Nine One One Not 911

[84porsche]

I have been in the LA area for a little over a year dabbling with a career in Beverly Hills and really more concerned how difficult it is when you call 911 and no one shows up. I am paying my taxes as a good middle class citizen and why is it that when I get rear ended that the LAPD are simply unavailable to come out and see if the guy that hit me was really drunk or when my car gets smashed into and all my stuff stolen including my Valentine One (V1).

Tonight I was at the grocery store in Marina Del Rey and a fight breaks out between some guy and the security guard, gets a bit bloody and 3 different phone calls to 911 from different people and it still takes 20-25 minutes for the police to show up. What does it say when our own infrastructure is falling apart or at least that is the way I feel. I believe the resources and the money is severely mismanaged especially when a meter maid can write a ticket on your car if your one minute late and the BH police are always and I say always in front of the bagel and coffee shop every morning yet I cannot get help when I needed it. Just an evening vent.

[vash]

one thing i am blessed with are fast cops. i live in a smaller east bay area town. if i climbed on my roof, i bet i could see the police station. even without the close proximity, the cops are blistering fast. once i saw a lady stalking about my neighbors..we called. i bet it was less than a minute before the first cruiser rolled up. i thanked him for his speedyness...

that time i saw the lady roll herself over with her own car? when we called..i heard sirens turn on faintly from about 3 places..they came in fast!!

if something happens..i think i can count on our cops.

[speeder]

I'm sorry to hear about your car getting broken into, that sucks. BTDT. The story about the fight at the market and slow cops is odd, however. If I called in an assault in progress or that the perp was still here, they'd respond immediately. And that's the LAPD, where I live. The BHPD has a response time of about 60 seconds in most parts of BH, unless it's up in the hills.

We had a major response a couple hours ago right next door. Lights, sirens, patrol cars screeching up, helicopter overhead, the works. Everyone ran outside to see what was up, they had a tall guy in a hoodie cuffed next to one of the squad cars and none of the cops would tell us anything. There must have been 10 police cars, bright lights, shotguns being racked, the whole deal. We figured the guy must have been a "hot prowler" or a rapist or(?) They were crawling all over the building next door like they were looking for a 2nd guy.

After about 10 minutes in which I could not leave, (car blocked in with police vehicles), some of the cops start driving away and the mood gets a little lighter. I figure that Mr. tall guy is going to jail when they uncuff him and he walks away, right towards me. I ask him, "what was that all about?" he says he doesn't know, they would not tell him but it was a "wrong guy" deal. That someone wearing a black jscket apparently committed a crime nearby. Then he walked into my building! He lives here! He looked like a villain right out of a cop show when he was cuffed by the trunk of the car, then he turned out to be a gentle guy with a French accent when I talked to him. Weird night. All the cops just drove away.

But they showed up like a roadrunner cartoon when the first one spotted this guy walking down the street. Unmarked cars, the works. FWIW, police do not respond to non-injury traffic collisions in L.A. That took some getting used to for me. Only if someone is injured and paramedics are called. Otherwise, they'd have to respond to 1000 fender-benders a day.