Police raid on neighbour's property: was I scammed?
May 30, 2024 2:02 AM Subscribe
A few days ago our neighbours' house was raided in the middle of the night, and the sole occupant arrested. A family friend of the neighbour visited a day later, concerned about their dog, and asked our help to gain access to the property. (Climb over our fence in order to break in via the back door.) I'm a trusting person and I've had friendly interactions with this person before, so I allowed this. The dog turned out not to be there. Thinking over the incident, I now feel like I was naive, and wonder if there may be any repercussions. (This is in London, UK)
The police who entered the property did not knock on our door or communicate with us at all. There is no police tape on the property. I don't have any information about why our neighbour was arrested, we are only nodding terms.
The friend is, as far as I know, a good and honest person. I've had more conversations with him in the past than with the neighbour. (He comes by every few months to help them out with DIY and such.) He seemed surprised and worried, and said he'd only been informed by neighbour's girlfriend earlier that day, and she was worried about the dog. It didn't seem like an act.
I had no information about whether the dog was in the house or not. I heard it barking during the raid, but not subsequently. But (friend) had been told it was there and he seemed to believe it.
My only assistance was to allow this person to climb over our back fence, and let him use our hammer and gardening gloves, to break in through a window from the garden. I also gave him cardboard to tape over the broken window. This was in broad daylight. He was in there for 10 minutes or so, before coming out saying the dog wasn't there. He also lost one of the gloves. He said he'd be back in a day or so if he manages to get keys from the girlfriend. He's not been back. I don't have contact details for him.
In retrospect, I shouldn't have allowed this. But I did. What (if anything) is likely to happen next? Is there anything I should do?
The police who entered the property did not knock on our door or communicate with us at all. There is no police tape on the property. I don't have any information about why our neighbour was arrested, we are only nodding terms.
The friend is, as far as I know, a good and honest person. I've had more conversations with him in the past than with the neighbour. (He comes by every few months to help them out with DIY and such.) He seemed surprised and worried, and said he'd only been informed by neighbour's girlfriend earlier that day, and she was worried about the dog. It didn't seem like an act.
I had no information about whether the dog was in the house or not. I heard it barking during the raid, but not subsequently. But (friend) had been told it was there and he seemed to believe it.
My only assistance was to allow this person to climb over our back fence, and let him use our hammer and gardening gloves, to break in through a window from the garden. I also gave him cardboard to tape over the broken window. This was in broad daylight. He was in there for 10 minutes or so, before coming out saying the dog wasn't there. He also lost one of the gloves. He said he'd be back in a day or so if he manages to get keys from the girlfriend. He's not been back. I don't have contact details for him.
In retrospect, I shouldn't have allowed this. But I did. What (if anything) is likely to happen next? Is there anything I should do?
Best answer: What you did was perfectly reasonable. I think I would have done the same.
What else could you have done? Refused someone access to climb over your fence, when they claimed a dog was in danger and you had (and still have) no concrete reason to doubt them? Of course not!
Maybe the "friend" came by to rob their jewellery drawer. But you can't know that, it seems very unlikely, and it's 0% your responsibility if that turns out to be the case. The most likely scenario is the friend panicked a bit about the dog and took matters into his own hands.
It all sounds stressful and unexpected and I think you should give yourself a break.
posted by Klipspringer at 2:31 AM on May 30 [16 favorites]
What else could you have done? Refused someone access to climb over your fence, when they claimed a dog was in danger and you had (and still have) no concrete reason to doubt them? Of course not!
Maybe the "friend" came by to rob their jewellery drawer. But you can't know that, it seems very unlikely, and it's 0% your responsibility if that turns out to be the case. The most likely scenario is the friend panicked a bit about the dog and took matters into his own hands.
It all sounds stressful and unexpected and I think you should give yourself a break.
posted by Klipspringer at 2:31 AM on May 30 [16 favorites]
Best answer: There was a missing dog.
I strongly doubt you will get into trouble for the break and enter. And unless there are some cops somewhere with a minimum number of arrests they need to make in the property crime under 200 Euro category, you probably won't. A lot of places they won't send someone out to even take a police report when there is a B & E, let alone make an effort to track down the perp. Who is going to call them to report the break in?
There was a missing dog. Dogs can die pretty quickly if they don't have water.
You took a risk, you may have done something wrong, but you did it, lest there be a dog, dying of thirst, trapped in a locked house.
It's marginally possible that the person who broke in was an accomplice of the one arrested and was hoping that the stash hidden in the back of the broken dishwasher was still there, or some such scenario. It's even less likely that the person who broke in wanted to grab his friend's engagement ring and collection of cubic zirconia in 12 carat settings, but not impossible. It is highly possible that the person who broke in was prepared to go to jail if it meant saving a dog's life.
