I haven't written a follow up to my previous post for several reasons. The main reason had been that things had seemed to have improved! The music, while still loud at times, has been more tolerable for the most part. My property had been left untouched from what I could tell. And apart from a few small encourters with people being exceptionally loud in front of my house in the early hours of the morning, I had no real problems to contend with.
Regardless, I installed some video cameras around my house about 3 weeks ago. I watched the complete overnight footage a couple of times out of curiosity. Apart from seeing a few people urinate in the street, there wasn't a whole lot to see. Between the cameras and my fairly new locked gates at the front of my house, I was definitely feeling better about things. That lasted until Sunday morning.
At around 10:15 AM, my wife decided she would go out into our backyard to do some gardening. She walked through our bsaement to the door that leads to our backyard. As she went to turn the knob, someone on the outside opened the screen door and tried to get in! My wife, terified, ran upstairs and called to me as loudly as she could.
I immediately grabbed my phone and dialed 911 as I ran out the front door of my house. I first checked the gates on either side of my house. Both were still locked. So this person had obviously jumped one of them to gain entrance to my yard. Oddly, his shoes and numerous items from his pockets were strewn about my little 2' by 6' patch of front yard. As I walked to my driveway, he started to walk towards me. I told him to stay where he was until the police arived. Luckily, he did not put up a fight.
The police came and got him out of my property. We all noticied he reaked of alcohol. They asked him the usual questions (i.e. "What's your name?", "Where do you live?", etc.). He had no ID on him. To my surprise, I heard the office tell him to be careful walking home. I immediately interupted and asked if that was it, they were just going to let him go? At this point I was informed I had a right to press charges if I want. Heck yes! I most certainly wanted to press charges! He broke into my property and scared the living daylights out of my wife. He was not going to just walk away from this. Plus, I wanted to send a message to the patrons of my local establishments that I will not tolerate this sort of thing.
Needless to say, after the police left. I started to review all of the footage my cameras had recorded from the previous night. By the time I was done, I felt bad for the guy almost more than anything else! You see, as much as he broke the law, he was also a very unfortunate victim.
In watching the footage, he approached my house around 2:30 in the morning. That was as far as he could go. He laid down and passed out in my front yard. He lay there undisturbed until about 3:00 AM. At this time a group of 4-5 individuals approched him (see video 3 AM) and searched him head to toe. They took his wallet, emptied his pockets and took off his shoes (I guess looking to see if any money was hidden in them). Then they stand around and laugh about it while sitting on my neighbors steps.
Fast forward to 4 AM (see the next video), the victim has stumbled out towards the street and passed out again. We now see a couple of girls get out of a car. While one is busy relieving herself in the street, the other one manhandles him into the sidewalk. Shortly after she is joined by a man, and they proceed to rob the guy again. If you watch the video through, you'll see dozen's of people exiting the bars and just walking past him, laughing at him, or searching him themselves.
In the final video, you'll see the driver of a van (loaded with girls brought up from the Bronx) litteraly pick him up and put him back in my front yard. I guess this could be considered carring, but thanks fpr putting a stranger back on my property.
While I haven't posted all of the video, trust that this poor man was molested and/or robbed 5 times int hte 2 hours between when he passed out and when eveyone else had gone home. He proceed to lay there on the side of the road until almost 6 AM. This is when he finally came too and decided jumping my gate to sleep in my back yard was preferable. I simply don't understand how, 1/4 of a mile from the police station, over a period of almost 4 hours, this guy stayed there on the side of Main Street without a single police car driving by and noticing him.
All in all, I don't regret having him arrested, but I do feel bad for the guy. I don't think he was trying to break in, I think he was trying to get some help. But, it's his fault for drinking uncontrollably. It's the bar's fault for continuing to serve him until he reached that state. And it's the police's fault for not patrolling this portion of Main Street for almost 4 hours when there have been many reports of problems there. I seriously hope this raises some eyebrows. I managed to capture all this within 3 weeks of putting up these cameras. This bar has been there for years. I hardly believe I got lucky with my timing. Time will tell, but I'm certain I will record more instances if nothing is done.
