Man Down!' or whatever) and my husband took it upon himself to put us out in our living room at 11PM, and to loudly call out our address, and that is when it all went down. My husband had a really good time. The cops didn't, because they didn't have their own flashlights or their own cell phones with keys attached to them. They had to call the fire department for back up, which took a few minutes. During that time, several neighbors showed up. One asked why it was so loud in our house, and we told him that the fire department was there. That was not as hilarious for us as he seemed to think it would be, but everyone did start laughing then. And everyone kept on standing there for several minutes waiting for the fire truck, then standing around the back of the truck and waiting for the redhead to emerge, then waiting for the fire chief to emerge, then waiting some more for the fire truck to get out of our driveway and back onto the street. It was quite hilarious, actually. My husband kept telling everyone that he'd be happy to take a picture of us with the entire scene, but no one wanted to wait around. So he told them, 'Well, hurry up and take one with me!' By then it was after midnight, and there was some yelling going on behind our house, so I got into the car with my husband, and we drove to the police station (it was pretty late). We waited around for a bit and then the chief and his two sons showed up. I'd written down their names, and we gave them copies of our written statements. We'd told the chief who had taken the statement to give him their full names and addresses so he could contact them, and said we wouldn't be returning the favor. We didn't care about making a formal statement, but we did want an apology from the officers involved. They apologized about as well as you might expect. They kept saying, 'we were just doing our jobs.' We told them they were going to jail and so were their wives, so they should be pretty well motivated to do a better job. They all seemed rather shocked, and even more shocked when my husband and I told them it didn't matter that their children were also with them in the house. We told them to check with their wives. Then they filed their report, and they had to fill in the section that says 'complaints from other units.' I was pretty upset that they only listed their own complaint, so I added that, and a few things about how they had only written down the address of the house with the dog, not that of the parents, how they kept telling the parents to stay back, etc. I left a voice mail for the chief a little later. It went something like, 'I left some details in the report on paper with your wife. I hope it helps.' After I was done, the chief called me back, and I thought it was a pretty clear message that they wouldn't be able to keep it out of the public record. I was surprised when the newspaper didn't call us. Or anyone else. I figured the chief would ask the police officer's families to keep it out of the paper, so I should have expected the paper to call me. But I was surprised that the news didn't mention it, at all, on TV or in print. I've been a bit miffed at the lack of coverage from both the paper and the TV stations. This is a local story with a happy ending, but we are just as deserving of the news coverage as anyone else, if not more so. The next morning, I didn't hear from the police chief, and I called him. He did not return my calls or my messages, and we haven't heard from him since. The police chief's wife called, and asked why my husband had called me at home. She wanted to know who he was, and I told her that he's a cop, too. She said, 'he seems like a nice guy.' Then she asked why he'd called me, and I told her that I'd been the one who called my husband. She asked why I didn't want her to talk to him again, and I told her I was too sick to talk to him. She said, 'he seems like a nice guy.' Then she said, 'the police department has a lot of nice people, but they are going to be judged, like the fire department, or the government, or any other organization we give them to run.' It seems that some of the people have been made nervous by having the spotlight so brightly cast on them, and are in denial. It's hard to be a cop. And it's hard to deal with that, especially when people who don't know you might question the legitimacy of your actions and question your ethics. I'd say we're going to try to let them get on with their lives now, and just to stay out of their way. If you are ever in need of a police officer, you'll have to get some friends together and kidnap one of the others, but the one we have is working out fine. You see, when I was a kid, I lived in a small town where there were a lot of kids like me and a few more like my brother, but not many kids like my mom. We were all underprivileged, to one degree or another. We were in a working-class area of the city, with many poor people, and a small core of educated middle class. And we did not have much help from the government. That's where the story of those fire department neighbors happened. I'm sorry you got caught up in all of this. It must have been unsettling for you, especially for you, being a woman, and I'm sorry that you lost your home. This stuff is hard to understand sometimes, when the people doing it think that they're doing their job and are only defending people like you and me. The job of protecting us is supposed to be one they can also enjoy, but if it's hard and stressful all the time, they're not going to do their jobs well, and you'll have to find another way to find safety, like the person you mention who makes a lot of illegal modifications to her home and garage. It makes me wonder, though. I guess I can't condemn all the police for doing what they do, but I can't be very happy with a few of them. I know there are good ones, and I'm sure there are good ones in your community, but I'm sorry that your experience was not good, because you are just another person, trying to live your life in a peaceful manner, and I don't like it when people make it hard for you. I realize you may not be able to take care of any additional statements from people for a while. I may need to go down there and do it myself, so I can be sure that the right person gets your statements. If that's too much trouble, I would ask you to give me their contact information, so I can call them. If you get in touch with the fire department, could you give them that message about the paper? If you don't get any response from any other press, you could send them an email. You could also send me an email when you can. There are several good websites I would like you to check out. Many people don't know that they exist, and that's too bad. So I will give you a list of ones I've seen on the net and maybe recommend. The first one is a government website about crime in general, with a list of crimes that are not reported and that can happen to you. Many people don't know about the dangers they face and don't know how to protect themselves from them. It's a good source of basic information and has a lot of things on self defense, since that's what you should be focused on when you get in an emergency situation, whether you are attacked or not. Another good website is for crime statistics in the United States. There are some statistics on crimes in your area, since it is a US website. So does this woman look familiar? http://www.thebureau.net/statistics.html http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criminal_justice_statistics http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/cb/stats http://www.disastercenter.com/crime/uscrime.htm www.usatoday.com/news/health/crime_pedo.htm http://www.nationmaster.com/crime/uscrime/1.htm http://www.bjs.gov/index.cfm?ty=dcdetail&iid=211 http://www.stopit.com/index.htm?cid=13&id=2 You might like to check out http://www.stopit.com/index.htm?cid=13&id=2 The site can give you useful information, and teach you about self defense. The site will warn you when someone wants to hurt you, but it won't hurt you. I've been around people who live in a fear that they will come home and find their wives gone, or their home destroyed or their children hurt or dead or worse. I've tried to stay safe from them, and I can't say that I've had to worry about it a lot, so I'm a little hesitant to