If it were me I'd be keeping an eye out in case the dog got put outside as the single least complicated way for the cops to deal with the arrest and searching the premises, without having to also deal with the dog. Dog might be coming back to the house and then wandering off again. But I think the scenario of the dog being locked into the house or some unknown person having it more likely than that it got put outside.
Yeah, you rushed to the rescue without thinking and maybe that was ill thought out. But here is the thing. If the family friend person was up to no good, they would want fewer witnesses, for their no good business, not more. While they might be devious enough to have got you into it to serve as a character witness if they got caught searching the house, that is highly unlikely. If they were really breaking into the house for nefarious reasons they would probably have been very much more concerned that you would say to the cops, "Yes, it was Michael T Munroe who broke into the house, on May 23rd, around 3:20 PM, over my back fence, using my hammer." If they were there for the drug stash or the cubic zirconia, telling you they hoped to break in would be pretty much the last thing they would do.
So the simple fact that they asked for your help makes it most probable that they were determined to break into the house to look for the dog, but wanted morale support to do it, and are now feeling much the same way you are, uncomfortable, guilty and certain they did something stupid, but trying to reassure themself they had to, for the sake of the dog.
The possibility of a key is not indicative of much. Presumably the girlfriend either doesn't have a key, because her drug dealing partner didn't want her to let herself in without notice, or is actually an ex-girlfriend and the arrestee was arrested for making credible death threats against her, or she already went there and didn't find the dog, and they didn't believe her when she said she went there, or is too upset to talk to the friend, or couldn't get time off work to give them the key, or has the dog but wanted to keep it and didn't want to give it to the friend and is lying about now having sole custody, or a host of other things two, three or four people removes away from you. There are lots of potential ways to explain why the girlfriend didn't simply give the key to the family friend and the most likely one is that the girlfriend was lukewarm about a mission to rescue the dog, because she didn't believe the cops would have abandoned it to die of thirst in the house. After all, they didn't, so she was right.
Do you know how to contact the family friend? I'd try and figure out a way to contact them so as to ask if the dog was ever found. You might feel much better if you did and had a short conversation with them where they raged about the dog being sent to the shelter instead of someone being given a chance to pick it up, or worried that the lost dog was dying or dead, or sheepishly tried to justified the break in during a relieved babble that it turned out her mother had the dog, who was the only one the arrestee was able to contact at three AM when she got arrested, funny thing how people call their mom at a time like that, and yeah, the dog is alright, the girlfriend has it now.
Some part of your lingering unease and bad feelings about this is because there is a dog still missing. Bottom line. There was a missing dog. And it is still missing. And you won't feel okay about this until you know where the dog is.
posted by Jane the Brown at 4:56 AM on May 30 [6 favorites]
I strongly doubt you will get into trouble for the break and enter. And unless there are some cops somewhere with a minimum number of arrests they need to make in the property crime under 200 Euro category, you probably won't. A lot of places they won't send someone out to even take a police report when there is a B & E, let alone make an effort to track down the perp. Who is going to call them to report the break in?
There was a missing dog. Dogs can die pretty quickly if they don't have water.
You took a risk, you may have done something wrong, but you did it, lest there be a dog, dying of thirst, trapped in a locked house.
It's marginally possible that the person who broke in was an accomplice of the one arrested and was hoping that the stash hidden in the back of the broken dishwasher was still there, or some such scenario. It's even less likely that the person who broke in wanted to grab his friend's engagement ring and collection of cubic zirconia in 12 carat settings, but not impossible. It is highly possible that the person who broke in was prepared to go to jail if it meant saving a dog's life.
If it were me I'd be keeping an eye out in case the dog got put outside as the single least complicated way for the cops to deal with the arrest and searching the premises, without having to also deal with the dog. Dog might be coming back to the house and then wandering off again. But I think the scenario of the dog being locked into the house or some unknown person having it more likely than that it got put outside.
Yeah, you rushed to the rescue without thinking and maybe that was ill thought out. But here is the thing. If the family friend person was up to no good, they would want fewer witnesses, for their no good business, not more. While they might be devious enough to have got you into it to serve as a character witness if they got caught searching the house, that is highly unlikely. If they were really breaking into the house for nefarious reasons they would probably have been very much more concerned that you would say to the cops, "Yes, it was Michael T Munroe who broke into the house, on May 23rd, around 3:20 PM, over my back fence, using my hammer." If they were there for the drug stash or the cubic zirconia, telling you they hoped to break in would be pretty much the last thing they would do.
So the simple fact that they asked for your help makes it most probable that they were determined to break into the house to look for the dog, but wanted morale support to do it, and are now feeling much the same way you are, uncomfortable, guilty and certain they did something stupid, but trying to reassure themself they had to, for the sake of the dog.
