Interesting Situation

[RedRaider]

First off, I want to thank all of those who post the WWYD scenarios and other various discussions. As this situation unfolded somethings I did were just second nature, I did make a few mistakes, but all in all reading all the info on this website IS useful.

Sunday morning, around 12:45am, my sister and I were on my back porch having a cigarette when we heard a noise out front that sounded like someone either shaking the fence or banging on something, still for the life of me don't know what it was. I ran inside, grabbed my cell phone and gun (yea I know, I should already have it on me) and slowly went out my front door to see what was going on, this was a mistake on my part, but I guess I wasn't really expecting to find anything. Low and behold their was a kid on my neighbors porch, I think he was either trying to break into her house or was trying to steal something. He heard or saw me, so he nonchalantly began walking slowly down her driveway towards his bike that was laying in the middle of the street (approx 10-15 yards from me), then paused and kept his back towards me, this definently made me nervouse and I positioned my self on the front patio so I could enter the house quickly if needed and so that no one could sneak up on me. I also saw his lookout accross the field and this made me peform a 360 scan (really 180 as my house is behind me and I was kind of in the corner of my patio). Anyways the kid paused in the driveway, I said nothing, just observed and began pulling up the constables number on my cell phone. As he began walking to his bike in the middle of street I yelled out that the Cops were on there way, this prompted him to take off, which confirmed to me that he was up to know good. To top it off, the lady next had all her lights on and was Clearly Home and Awake, this is concerning and shows how bold these kids are.

Having thought about these situations in advance really helped, I didn't go outside assuming what was going on, I analyzed the situation for every possible scenerio (all 2 seconds I had), I already knew that I was not going to shoot anyone over 3rd persons property unless my life or my families life was in danger, I had the constables number on speed dial, had my cell phone ready, and positioned my self to where I had an exit if neccessary. I'm just glad he was not on my property trying steal anything and hope he doesn't come back. Just thought I'd post as this was my first encounter with a crime being committed in front of me where there was the potential for use of deadly force (atleast I think a crime was being committed). Cops showed up within 5 minutes, gave descritions and general directions they took off to, and I watched him scour the neighborhood looking for the kids.

I've had my car broken into, truck stolen, windows broken out of my car, and I'm just tired of it. I don't want to take the law into my hands, have no intention to, but I will continue to keep an eye out and report suspicous behavior, just wish my neighbors were on the same page.

[stroguy]

You need a third eye. Keeps you inside for these situations while you can calmly call the law. This setup cost me less than $200 and records 24/7.

See the punk in the middle? He lifted a stone from the mailbox and threw it through my neighbors window. He was pinched the next day. He denied it and denied it until the Constable pulled out the still shot. He knuckled under. Then he got to watch himself on video at the courthouse. Needless to say his grandmother, (yes grandmother is legal guardian) was not so happy.



Here is a night shot.



Cheap protection and the safety of looking out the driveway without opening the door.

[RedRaider]

What survellance system is that, I have already been thinking about that but really didn't want to shell out a bunch of money, $200 sounds pretty reasonable.

[stroguy]

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This is the camera that took that shot. It looks fuzzy because I blew it up from MSPaint. On screen looks much better. I have moved that camera to my porch and now have a 10X better color camera over the driveway. PC recording software can be found very cheap. I have recently, with the new camera, installed a dedicated DVR for my cameras.

[RedRaider]

Does it take an IT genious to set one of these up, I'll be honest, I'm not the most Tech savy person!

[zero4o3]

Does it take an IT genious to set one of these up, I'll be honest, I'm not the most Tech savy person!

the basic setup should be fairly simple, if you want remote access to the camera (from outside your home) it gets a little more involved. the PC based systems are pretty neat, if you dont want to set it up that way you can get a stand alone system for less then 300

[stroguy]

It is not a hard setup at all. If you went the extra few dollars (EBay) for a dedicated DVR it is even easier. The dedicated DVR is easy to hide. Good luck.

[C-dub]

I probably would not have told them that the police were on their way. I would like to give the police a chance to catch them.

[RedRaider]

I probably would not have told them that the police were on their way. I would like to give the police a chance to catch them.

I absolutely agree, Not sure why I said that, I guess it was my way of showing that he didn't fool me by acting nonchalant and that he belonged there , plus it ended the situation. That said, I wished I wouldn't have said anything but observe.

I went over to my neighbors today, her garage was dented up and she said now sunlight is seeping into her garage. Looks like the noise I heard was him jerking up on the garage door and when I came outside he went to the front door to make it look like he belonged there, atleast thats my best guess.

[koolaid]

If you are going to go through the trouble of setting up a camera and recording system, take a small amount of time and get some webspace or a remote computer somewhere to have it dump the pictures to.

If someone robs you, your computer is likely to get pinched, especially if there are webcams obviously set up.