How and when and if to call the police

I am a member of an HOA Board in Austin, Texas. I live in a pleasant UMC neighborhood of about 600 detached single-family homes.

I’m posting to ask if y’all have ever issued any kind of ‘guidance’ to your community about how and when to call the police?

Details:

My neighborhood has been seeing a surge in the number of incidents reported via FB and other unofficial channels. Examples would be: non-residents attempting to enter the pool and other resident-only areas; non-residents walking into yards and peeking in windows and trying to open doors; thefts from parked automobiles; non-residents defecating onto the sidewalk; used needles discarded in common areas. These non-residents are often homeless people.

My neighborhood is extremely diverse: there are many people living here who come from other countries who are unsure of how things work in the US. Plus we are home to a wide range of political opinions. As a result, there is confusion amongst the residents about

- Whether or not to call the police
- When to call the police
- How to call the police (911? 311? Other?)

Frankly, I am concerned about the general safety of the people who live here. I have pondered distributing some kind of safety guidance but encountered some resistance such as:

- “We can’t advise people to call 911 because of liability issues.” Really?
- “This isn’t an issue for the Board to deal with.” True?

I’d very much appreciate hearing from anyone who has thoughts, especially if they’ve ever dealt with a similar issue. If it makes any difference: historically we’ve never managed to pull together any kind of Neighborhood Watch program. I can see how maybe “how to call the police” isn’t something the Board should be involved with? But also: the Board is the closest thing to any kind of local ‘authority[1]’ that we have here.

Thank you,

Bill

[1] I mean ‘authority’ in the sense of “a resource that provides good answers” and not “ruling body”.

A HOA/COA board and manager should absolutely advise residents to call the police anytime the resident thinks they saw a crime.

Some residents need to be reminded that secondhand reports are not helpful to the police. It's the person who actually saw xyz crime that needs to make the report.

For those folks not from the United States: All I can do is shake my head at the cynicism and look-the-other-way attitude of some of these folks. Granted there may be a fear factor in play here, as in they do not want to rock the boat while they are strangers in a strange land.

UMC = ?

United Methodist Church?

Pedantic rant: Good writing means that a person spells out acronyms and then, right after spelling it out, puts the acronym in parentheses. Communications via internet forum are hard enough without having to guess at what the meaning of an acronym is. Example: The staff at the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) tries hard, but the truth is they are woefully underfunded and understaffed. When a complainant calls HUD, be prepared with just the facts.

God forbid, I didn't format correctly.

What is an example of pedantic?

In the sitcom The Big Bang Theory, Sheldon Cooper is an example of a pedantic character. He is very knowledgeable, yet lacks the social skills to know when to avoid launching into a highly technical discussion that others don't care about. He takes pride in being smarter than others and brags excessively about his IQ.

We had an issue with one resident and their kids dealing crack, drinking outside in the middle of the night, throwing crap in the pool, etc. What we ended up doing was having a rep from the Sheriff's department come out for one of our monthly meetings. They educated the attendees on when and how to call the police. From what I understand they are happy to come to HOA meetings.

Hi Lisa. We’re in the City of Austin. Police support has been ‘uneven’ during this past year due to infighting over defunding.

Bill

[Applause]

It is a problem with many US born citizens as well.

When one may not yet be a citizen, or has family who are not citizens, the stakes are often higher.

Call your landlord!

Augustin,
One of the great things about Texas is that the Vendor would probably have a good chance of being Shot.

Most of the issues Austin is currently having is with the Invited Homeless who have been camping under the Freeways and in the Downtown area for the last few years. After APD was partially defunded and IMO stripped of the ability to enforce some laws the situation keeps getting worse.

As someone who lives about 30 minutes North I just avoid the area. I hear that recent changes are now being put in place to handle the homeless and also the rampant street drugs in and around that City. It is sad to see such a beautiful City decay so quickly.

Golly. Funny how the increase in the number of homeless in Texas has nothing to do with the pandemic.

My understanding is that the numbers of homeless are way up all over the country. I do not live in Texas. I am astonished at how many homeless folks I see along my city's bike trails these days.

But Texans are well-armed, you say. Problem solved, you say.

Well armed most of us are are but there is not a season for hunting homeless or mentally disturbed individuals who live on the streets. I do not have an answer to the problem just stating that Austin has one that is probably causing the OPs problems.

I really do not ever like to get off topic and into Politics but I was amazed when the Austin Mayor Steve Adler and and group of local City Politicians went to San Francisco to learn how they handled the homeless crisis in that City. I had to Shake My Head SMH as someone who lived near and worked in that City on occasions that would not be where I would go for the roadmap for success.

Yeah well I am no Republican, but FWIW the moment I heard about this 'movement' to defund the police (a bit after George Floyd's murder), I instantly thought, "What?? Defunding the police is the dumbest idea I ever heard (when it comes to addressing xyz)." I was pleased Biden just about instantly (within a few days IIRC) responded he was against "defunding the police."

Huh.

Thank you, Henry,

> The police generally are really interested in reaching out to disadvantaged groups …

I’m not certain that that is especially true in Austin at this time. Also note: the homeowners in my neighborhood aren’t disadvantaged.

However, I agree with you and JohnT and others that some kind of “Get To Know Your Police” meeting where the police can talk to the residents is probably the best way to go on this. iI’ve got my fingers crossed that the police will tell people to call 911 and allow the HOA to conveniently sidestep the spectre of “liability”.

