Here is No Why

<-Why I Called 911, or My Encounter with Hooligans |Main|I Need to Avoid the Ghetto . . . .->

Why I Called 911 Again

April 4, 2009 5:39 PM

or the second time this week, I called 911 yesterday. Here's the story.

I had just gotten home after work. I was walking from my car to the back door of my apartment building. Right as I'm opening that door, I heard screaming and cursing coming from behind me. I looked over and I saw that a woman was using a long metal tube to hit some car, and that a man was standing there arguing with her. It looked to me like they were about to fight each other or something. They continued to scream and argue, and the woman was holding this metal tube. This was all happening right near other peoples' cars. I sighed to myself and dialed 911 again. The guy involved in this fight looked over at me and said to the woman "Look, he's calling the police." She said, "Good!" I thought that was an odd thing considering she was the one I saw damaging a car and holding a weapon.

The 911 people answered, and I told them what I saw: an ongoing physical confrontation between two people, one of which had a rudimentary weapon. I told them that they needed to get here immediately because it looked like the situation was escalating. The woman said police were on their way.

While this is going on, the woman got into a car in an adjacent parking lot and drove off. I couldn't see the license-plate number or get a really good description, so I was frustrated that I couldn't relay helpful information to the police. But my fears that she would get away were unfounded: the next thing I knew, her car was in my own parking lot, driving 30mph in reverse, directly at the guy she had been fighting with and some dumpsters. I was sure she'd hit one, the other, or both. She screeched to a halt, parked, got out, and started screaming again.

At some point, a second woman became involved. She was carrying a baby, and the dude that had bee fighting with the first woman was talking to her. The baby somehow ended up on the ground and the first woman was still screaming, now at several other people that had come out of the building. She was accusing them of beating her. All the while, the baby's sitting there on the parking lot.

So I said to the dispatch woman, "Look, there's a baby involved now. Please get someone here immediately." She said that she'd sent the message and that she had some questions for me. I said that was fine, and she asked for my address. And the area code for the phone number I was calling from. Completely fucking important shit given that there was a fucking riot brewing in my parking lot. I looked at my phone; it had been seven minutes since I was on the phone with this woman and she first assured me that the police were on their way, but no police were in sight.

Then two women came out of the apartment building next to mine and started walking towards the car the first woman had been hitting. I now saw that the car had a broken window; my neighbors told me that the woman who was carrying the metal tube had kicked the window out. As these two other women were walking towards the car, the first woman ran up to it and started screaming and kicking the rear driver's side window. She couldn't break it, though. Then the two women got into the car and drove off. I gave the 911 woman a perfect description of the car.

The screaming woman was relatively close to me at that point, and she started waking towards me. She asked if I had called the police, and I told her I had. She said to please tell them to hurry, and I said ok. She told me that the women that had driven off and the man she'd been arguing with had beaten the shit out of her. She showed me bruises on her face and arm that looked pretty severe. I asked if she wanted me to ask for an ambulance, and she said she didn't need one. Then she went back to the other building and started screaming at people some more.

Finally, ten minutes after I called, the police showed up. It seemed like everyone who lives in that other building was outside now, screaming at each other and the police. I recognized one of the officers as one of the ones that had responded the last time I called 911. At one point I think tasers were drawn.

Things calmed down from there. I don't know if anyone was arrested, but I do know that the police made only the most cursory investigation. By the time the cops got there, four or five of my neighbors and I were watching this situation unfold. The cop came by and asked us what we saw, which we told him. He didn't take notes or ask for any of our contact info. He didn't even get our names. We told him where the metal bar the woman was holding was, he went and looked at it, then threw it right back down onto the ground and walked away.

I've learned some lessons: first, I need to move. Right now. Second, Fitchburg cops are fucking slow. Third, they're fucking lazy.

4 Comments

morenonesense said:

You know, i certainly don't remember your neighborhood being that bad. At all. Where you live makes the nice ghettos here look like fuckin candyland. But, if you're gonna move, you should move somewhere nice in madison, near a disc golf course. Aside from that, cops suck.

April 4, 2009 12:43 PM

Joe said:

Dear Sir,

Moving sounds like a good idea. Take the sidewalk baby with you. Thunderdome is fun when you are a spectator, but no one likes living in Thunderdome.

April 4, 2009 10:51 PM

The Reeg said:

Wow. My heart breaks for that woman and the poor baby--whatever happened to the baby, by the way? Those cops sound awful, but not awful enough to just leave an infant sitting in the parking lot. Incidentally, how did the Reno 911 cops make their way to Fitchburg?

If you're thinking of moving, the near east side is, in my opinion, the best neighborhood in Madison. Be our neighbor!

April 5, 2009 12:27 PM

laurie said:

OH MY GOD, THAT'S HILARIOUS!!!!! AAAAHAHAHAHAHHA!!!!!

April 28, 2009 10:54 PM