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Police Activity in the Neighborhood

2K views 31 replies 25 participants last post by  1984 
#1 ·
This is based on a real-life that happened to us a while back at a place we've since moved from. Good results for us, bad for the BGs, but revealed some huge holes in our home defense plan. Would love to hear responses.

Situation:

You're asleep at 3am, the deep sleep from which you'll wake up with PSDS (Post-Sleep Disorder Syndrome) - in your home. The phone rings and caller ID shows your local PD.

You answer and hear a recorded voice say, "This is the Smileyville Police Department, there is an incident in your area and emergency personnel are responding. We request that you remain in your house and do not go outside." [Yes, I know the absurdity of this - at 3AM, I have no plans to go outside, and if I did, I wouldn't be answering the phone, but that's another subject]

It's quiet outside, but you go to double check that the doors are locked anyways [with whatever you normally would bring with you to do so - I know I've changed my answer on this since the event]. As you get to the front door, you hear a very loud noise - you're still a bit fuzzy, but it sounds like glass shattering or maybe even a gunshot from the direction of one of your kids' rooms [or your MBR if you don't have kids].

WWYD?

[Edit]:

To clarify - if you enter the room where you think the noise came from, how do you do it? What kind of comm, if any? What's your plan to ID friend/foe?

One more thing... after your initial actions, you are able to confirm your loved ones are OK. However, you suspect someone may be in the house. Do you move your family to a barricade location, and if so, how? Have you ever practiced this?
 
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#2 ·
Easy...I'm already armed...I move to the perceived threat...Anything after that is dependent upon what I encounter...I do NOT leave my spouse or my granddaughter to the possibility of someone entering or being in their room...Hopefully one of the critters just knocked something over that broke. If it's a gunshot, my same response applies...I will fight to my death to protect them...Really pretty simple...JMO
 
#4 ·
I'd try to figure out from the sound of five (yes, five - count 'em) dogs barking where a possible threat was coming from. My MBR is on the second floor (much prefer the security of being off ground level) and I'm staying there, armed, to protect my lady until the situation is secured or at least better defined.
 
#5 ·
That's funny - this happened years ago, and this is the first time I realized that I have absolutely no recollection of where the dog was, which means that he was probably asleep on his mat in our MBR through the whole long (and occasionally very noisy) ordeal. Now granted, he's old.

Need a new dog, but I've known that for a while.
 
#6 ·
I don't need to recheck doors and windows,they are locked 24/7 unless I'm going in and out,once inside the dead bolt gets thrown,don't have kids at home,so I'm sitting in the BDRM with one of my 45's and the SA 12 gauge with 5 rounds 00 buck.I will defend my position,I hear a crash somewhere in the house I guard my position,they can come down the fatal funnel to get to me,knowing my dog she is probably between my legs peering down the hall with a look like "What the hell was that"
 
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#8 ·
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Send the dogs in, call out to the wife, & evaluate the situation by their reaction. If I'm going in, it's with my flashlight ready & my firearm low.
 
#13 ·
OK, here are the basics, some details left out to keep the humiliation to a dull roar...

- Mistake 1 - living in town. Never again.
- Mistake 2 - previously discussed: Poor/inadequate/lousy planning, and no discussion w/family
- I run empty-handed direct for the room where I thought I heard the noise - firearms are safely ensconced elsewhere (mistake 3). Windows intact, kid OK.
- Wife is right behind me, collects kids and moves to barricade room (first good thing - we actually had that determined in advance)
- I run to collect the weapons, phone, and flashlight from MBR that should've been in my hands in the first place.
- I clear house solo on my way to the family. Lots of comm between wife and me as well as me yelling stuff like "Get out of my house! I have a gun and I will kill you!"
- 911 and non-emergency lines to cops jammed.
- After a few minutes, no noise and we're pretty sure house is empty, but we spend about an hour or so barricaded before I talk to dispatcher who tells me my street is OK. I clear the house again, then we get the kids back in bed. I don't sleep the rest of the night.
- Never figure out the noise - pretty sure it was the cat tipping over something in one of the kids' rooms (but they'd had a long play day w/friends and the rooms were a bit "disordered" so sleuthing what was out of place wasn't going to happen).

SWAT corners BG down the road. He ends up killing himself.

After-action: We congratulate the kids on doing so well in our "safety drill" the previous night. They barely remember anything except that they slept on the floor for a bit. Wife and I debrief the event and come up with a better plan. Later, we get to move, and home defense becomes a bigger part of the house-shopping formula.
 
#23 ·
Lots of comm between wife and me as well as me yelling stuff like "Get out of my house! I have a gun and I will kill you!"
Just my opinion, but I think its potentially a fatal mistake to verbalize this. Especially not knowing where or how many BG's are in your home. Don't give up any advantage. Only time I'd consider issuance of any verbal command is after illuminating BG and covering him with 12 ga/surefire combo. Then only if no weapon is visible, and you've determined its only that one BG. In your case had a BG been in your home, he could have ambushed you since your giving him a homing beacon. You can only scare off someone who is somewhat rational , others may kill you and do God knows what to your family.Just saying...
 
#14 ·
I would take cover, assess the situation, then try to call 911. Check to ensure kids and wife are ok. If unable to reach 911, proceed with caution to clear house.
 
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#15 ·
This brings up something I haven't thought about in my house... Being relatively small (1700 sq ft) and having no way of getting to my daughters room without literally crossing through all of the main areas, if some one actually gets in the house before I can respond I'm going to have to fight my way to my daughters bedroom. Mind you I have 2 big dogs, a monitored alarm system, and armored deadbolt jams with secondary sliding bolts, but if someone managed to get through before I could traverse the length of the house I may have to use the violence of action approach rather than ambush.
 
