Our neighbors are trouble. Weird crap goes on there all the time; I'm a bit surprised by this, as the neighbor is a physician here in town at a teaching hospital. I sort of want folks like that to be stable.
He and his live-in girlfriend have been disruptive to our neighborhood and community since they have rented the house next to ours (the rent is $3k a month!). A short list of things they do : Drive 30mph over posted speeds in residential zones, use private driveways to cut through neighbor's property to get onto adjacent roads, fire off illegal fireworks (including a rocket that failed to work properly and embedded itself INTO my roofing, hosted a party for 350 people and completely blocked access roads. The list of smaller, annoying things is much longer.
Over the past two days there has been police activity on their property. Sunday night two patrol cars entered their property at a high rate. Last night, there were several police officers covering behind their adobe wall, observing the property. I was not home, or I would have asked what was going on.
So... I am concerned. I'd like to know exactly what is going on next door, and I want to know if my neighbor has access to firearms and if my family is at risk.
Can I go to the police station and ask for a copy of the reports associated with that property? I'm going to head down there in a little bit and see what I can find out. If criminal charges are pending, will the police release the reports?
I'm tired of the freak show next door.
Here in RR I have gone through the dispatch office to (a) determine if there were any police responses to any problems at one of our rental properties and (b) to receive a copy of the report. So that's how it worked here. YMMV.
Call the cops EVERY time something hinky is going on next door. EVERY time.
Then talk to the landlord
NM Shooter - every state has a freedom of information act. I'm a retired cop in the northeast and in the New England states each one is different. However, a written request for all police calls to a certain address will usually not be honored as certain information is exempt ( sexual crimes, witnesses names, juvenile cases). However, all arrests are public knowledge and will be reported out, sans personal information such as date of birth, ssn and other private info. Good luck with your dysfunctional neighbors; there's one in every neighborhood for sure.
Quote from: Woodsrule on October 19, 2010, 05:56:45 PM
NM Shooter - every state has a freedom of information act. I'm a retired cop in the northeast and in the New England states each one is different. However, a written request for all police calls to a certain address will usually not be honored as certain information is exempt ( sexual crimes, witnesses names, juvenile cases). However, all arrests are public knowledge and will be reported out, sans personal information such as date of birth, ssn and other private info. Good luck with your dysfunctional neighbors; there's one in every neighborhood for sure.
What isn't considered exempt in almost all states, are the recordings of the 911 calls. You can submit an FOIA request for all audio and digital communications from X hour to y hour.
I don't know of any state that requires a reason for a FOIA request, so don't give one.
Many areas now have crime logs on line that show warrants or arrests for a certain area. Do a search for that. People use it to look at neighborhoods real estate is in.
Last, ask one of the local cops. Many won't discuss it (The traditional "I don't know", answer) but there is always one that wants to beat his chest and tell war stories. Milk it for what it's worth.
While I get what you mean by kind of wanting to know that doctors are fairly sane, there was one in Oklahoma City last year who went nuts and killed his kid and cut his wife up pretty bad while she was trying to defend the boy. He was apparently completely delusional and thought his kid was possessed or the anti-Christ or something. Have you been able to get the police reports? Hope for your sake they move soon.
I showed up at the office, and they were completely apathetic. They denied knowing anything about police activity at the house, and did not provide any information on how to obtain reports.