The possibility of a key is not indicative of much. Presumably the girlfriend either doesn't have a key, because her drug dealing partner didn't want her to let herself in without notice, or is actually an ex-girlfriend and the arrestee was arrested for making credible death threats against her, or she already went there and didn't find the dog, and they didn't believe her when she said she went there, or is too upset to talk to the friend, or couldn't get time off work to give them the key, or has the dog but wanted to keep it and didn't want to give it to the friend and is lying about now having sole custody, or a host of other things two, three or four people removes away from you. There are lots of potential ways to explain why the girlfriend didn't simply give the key to the family friend and the most likely one is that the girlfriend was lukewarm about a mission to rescue the dog, because she didn't believe the cops would have abandoned it to die of thirst in the house. After all, they didn't, so she was right.
Do you know how to contact the family friend? I'd try and figure out a way to contact them so as to ask if the dog was ever found. You might feel much better if you did and had a short conversation with them where they raged about the dog being sent to the shelter instead of someone being given a chance to pick it up, or worried that the lost dog was dying or dead, or sheepishly tried to justified the break in during a relieved babble that it turned out her mother had the dog, who was the only one the arrestee was able to contact at three AM when she got arrested, funny thing how people call their mom at a time like that, and yeah, the dog is alright, the girlfriend has it now.
Some part of your lingering unease and bad feelings about this is because there is a dog still missing. Bottom line. There was a missing dog. And it is still missing. And you won't feel okay about this until you know where the dog is.
posted by Jane the Brown at 4:56 AM on May 30 [6 favorites]
You let someone hop your fence. You're blowing this way out of proportion. Relax.
posted by NotMyselfRightNow at 5:10 AM on May 30 [13 favorites]
posted by NotMyselfRightNow at 5:10 AM on May 30 [13 favorites]
Response by poster: Thanks everyone. You're right, the biggest argument in favour of an innocent explanation is that this friend is the one taking the risk, not me. He knows that several people in my house saw him and if he wanted to break in secretly, he could've done so.
posted by snarfois at 7:18 AM on May 30 [2 favorites]
posted by snarfois at 7:18 AM on May 30 [2 favorites]
Response by poster: I mean, even if he was deliberately giving himself witnesses to back up his story about the dog, and it was really for purposes of theft or tampering with evidence, it would not be a clever ruse that would help him much, legally.
posted by snarfois at 7:25 AM on May 30 [1 favorite]
posted by snarfois at 7:25 AM on May 30 [1 favorite]
Someone coming to rob your neighbour is not likely to ask permission to go in through your yard. And had you said no, they would've found some other way in regardless. I don't think you did anything wrong, and I don't think saying no would've changed the outcome at all.
posted by keep it under cover at 9:59 AM on May 30
posted by keep it under cover at 9:59 AM on May 30
Response by poster: I was thinking that evidence tampering is much more likely than theft. (Maybe to save the kid from a stiffer sentencing.)
But let's say police do show up again, see the broken window, and interview us, the neighbours? Of course I would have to explain who did it. But then, if evidence had been removed, police wouldn't know what had been removed, so the operation would have been successful, from the family friend's point of view, even if he got into some trouble.
I did wonder about the glove, like could it be an attempt to incriminate me, since I'm the glove's owner? But he didn't ask me for gloves or anything, I offered it. And he couldn't possibly expect that ruse to work – it wouldn't pass Occam's razor. This sounds too much like a corny TV show.
posted by snarfois at 1:37 PM on May 30
But let's say police do show up again, see the broken window, and interview us, the neighbours? Of course I would have to explain who did it. But then, if evidence had been removed, police wouldn't know what had been removed, so the operation would have been successful, from the family friend's point of view, even if he got into some trouble.
I did wonder about the glove, like could it be an attempt to incriminate me, since I'm the glove's owner? But he didn't ask me for gloves or anything, I offered it. And he couldn't possibly expect that ruse to work – it wouldn't pass Occam's razor. This sounds too much like a corny TV show.
posted by snarfois at 1:37 PM on May 30
Response by poster: (Sorry for threadsitting) If I DID think of all this when the guy showed up at my door, I would've faced a terrible dilemma. Firstly I'd have to treat this apparently kind-hearted guy like I don't trust him and refused. And secondly I'd have to be willing to bear the possible death of a dog on my conscience.
Instead none of this occurred to me and I just felt like I was helping a good person.
posted by snarfois at 1:46 PM on May 30
Instead none of this occurred to me and I just felt like I was helping a good person.
posted by snarfois at 1:46 PM on May 30
So could you put some dog food and water out by your neighbor's house, in case the dog comes back? That's something practical you could do. Also, did you get any contact info for the neighbor's friend? If not, try to if you see them again, if only so you can get in touch if you see the dog.
posted by limeonaire at 2:24 PM on May 30 [1 favorite]
posted by limeonaire at 2:24 PM on May 30 [1 favorite]
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posted by snarfois at 2:27 AM on May 30