How Is This NOT Suspicious Behavior?

[UNM1136]

Dispatchers around here are city employees. They get PERA and city benefits and are well paid

That does not mean that they think they are well compensated.....

pat

[TGS]

You also don't know what other assets may or may not be in the area and why and how they are deployed as they are.

This.

@Cypher, surveillance can run the gamut from 1 car to many, and the tactics involved could have people placed across a geographic area. One time I was a TL for a 3-team operation, and our post was about 20 miles away from where the target was when we started the op.

It comes down to "you don't know what you don't know".

[Cypher]

That does not mean that they think they are well compensated.....

pat

This is totally off topic but city employees around here are notorious for not thinking they're well-paid enough.

I actually had utilities executive tell me once that only being paid $275,000 a year after working for the utilities for 10 years wasn't enough money

[Glenn E. Meyer]

Helson's Adaptation Level Theory. Once you acclimate to a level - you want to change it. If you have a rich life style, you want more. I would be happy to run the NRA for $500,000 and a coupon to Men's Warehouse for a couple of new suits. WLP doesn't think that is enough.

[UNM1136]

This is totally off topic but city employees around here are notorious for not thinking they're well-paid enough.

I actually had utilities executive tell me once that only being paid $275,000 a year after working for the utilities for 10 years wasn't enough money

No one thinks they are paid what they are worth. That is why they bitch and moan. The bottom line is that if they thought they were worth more and thought the transition was worth it they would go elsewhere.

Unrelated, but my daughter, whom I got a cake job for at the local college, didn"t think she was being paid enough while working a student security job while majoring in parental disappointment and minoring in fucking up. She did a number of things to piss off the chain of command and just yesterday got a job paying 50% more than she was making at the college. She is now making the same as the experienced folks that were dispatching her to calls for service who still dispatching me....

pat

[HCM]

As far as me approaching the vehicle, I have no standing to do that. I'm not a cop I'm not security for these apartments so what happens when I walk up to the car and ask him what they're doing and they tell me to screw off?

Or what happens when I walk up to the car and they are involved in some criminal activity?

Seems to me like the smartest thing to do is call the cops

You are correct but people do it regularly.

They also do it then call 911 anyway to “check” which usually results in 911 calling to give us a heads up.

My personal favorite favorite was the dumbass who pulled up next to me, beeped his horn an announced he was “a CHL holder” and asked “what the hell was I doing here ? “ I was parked in front of a wooded vacant lot and he lived up the street. Luckily I was not the eye and was not in sight of the target. I ID myself and advise him next time call 911 as the Sheriffs office knows who we are and why we are here. He starts sputtering some sheep dog nonsense about it being “his” street and wanting to know what’s going on. I tell him I can’t discuss it, finally get rid of him and move a block over. Then a marked constables unit rolls up on my new spot wanting to know who I am. Now the constables are dispatched by the county SO, who know The Who/what/where/ why for DeConfliction, and some of the constables are very shady so we have a quasi Mexican stand off and discussion of the supremacy clause of the US constitution while my partners and the SO show up. Turns out the sheep dog and the constable are buddies. Instead of calling 911, Sheep dog called his buddy directly, asked him to “check me out” and the constable did so on his own with out checking in with SO dispatch. Complete Shitshow.

[Cypher]

You are correct but people do it regularly.

They also do it then call 911 anyway to “check” which usually results in 911 calling to give us a heads up.

I've learned a couple of things working as a security guard, I'm pretty cognizant of the exact limits of my authority and do everything I can to stay inside them. Approaching a private vehicle on private property that I'm not responsible for isn't that. I've also been doing this long enough to understand how dangerous it is to walk up on someone's car. I don't even do it on the clock unless I don't have another option.

I'm also pretty picky about calling 911 unless it's a bonafide emergency. Also based on my experience in security, I try not to call the police unless I can articulate a specific possibly criminal behavior on the part of the person I'm calling in. "It's 3A.M. All the business in this strip mall are closed and I'm watching this guy check the doors on every car in the lot. Can you send a car to check it out?" When I do call in it's on the non emergency number.

My personal favorite favorite was the dumbass who pulled up next to me, beeped his horn an announced he was “a CHL holder” and asked “what the hell was I doing here ? “ I was parked in front of a wooded vacant lot and he lived up the street. Luckily I was not the eye and was not in sight of the target. I ID myself and advise him next time call 911 as the Sheriffs office knows who we are and why we are here. He starts sputtering some sheep dog nonsense about it being “his” street and wanting to know what’s going on. I tell him I can’t discuss it, finally get rid of him and move a block over. Then a marked constables unit rolls up on my new spot wanting to know who I am. Now the constables are dispatched by the county SO, who know The Who/what/where/ why for DeConfliction, and some of the constables are very shady so we have a quasi Mexican stand off and discussion of the supremacy clause of the US constitution while my partners and the SO show up. Turns out the sheep dog and the constable are buddies. Instead of calling 911, Sheep dog called his buddy directly, asked him to “check me out” and the constable did so on his own with out checking in with SO dispatch. Complete Shitshow.

I've been blessed with a very good understanding that you only meddle in other people's business so many times before you walk out your front door and find your car trashed in the parking lot. I also (again) have a very good understanding of how dangerous it is to approach an unknown vehicle. I don't do it if I have any other option.

I'm also very cognizant that if (God forbid) I'm ever involved in a self defense incident the police are going to look into my history. I absolutely do not want a long list of negative interactions with my neighbors in which I'm acting as the self appointed neighborhood watch.

[Stephanie B]

I'm also pretty picky about calling 911 unless it's a bonafide emergency. Also based on my experience in security, I try not to call the police unless I can articulate a specific possibly criminal behavior on the part of the person I'm calling in. "It's 3A.M. All the business in this strip mall are closed and I'm watching this guy check the doors on every car in the lot. Can you send a car to check it out?" When I do call in it's on the non emergency number.

I do have the non-emergency number of my local cop shop in my phone, but if I'm outside of my town, I'll call 9-1-1 if I see something hinkey.

Somebody sitting down at the cul-de-sac won't get a call. That's a place where commercial delivery drivers and the garbage guys will stop for a break. Even the patrol cops would sometimes coop there, until the trees that shielded it from the adjoining off-ramp were removed by the DOT.

[TC215]

Having said that, this seems like an incredibly stupid way to do surveillance on someone to me. Now I realize I have a better understanding of the the lay out for my neighborhood than you all do but there is a veterinary clinic about 100 yards away from where the car was parked that was empty and would have provided multiple shade trees but still with a clear view of our parking lot. That's where I would have set up shop.

Being the only car in a parking lot is about the worst possible way to conduct surveillance.

[gtae07]

Many of the car campers in California are reasonably well-paid, but just can't or don't want to pay $3,000/month for a shared bedroom. Some even have homes in the distant suburbs, but stay in the city during the work week. A recent count in San Francisco turned up ~450 such vehicles.

There is an entire subculture out there kind of glamorizing the life of surreptitiously living in your Honda Element:


The state assembly recently passed a bill requiring cities with over 330,000 people to provide a safe haven overnight parking lot with restrooms. San Diego has one already, Sacramento is planning one...

If I’d been a little wiser in college, I’d have been doing something like this. Surreptitiously convert a van, park it in the parking deck next to the campus gym, use that for showers. Would have saved me a bunch of money. Instead I paid hundreds a month to live in a shed in someone’s back yard, and that was cheap.