Latest / Murders to Music: Crime Scene to Music Scene (Streamline Events and Entertainment) / SnapShot: When Police Work Meets Humanity: A Simple Solution to Neighborhood Drama

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SnapShot: When Police Work Meets Humanity: A Simple Solution to Neighborhood Drama · Murders to Music: Crime Scene to Music Scene (Streamline Events and Entertainment)

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: What is going on?
• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Murders to Music fans.
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: We are back with another snapshot 10 minutes of something that I just want to share and put out there into the world.
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: So I'm going to take you back to 2011, or so I was on patrol.
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: The city that I work in is a dangerous, violent city.
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: It's a small city with big city problems, and by small city I mean that we're looking at probably 125, 130,000 people, something like that, a department of somewhere between 125 to 150 cops probably 150 when it's fully staffed.
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: So we're a little bit below the national average, I think, as far as one per 1,000.
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: But at the end of the day, this is back in 2011.
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: And this is a really stupid call, but these are the kind of calls that people go on all the time.
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: But it's the way that this call ended is what has made it stick out in my memory, and it was something that just unfolded organically.
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: So here's the deal.
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: We got two sets of neighbors that live in.
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: Both live in townhouses and there's a cedar fence that splits the two yards.
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: The neighbors on the left side of the fence are a young, fun couple.
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: They have young, fun people over.
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: They play their music, they barbecue, they throw pool parties, they throw hot tub parties.
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: They're a good looking bunch of people, right.
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: They're all in their mid twenties to mid thirties and they're just a fun group of people.
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: And then the guy on the right side of that fence well, the guy on the right side of that fence, he is somebody who is in his forties, 45.
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: He's not as good looking and as fun and as young and youthful as the left side of the fence.
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: The guy on the right side of the fence has got a beef with the people on the left side of the fence and he has had for weeks.
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: We have been responding to this house, these two people's houses, on and off for two or three weeks.
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: And here are the complaints.
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: The complaints range from the right side saying the left side is being loud and noisy, the right side saying the left side is too many cars parked in the road, the right side saying the left side is up too late and they're making too much noise late at night.
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: I mean, whatever it is right, the complaints go on and on and these are just neighborhood disputes.
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: Are these really police problems?
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: Maybe, maybe not.
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: So the way that we handle it is definitely not orthodox police solution.
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: So I respond out to this call for the fourth or fifth time when I'm on patrol and tonight's complaint is this Tonight's complaint is that the neighbors on the left side of the fence, they've been beefing with the right side of the fence all day.
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: On the left side of the fence they've been beefing with the right side of the fence all day and the right side of the fence has said hey, you guys are being too loud, keep down, your party sounds like too much fun and I'm not invited.
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: Right side was really kind of jealous.
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: So the left side of the fence took their lawnmower a self-propelled lawnmower that drives itself, you know, push style, started it up, ran it up against the fence and just let it go.
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: Now they're being dicks.
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: They are just letting that lawnmower make its noise and it just it's running into that fence.
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: It's just pushing against that fence and rattling the fence and making a bunch of noise and they're doing this specifically to upset the right side of the fence.
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: So when I get there I deal with the right side of the fence and we've tried mediation.
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: We've tried, you know, dealing with the right side of the fence when he's been unruly or he's had these demands on his left side, neighbors that are maybe out of line or unacceptable, and I get it.
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: Every complaint is worth investigating.
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: No call too small, I get all that stuff, but anyway.
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: So I show up this night and this has been a routine thing, and the guy meets me in the front yard, as he always does, and he's yelling, bitching and complaining about the neighbors on the left side of the fence.
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: And I can hear the lawnmower going.
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: Neighbor on the left side of the fence comes out and I asked him to shut off the lawnmower.
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: They do, and we're trying to mediate this in the middle of the street.
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: Well, the guy on the right side of the fence is just angry.
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: He is fuming, mad, pacing around, fist balled up.
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: He's yelling and screaming about his neighbors on the left side of the fence, how unruly they are, how they don't belong in the neighborhood, so on and so forth.
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: So this is what I'm dealing with and you know I can't do anything to calm that neighbor on the right side.
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: Down Left side is like dude, just chill out.
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: And the right side, he's just not getting it.
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: And he's not to the point where we're going to take him to jail, but he's just, he's pissed right, he's just angry.
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: So we try the typical stuff.
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: He said do you need a hug?
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: I was like what he said do you need a hug?
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah, All right, bring it in.
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: So he brings it in.
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: I give him this big hug, squeeze him tight I'm a pretty good hugger Squeeze him tight, just hold him for a minute and squeeze him and I can totally feel just all of that tension, all that frustration just release out of his body.
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: And he stepped back.
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: He's like you know what he said I'm going to go inside, it's all good, is what it is.
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: And uh, you know, sorry guys.
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: And he apologized to the neighbors and he went back inside and I remember my partner looked at me and he's like, bro, did you just give that dude a hug?
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: And I'm like, yeah, he's like, well, what about officer safety?
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: And you know you're getting up close, he's getting close to your gun.
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: I'm like, bro, you know, I said you got to read people and sometimes, sometimes we just need to be a human first.
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: Not everybody out there is trying to kill us.
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: And this guy needed a hug.
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: He was just, he was upset, he was frustrated, he needs somebody to listen to him and he needed to feel validated.
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: And if God was going to take me in this moment when I'm giving him a hug, then so be it.
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: It was my time to go, anyway.
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: So that's the way that call kind of resolved and ended up.
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: And I'm telling this story because I was just watching a video or an Instagram reel and it was a police officer that stops this truck and the driver is just irate and irrational and crying and upset and just absolutely hysterical.
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: And he's the driver says I'm a vet and I'm on the crisis line with the vet suicide center and I want to kill myself.
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: And the cop's like yo dude, my name's Kyle, I'm here with you, it's going to be okay, I'm going to get you an ambulance.
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: You know, once you step out and talk to me at the front of the truck, we're just going to talk.
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: So they step up to the front of the truck and the cop is talking to him and and duck, and the vet is crying and just can't get a word out.
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: It's just absolutely hysterical.
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: And finally he's able to muster up the courage to ask the cop for a hug and he opens his arms and leans in towards that cop and that cop grabs him and gives him a big hug and it was pretty frigging awesome.
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: So you know, sometimes we all just need a hug and it's okay.
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: It's okay to need a hug and, uh, sometimes just that human touch recenters us, bring us back to where we need to be.
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: Anyway, it's the only time in my career that I gave somebody a hug to calm them down, but it worked, and I'm glad Kyle's out there doing the same thing.
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: Y'all this has been a Murderous Music Snapshot.
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: Keeping it real.