I know Lemmy has the ACAB sentinment, and I get it, I don’t trust them either. But real talk tho, there are some scenarios where you might not have other options.
So… the question is: When, if ever, would you call for law enforcement? And if you distrust law enforcement, is there ever a situation where it gets so bad that you just have to risk involving law enforcement?
When I need a police report for the insurance.
Similar vein: when dealing with fraud, etc. I was victim of credit card and identity theft and found that businesses and credit cards took my disputes more seriously when I informed them I had contacted police already.
Hell, a police report used to be required to dispute fraudulent credit card charges, freeze your credit report, etc. Ask me how I know…
I’ve called them several times to get a report for car break in or vandalism. Once i got a check from a victim fund for my broken window and missing stuff. Called them because someone in a scream mask was banging on my front door at 3am.
Depending on what happened they might not make one for you. I drove my car to work, parked in a parking lot, and came back out at the end of the day to a heavily dented fender with blue paint scrapes on my red paint. It was obvious someone hit me. I called the police station, told them what happened, and asked for a police report. They declined and said it might have been a deer. It’s a busy/high traffic area and there wasn’t any green space for atleast a half mile.
Never heard deer driving blue cars
Oh man I would have asked to check their lot if I heard some bullshit like that lol.
drunk drivers all day long
Think of it this way. You are in a courtroom and the lawyer asks 'why didn’t you call the police?"
If your home was burglarized and you don’t call the cops, the police will assume you’ve been doing something illegal. Most people will call the cops just to have a police report on file for the insurance or to claim a tax loss.
I’m not white though, pretty sure they’d assume I did something illegal as soon as I opened the door. lol. How would calling the
crazy racists on steroids with gunscops help? Seems like a very unnecessary risk. Also, why would I be in a courtroom due to my home getting robbed?I’m not a homeowner, but guessing that applies for renter’s insurance too. Never had to use it, thankfully, but that’s def good info to have! If robbed, leave drugs at friend’s house so you can make an insurance claim.
I wonder if you actually have to interact with a cop for that. Really adds insult to injury (again, if you’re not white of course)
Why am I in a courtroom after being burglarized?
“According to their neighbors, Monkey Puppet’s house was burglarized on 12/22/2024. No police reports were filed by Monkey Puppet. This gave the police probable cause to search their house, where they found the contraband.”
You’re massively overestimating the amount of work police will voluntarily do.
If you’re ok with the possibility of someone (potentially you) dying, call the cops
German here, with relatively moderate bullpigs. I never had bad experiences with them, and most reports of right-wing content (eg. in chats) pile in eastern germany (saxony etc.). And abuse from them is pretty rare afaik, but there are famous reports of drunk people being killed and one drunk non-white person being burned (maybe alive), again in eastern germany. Overall, here in western parts, I would trust them. Basically with everything. In eastern germany I’d be very careful with anything a right-winger might be biased against.
I called recently when somebody was trying to break into my car while I was in it. Not that it made any difference. I managed to get away and never heard back from the cops.
I should get a concealed carry permit.
If I’m in a country where police mostly do what they’re supposed to do. I don’t live in the USA and I’ve called the cops for unclear and probably dangerous situations, traffic accidents… So far everything turned out well.
I don’t live in the USA
we getting pretty close to where this gonna turn into a flex
Bruh, countries been flexing like that for at least forty years…
when did it start resonating with USian? \
also 84 is a strech when 90s was peak Americana
but yeah at some point after the two idiotic wars and 2008 melt down US turned into its soft power into a joke.
Maybe your peak wasn’t that impressive to begin with.
50s was a better time🤡
That flex has pretty much been Canada’s national identity for years
In many jurisdictions you can just file a police report on a self-serve website. This avoids them showing up and shooting your dog and usually suffices for a claim.
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Where I am, you actually have to call the non-emergency for emergencies. 911 is like a ten minutes wait time, but if you call the small town police non-emergency line and tell them a car just flipped into the ditch in front of your house (again) they will get the first responders there a lot faster.
I’m told this is because when there is an accident on the freeway 500 people call it in, thinking they are saving the world and it clogs up the line.
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Last time I called them, it was because I got home late and my backdoor window was shattered. I had recently broke up with an unstable person, so I phoned the cops the next day just to make a report.
They called my ex, who initially denied it at first and tried to say I was a meth dealer or something. Eventually, the cop said she admitted doing it and asked if I wanted to press charges. I declined.
I reconnected with her years later in 2021 during the pandemic. It did not end well yet again, but at least no one got hurt and no property was destroyed this time around.
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Burglary of my house, kidnapping, missing person, missing vehicle presumed stolen (after checking any other options), and in case a certain few unstable people I know showed up at my front door and refused to leave.
I’ve debated calling the non-emergency number to ask what the speed limit was on an unmarked stretch of road, but decided not to.
I am in a relatively stable area with police who are reasonably well-behaved and under rational oversight. So… all the usual reasons?
I’ve called because I sighted a possibly rabid animal. The police didn’t arrive in a hail of gunfire which struck a bunch of innocent bystanders. I’ve had them turn up to take notes on a car accident. They were polite and not aggressive.
Like, I fully recognize I’m lucky to live in an area where the police aren’t abusive. But that doesn’t mean I’m not going to call them because they are assholes somewhere else.
Never if you’re in the US. You call the cops and now you have two problems instead of one and the new problem is guaranteed to be trigger happy.
I called the other day when a dude refused to leash his attack dog who had (lightly) bitten me a few weeks prior. Didn’t know what else to do. Last time I called was nine years ago for a home intrusion
If someone is attempting to, or has already broken into my house, or things like a man following me, and it’s clear he’s following me with malicious intentions (I am a girl, so being female means I’d have a harder time defending myself against a man if he really wants to harm me). Basically if my life or another person’s life is in danger.
I called them recently after the alarm system went off at 2am and I found the front door wide open. It seemed likely at the time that someone had tried to break in, and might possibly be in the house yet. Nobody was found by the police, and our own investigation of cameras and playing with the alarm system proved the front door’s alarm sensor has a lot of wiggle room and the front door was probably just barely open and pushed the rest of the way by the wind.
In the moment it seemed the only reasonable course of action, and without the benefit of knowing the actual cause I think I would call them again, even though I was in fear for my life (from the cops) for part of the event. I suppose the anarchist thing to do would be to be armed and wake up the neighbors for backup or something.
If it can’t be helped. Like, I wish a lot of shit was settled without law enforcement because things become more complicated once they get involved. And sometimes a lot of money just to get the justice system to do shit. With the off-chance that nothing will be done at all.
I’ve only ever had to call the cops on two occasions and that’s to deal with a noisy tenant, simply because my apartment management are a bunch of lazy assholes who simply refuse to evict people who have broken lease agreements multiple times.
My record with cop encounters has been fairly positive to date, too and I’d rather keep it that way.
