind of cable guys show up in a car with no markings and no uniform :confused:

Do things like this happen often or was I not justified in calling 911?

[txinvestigator1]

I have neighbors like you.

I love them.

[phantasm]

I got a suspicious vehicle call the other day. Go over there, see a NYC MTA transit worker. Ask him if he's with the truck, he says yes, and shows me his transit ID. Everyone was courteous, and it was no big deal. Took me all of 2 minutes to handle.

You did the right thing.

[PapaBear]

Better to have officers respond and verify everyone is alright than to hesitate and lose a friend or neighbor. I don't know of any officer who would chastise you under the circumstances you have described. Good neighbors watch out for neighbors. I send you kudos for your observations.

[greg72982]

I agree you did the right thing.

In fact often times with crimes you find out after the fact someone did see or hear something but didn't want to call the police. We had a rash of vehicle break-ins and one homeowner actually confronted one of the individuals and it scared the suspect away. She never called the police though and I found out all of this information the next day through her neighbor who approached me while on a dog bite call across the street. :rolleyes:

[Bob Loblaw]

same as everyone else...you did the right thing. Better to be safe than sorry. I just wish all neighbors (mine included) were as smart and attentive as you are. There's a tendency to just worry about your house, your car, your life, etc and "stay out of everyone's business." There's a difference between being a nosey douchebag who can't keep out of other people's private lives and someone who pays attention to what's happening. You've done well.....


Also, just an FYI in case you're still worried you wasted the Police's time....in my area, I would say that 80-90% of "suspicious activity" type calls end up being BS (through no fault of the reporting party) and I typically get 4-5 of these calls a day. So it's not like its something we don't do very often and we don't start rolling our eyes when it turns out to be nothing.

[phantasm]

Even if the suspicious person calls aren't BS, a lot of the time the people will be spooked when they see the police cars. Property crime criminals often want to avoid ANY confrontation, so if they are confronted by anyone, they'll flee. BUT that doesn't mean its always a good idea to confront a criminal yourself.

[Legoate]

Well consider the OPPOSITE of your post:

Neighbors see strangers back into a driveway with a full sized U-Haul. They watch as several individuals completely empty the house out. "Wow" they think, "I didn't know the neighbors were moving". Several hours later, the neighbors come home to find their house empty- they weren't moving.

Would you rather be the guy who calls at the wrong time by mistake, or the guy who has to explain how you watched for hours as someone emptied their house into a U-Haul?

And yes, this was an actual local case where neighbors watched for an estimated two hours as burglars completely emptied a home.