#18 ·
HONEY! The cat just knocked over your flowers!
 
#19 ·
Our cat knocked over the flowers my wife had placed on top of the console TV one night. water pouring in the top back of a TV makes for a rather RUDE awakening! LOL
 
#20 ·
This is about the one good reason I can think of to have children of reasonable age with a cell phone. (Easier to win over the kids with that than with walkie-talkies lol).. 'Course you gotta explain that will you not be texting them with emoticons that you are clearing the home... But in all seriousness perhaps they are alerted before you are and they have a plan in action to alert you and a plan to retreat.
 
#21 ·
My 3 dogs will try to eat them..... they only want love and attention from my grandkids when they are staying here (which is a lot). "Any" noise, the dogs are taught to "alert" me, then if I tell them to check it out.... they will show me exactly where the noise came from. If there is someone who shouldn't be there, they'll make that obvious it's someone that doesn't belong and exactly where they are. Plus I'ld then light them up with my flashlight. I also have 'key' lights in specific locations that will put someone in a lit area if they were breaking in, but they wouldn't be able to see me. They would have also set off outside motion lights that will be on (which I can tell) , and outside motion / heat alarms that will sound as well.

I think I have it covered.
 
#24 ·
depends on too many variables on whether or not to even clear the house, vice stay with family and wait. Our home is small, every family member in other rooms. If entry were being made, it'd have to be addressed immediately at that specific point...
 
#26 ·
Our house is pretty small and we live with room mates not kids. The roomies live on the other side of the house than we do. First thing we do is heck our respective doors, then sweep out through the great room. It is kinda like a trailer house but if we see anyone the whole house knows identify themselves fast and clearly.

One room mate came in late one day and we were in bed and thought everyone was home. I poked out and saw it was them, being a smart ass his GF said she expected someone with a gun, I then reveled my cocked and locked pistol and our other room mate opened his door all the way showing his mos500.

Not the brightest idea poking out first, but house is small enough that every room is pretty well connected.


Si vis pacem, para bellum
 
#29 ·
1st Sgt and Doodle seem to make the only sense to me. My wife and children don't have guns, and I hear what might be gunshots coming from their room, the time for thinking and tactics was 5 minutes ago.

I am running full throttle to where I heard the sound. If someone is shooting my family they already had one shot. There is a chance they missed and I am praying for that. I am going to take them through the wall and down 2 stories with their carotid in my mouth and it won't matter what caliber hole or how many they perforate me with at the time. We are going for a flight.

For those who aren't charging at the sound of gunfire in a loved one's room you really have to ask yourself - what if the next sound you hear is "Damn- she's still movin'. (Rack)."

(Even if your family is armed and may be the shooters. Even then, I'm coming like a freight train screaming like a banshee... If I die from friendly fire so be it, better than surviving in a good tactical position hoping the dogs figure things out while my family is executed).

So I guess I totally disagree that #3 was a mistake.
 
#30 ·
I'm 100% with you - pretty much exactly what I did. Now it's all about thanking God that we have the opportunity for hindsight and thinking/preparation, and then taking that opportunity to do something about it so if it goes down for real next time, we've got other options.

Hunker down while family is unarmed on the other side of the house? Not going to happen, even if I have to go all Naked Zulu warrior against a Panzer division.

#3 mistake wasn't charging into the room, but that I was empty handed in the first place.
 
#31 ·
Just my opinion, but I think its potentially a fatal mistake to verbalize this.
Remember, the police are in the area and they know something is going on.

They may be in the house chasing bad guy, bad guy might be there, you have no idea.

Its chaos and there is not much that can go right, but if I know there might be a SWAT team right outside in my front lawn and I cannot get through to 911 and I think there is a bad guy or multiple in my house, making a hell of a lot of noise makes a lot of sense to me. You are literally calling in the cavalry.

Heck fire a starter pistol, light up an actual homing beacon. Unless they are actual zombies, they are going to hear the sirens coming real quick and know that you have more numbers than they do, and they are probably going to care.
 
#32 ·
#3 mistake wasn't charging into the room, but that I was empty handed in the first place.
It was 3 am and you were already pumped full of adrenaline from the call. You heard a gunshot in a loved one's room. Now you are reptilian, hopped up on all sorts of chemicals most people pay a lot of money for.

You weren't going to bust in the room in low light with a family member there somewhere possibly in mortal danger and take a safe shot to the CNS anyway. Honestly a gun in hand might have been a detriment- at that moment. If bad guy was there they likely were going to keep your family between you and them. Your thinking shoot, you see them holding family as barrier, you pause, you start to think and in the process fight the adrenaline, and now you are stuck. Deer in headlights.

No gun, no choice, no thought. You turn off your mind. All that stuff about how fast a man can close distance and why you should carry one in the chamber works in reverse as well- if there had been someone in there your war cry alerts them and they stop raping or killing your family and set up for you.

They will probably shoot you, at least once, as you enter the funnel.

Then they will learn why the caliber wars can never end and what Massad Ayoob means when he discusses how much surviving gunshots has to do with the physical state and strength of will of the person being shot.

Then they will discover its tough to breath when you've ripped their throat out.

Sure on paper I'd rather have something more edgy or pointy or shootie in most scenarios but I am neither a ninja nor Jason Bourne and in the scenario you set up all that crap will just get in the way of your inner primate. The Hulk even threw off his shirt when he had to go Smash.
 
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