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Excaliber wrote:

donniet wrote:Last night, I think I was interviewed. I live in a nice quiet neighborhood. About 9:30 my door bell rings. I look though the peep hole and see a clean cut, early 20ish male standing well back from the door. I blade away, place my hand on my pistol, unlock and open the door part way with my weak hand. The young man begins to tell me about this large tarantula in my front yard, "the largest I have ever seen, larger than my hand, you need to see this" he said. I instantly went from condition orange to condition red. While closing the door I told him if it was that large he should call animal control. The whole thing could not have lasted more than 10 seconds. This was so off the wall, I think he was trying to draw me out from inside. I thought about calling the police, but he had really done nothing wrong. Other than not opening the door, what would others have done?

There is absolutely no doubt the subject was attempting to either lure you out of your house, or get you to open the door wider so he could barge in. Neither would have anything to do with a spider (which would be pretty difficult to spot by chance at 9:30 PM on the lawn), and if you had provided the opportunity your visitor would have taken full advantage of it.

Your instincts were spot on, and you dealt with the situation successfully in that you didn't suffer injury or loss or have to engage in a physical confrontation.

Some after action points you might want to consider:

1. Once you've unlocked a door and opened it even a crack, it's extremely easy for someone outside to charge the door, knock you off balance, and be on top of you in the blink of an eye. If you don't know the party on the other side, the door should not be unlocked at all. Seamus' suggestions about intercoms and cameras makes finding out what the party wants easier (I use an intercom myself), but speaking through the closed and locked door works well enough to get the job done.

2. Since the subject was unsuccessful at your door, there is an extremely high likelihood he would have gone on to try something similar at a nearby residence. Making the call immediately might either prevent a crime if he could be intercepted before another attempt, or might facilitate the response to a home invasion which might have started a minute or two after you closed your door. At the very least, the time, description, and approach details would be extremely valuable in furthering the investigation of similar incidents that you're not aware of but have been reported, and may well have progressed much further than yours.

Forget trying to rationalize how come you shouldn't call the police after something causes you to go into condition red. Here's the rule of thumb from the police side:

Better one call too many than one call too few.