Long story.
So its Saturday about midnight. My house faces the neighborhood clubhouse. There are several cars parked on the street around the neighborhood that seem out of place. I notice some lights and movement around the clubhouse and hear the fence rattling like maybe people are climbing into the pool area.
I start to leave it alone. But then I hear something that sounds like it's breaking. So I get my light cannon and blast it in the direction of the clubhouse. There's a herd of people. I yell from my front yard and ask if they live here. One says "yeah" and another yells "what business is it of yours?" And then they scramble. On foot, to the cars and peel out, lights off.
My neighbor comes off his porch where he was hiding when this started. He's carrying. We decide to go to check out the clubhouse to see what's broken. About the time we get back there, we see the cars coming back. Eight or ten at this point. Circling the neighborhood about half with their lights off. Neighbor calls 911. Couple of cars start down the clubhouse drive. I come around from the back and stand facing the cars. They stop side by side and hit me with the brights. I stand there, they sit there and then I pull out my light cannon and light them up. I hear "What this black think he doin'?" Doors open and people spill out of the cars. There's at least six out on foot now, some hiding behind trees, some running across my front yard, some scrambling back behind the houses. I pin one standing in the corner of my yard trying to hide behind a bush. I yell at him to stay right the fuck where he is. He freezes. The cars scratch gravel getting away.
I go up to the guy. It's dark as hell. He's standing there shirtless, pouring sweat. Black. About 6-4, 280 probably. Could be 25, could be 16. It's dark. I ask him what the fuck they're doing out here at this time of night. He says "Sir, I live here and I was just out for a run, I don't know what none of this is." So I ask him what house and he says "oh, I just moved in. New house. Over there." and he points in the direction of a house. I ask him "that one?" Knowing full well that an elderly couple lives there. He says "yes sir, that's my house. We just moving in." About this time a car comes pulling up. Another black guy leans out looking at his phone and says "bro, we got the number wrong. It was 26480 not 28460. We gotta go." I hit him with the light and ask who the fuck he is.
"We was going to a party and got the house wrong. We gotta go. They waiting on us." Big dude says "yeah, that's my house." I tell him I know that's bullshit. Tell him I don't care what they're doing, just get in the car and get them and all their friends out of there before somebody gets in trouble. He jumps in and they wheel out again.
Go back to the clubhouse to see if the neighbor found any damage. All we find is a door that's been pushed open and a couple of cartons of beer and whiteclaws (still cold) laying back there. Still no cops. Maybe five minutes later, here the cars come again. Cruising the neighborhood. They start down the clubhouse drive. Again I come around and hit them with the light. Six cars cruise by. Two stay at the front bright-lighting the driveway so it makes it hard for me to see. All of them with at least three black men/boys in them. Glaring at me. Cursing. Saying crap like "we know where you live, bitch."
Last car, a big black guy leans out the window and makes a finger gun at me. Says "if you know what's good for you, you'll take your ugly motherfucking neighborhood watch looking ass back in the house before somebody gets hurt." And then he mimes shooting.
Cars leave. Neighbor comes out from behind the clubhouse. I figure that's the end of it. But no. About the time we get through checking out the clubhouse and head toward his place to wait on the cops who STILL aren't there, here come the cars again. We see them coming out of the neighborhood they're building behind us which is currently filled with half-built houses and empty streets. They stream into our neighborhood and start cruising it again. Some of them eventually start trying to go down clubhouse road.
NOW the cops are finally there. They light it up and hit the sirens. All of a sudden it's like a riot. People are jumping out of cars and running, cars are flying through the neighborhood. But most of them stupidly head toward what they probably thought was a back exit -- except there's no way out back there. It's a cul-de-sac and a dead end into a field.
Half an hour later or so, the sheriff's come to talk to us and we watch all the cars drive past and out of the neighborhood.
Deputy says they let them go because they were all good kids. Football players. They were going to call their head coach and let him know and he'd take care of any punishment during practice. He says they got six names, phone numbers and addresses. There were at LEAST 15 people in the crew. So they didn't get half.
I told the deputy that "good kids" left the first time and didn't keep coming back again and again. Good kids didn't threaten people or try to intimidate them.
He said he knew good kids from bad ones and he'd make sure their coach worked them hard in practice.
I still wasn't having it, but I lost that argument. I didn't give a damn about their football eligibility. I told him I wouldn't have even called the cops if these clowns had left the first two times we confronted them. But they didn't. He kept insisting they were good kids just out to have a little fun and got carried away. They didn't have any alcohol or weed he says. I tell them there's alcohol behind the clubhouse. He says don't worry about that, they'll go pick it up.
I asked the deputy if he wanted the one tag number I was able to get. He says he doesn't need it.
Today I find out that there was a spate of car break ins in the neighborhood on the other side of this new subdivision that's being built. Somebody saw one of the would-be burglars and chased him until he ran away from them and across the field into that new subdivision. That happened at about 10:30 at night.
Connected? Coincidence? Surely not.
I'm really glad those "good kids" had to allegedly run some wind sprints or do some pushups.
It's a different world. IF it was just a bunch of kids (and I'm not buying that either) they don't behave like kids did in my day. Somebody told us to leave, we left.
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