Bill

I agree with the first poster who suggested a community meeting with one or two police officers. While we haven't had them in our HOA, there a have been couple of such meetings in a neighborhood venue that was very well attended. A male and a female officer presented some ideas and told us what the police can and cannot do, some phone numbers & websites for various types of problems. These contacts are posted every month in our newsletter. And yes, the topic was homeless people hanging out in an 1 -12 ac. heavily treed city park with ZERO amenities across the street from my HOA for the past few years.

I feel that officers of tow genders help reassure folks. I think such a meeting would be especially helpful to immigrants who correctly might be afraid of the police. Upper-middle-classness is no protection to them any more than it is to black or brown young men.

The meetings have been very informative. Perhaps there also are better security measures you can take, Bill.

I always am suspicious of the social media and think that activities or behaviors get exaggerated on them and even cause social panics. I would urge residents to report to the PM incidents that involve damage to the common areas and take pictures if possible. I would urge residents to use the contact info that's in he HOA's newsletter.

Bill

I would consider sending a letter to owners informing them if they observe anything illegal, to call the police. Do not have the BOD playing cop.

Good read. Thanks for the link.

Bill,

Glad the meeting went well.

If the Board hasn't done so already, suggest summarizing the meeting info into a newsletter and deliver it to all residents. The liaison might have some material you could include as well.

It should be noted that 311 is not available in all municipalities and one should check ahead of time if your municipality uses it.

Tim

My neighborhood is pretty safe (also in Texas btw) but we did have an incident a couple of weeks ago that taught me something about calling the police in your HOA.

My wife and I were relaxing in our community pool when a group of trash-talking teenagers age 16 or so emerged from the nearby woods and went over to our playscape, which is designed for little kids 5-10 years old. About 30 minutes later we went to our car to leave, and I stepped over and asked them if they live in our neighborhood. They said no. I told them this is private property for residents only (which it is) and they have to leave. I got some real nasty talkback from them and they refused. I was alarmed and called the police, took pictures of the kids with my phone and they tried to hide from it. We got in our car and waited. The kids remained where they were, and their antics were pretty amazing. 16 year old girls do twerking now, who knew?

Finally a policeman showed up and I explained the situation. He refused to do anything, and I was very surprised. He gave a lot of odd rationalizations for this. The playground wasn't fenced in. There weren't any 'no trespassing' signs. He didn't know if I had the right to order them off (I'm president of our HOA but I don't have a badge). Eventually I gave up and left, and it was frustrating.

A couple of days later I called the police department to ask what we need to do to keep this from happening again. They were surprised that their cop acted that way, but they said we need to come in and sign a 'trespassing affidavit'. This basically gives police the authority to run people off your property if you aren't around. Now, I had been 'around' of course but I guess this will reduce confusion in the future.

I agree it was a somewhat ambiguous situation from the perspective of the cop, but regardless of the details of their behavior or mine the HOA as a corporation does have the right to restrict access to the property and have people removed. For any reason. Just wanted to point out here that it may not be as straightforward as one might expect.

There is a program like that here, but I'm not sure it would apply in this situation. The little gang of miscreants weren't actually vandalizing or trashing anything (yet).

And actually the cops at the stationhouse agreed that we can have people removed from the property even with no signs and no fence.

OP here. Just thought I’d tell you about the aftermath of the Police Q&A Session I organized for the benefit of my neighborhood. Fun fact: it took 54 emails over the course of a month to set up the session. Which might seem like a lot, but it works out to less than w emails per day. I won’t say “it was a lot of work” - what it was was a “significant sustained effort”.

TimB4 and KerryL1 had suggested summarizing the meeting and putting it into the neighborhood newsletter. Sounded like a great idea to me! (But why did it make my blood run cold?)

I’d taken notes during the session, and the police liaison person (call her V) had a number of short, pithy, and easily memorable things to tell people about calling the police. You can see them above in an earlier post in this thread. I could go on and on about V - she’s very, very good at her job.

Now when I say “I took notes”, what I did was write down what V said, then after the session I organized / formatted them a bit, and sent them to V, telling her “This is what I captured from your presentation, please correct or revise. I’m going to be quoting you, so I want to make sure I get it right.” I believe this is common practice for, say, magazine interviews. V was happy to help with this, and we soon had a page of good information that was, importantly, presented extremely well.

I Photoshopped a snappy poster, posted it to our neighborhood’s ‘unofficial’ FB page, and sent a copy to the Board, asking the person who wrangles the neighborhood email list if they could send it out.

And that’s when things got ‘difficult’. The Board President demanded to see proof that the words on the poster were actually the words V said. The VP was upset that I’d posted to the unofficial FB page without getting approval from the rest of the Board … it would be extremely tedious to go into all of the details, I’ll just ask you to believe me when I tell you that they were simply being jerks for the sake of being jerks. From the onset, this project had been mine alone, no-one offered to help, there was no talk about “approvals”, and I’d followed fairly Standard Operating Procedure for this sort of thing: advertise live event, live event, post summary of live event{1}. But after the event came off successfully, everybody wanted to be involved.

In the end, I reposted the poster without the neighborhood logo. And when I mentioned the mess to V, she asked to become ‘involved’ in the discussion (I told her “you don’t need to jump in this mud-puddle” but she said “I want to”) and she fired off a note that shut things down and made Mr President seem like a complete idiot{2}. It’s not necessarily a ‘happy ending’ but it was very satisfying.

Deep in the heart of Texas,

Bill

{1} a recording was not available.

{2} helpful hint: when someone who is an official spokesperson for the police tells you something in an official capacity, don’t ask them where you could find something that’s ‘more official’.

No and no.