K*lling criminals with paper cuts
It turns out the pen is mightier than the sword
If you have crimes committed against you, even minor ones, especially if there are problems where you live, you need to involve the police.
That's assuming you still have a police force in your city.
Since I've lived here, I've had multiple issues take place that I've written about before. There's a whole string of records at the police department in my community because I'm not afraid to get law enforcement involved.
You can’t report every little thing
Do I call for every little infraction that I see? Of course not. Absolutely not. That's ridiculous. We don't need to go overboard. And we need to use some common sense.
There's going to be people that are constantly breaking the law. It doesn't matter what it is. People are going to break the law. But you can't call the police every single time it happens.
I'm specifically talking about crimes committed against you (or your neighbors). Unless it's an overt crime, I'm specifically talking about the petty gray areas, especially the things that don’t add up.
Like the earbud that fell out of my laundry basket this last weekend. How did it get in there? There was no plausible explanation for how that got in there.
I knew when I went to the apartment complex management, explained the situation, and asked if maintenance had been in my home that:
It sounded crazy
It was happening
I was also having an issue with it
They confirmed that maintenance had not been in my apartment, according to what they were willing to tell me.
The thing was that there was an actual, physical item that did not belong to me in any way, shape, or form, and I could prove that.
I was very certain I did not bring it into my home. There had to be an explanation for this, but there wasn't.
This was filmed in September 2024.
You’re not crazy or overreacting
There are only three to four very slim, probable possibilities of how this happened. They're all slim and highly improbable, but they're the only explanations I could come up with.
Thankfully, when the law enforcement officer came out this last weekend, he was probably one of the best cops I've ever talked to.
He fully admitted he thought this call would be a waste of time. He felt that, you know, this wasn't going to go anywhere, and oh, this lady's just freaking out because she found something in the washing machine that didn't belong to her. Of course, she does. It's an apartment complex.
That is until I started explaining everything that I had described when I went live.
He was willing to walk through all of those logical things for me, and because I proofread courtroom transcripts, I've proofread several depositions. I know how questions are asked in a logical, linear order to remove or narrow down possibilities of what happened or could have happened and where that process broke down, right?
I'm very familiar with this type of communication. I recognized it when the officer started asking me those types of questions. I recognized it because I'm a technical writer familiar with asking these questions. I make it a habit to ask questions this way when trying to find something out myself. It narrows things down to concrete, logical pieces. So we got along famously. The cop and I got along great.
He walked me through those possibilities, and he admitted it was perplexing.
I then took it a step further and asked him about checking for trackers on my vehicle. Thankfully, as of this video, I have not found any, but I will make it a habit now that I understand how to scan for those to continue checking for that regularly.
And I have to accept that if I want to continue living in any kind of city here in the United States of America, the way our economy is, how our government currently is, and how people's tensions are very high. We have an illegal alien problem in this country. It's been known, especially for the last four years, when it's been ramped up since, you know, Biden took office.
We are very aware of these things. We are very aware of the increased level of crime, tensions, and all these other kinds of problems that are contributing to people just saying screw it, "I'm gonna commit a crime because there's a high chance I'm gonna get away with it." That's what a lot of these petty criminals are doing.
They just believe that they're always going to get away with it. Now, I'm the person who knows that's not true.
Criminals will not get away with it forever
It's not true that a criminal, a bully, someone who's intimidating you, harassing you, or stalking you will get away with that forever. They won't. In decades past, it was a lot easier, but today, it's not as easy.
Whether a criminal pays for their crimes depends upon whether:
Law enforcement can catch them
The legal system can push them through properly
If the attorney general in your vicinity will prosecute certain crimes
Some attorney generals in some cities here in the United States do not prosecute certain crimes. They're not interested in it because of their political agenda, or there's not enough money in it, or whatever.
Many citizens have yet to realize that they're on their own. I woke up to this around a year ago when I moved into this apartment complex.
Since then, petty crime has increased here but has also decreased in other aspects.
You’re more powerful than the criminals
More and more neighbors are getting more cameras, and more and more neighbors are willing to step up and see that it's okay to talk about this stuff that's happening and report it to the police. It's just a shock for a lot of people because they haven't realized yet that they have more power than they think they do.
The more valid filings people make collectively, the more law enforcement personnel will devote resources to that area. If you are, thankfully, still in a city that will do that for you.
Collectively, these criminals and bullies will see an increased police presence. They will see an increase in neighbors willing to set up doorbell cameras and carry other personal protective measures.
Here in the United States, it's very legal, especially in Texas, to practice all kinds of self-defense methods. Use your imagination, right? And so you'll find that many of these petty criminals eventually get tired of dealing with all that.
Criminals understand that the risk of getting caught and reported has increased, and they'll be less likely to continue their behavior in this manner going forward, at least in this area.
Part of that has proven to be true. Part of that has definitely proven to be true here. But there are still pockets where I know of neighbors who are very afraid to report these things to the police.
If you are having criminal behavior against you, even if it's in the gray area, but it's just not, things aren't adding up — I know it can sound unbelievable or like you're overreacting to certain things, but it's not. That's how some of this stuff sometimes works with crime or personal agendas against you.
I've lived through that in the past, too. I'm almost 50 years old. I have lived through people trying to make my life a living hell just because they felt like they could.
Unfortunately, our legal system today will entertain things at the courthouse steps that aren't even true. I understand this fear at a very personal, intimate level, and I want to make this video to encourage you.
If you are having problems, report them to the police. Start reporting them.
Police are required to listen to you even when they don’t want to
I have found it very helpful from the time I make the phone call to dispatch to the time the police officer actually arrives, is to take out a piece of paper—scratch paper—just get one sheet of paper. It could be the back of junk mail; it doesn't matter.
Grab something to write with and start bullet-pointing what you need to cover.
During the conversation, you may refer to this piece of paper, and you can tell them upfront, "I wrote everything down because I wanted to make sure I didn't forget to tell you anything. Where would you like to start?"
Usually, they're going to say, "Just tell me what you got. Tell me what's going on." Their best investigation method is listening to a story; eventually, they'll start asking you questions, and you can start answering those questions.
When they say, "Is there anything else?"
Even if you felt like it was the sloppiest, scariest conversation you have ever had, and you can hear yourself not talking right because things are not coming out in the correct order because you're so nervous, that is when you can look down at the piece of paper you were holding in your hands and say, "Let me check."
And then, at that moment, your body immediately relaxes, and you can go, "Yeah, we talked about this, we talked about that, we talked about this, we talked about that..."
It's very important that you're able to do this for yourself.
It's sad that I've had to have that much interaction with the police. It is.
The good thing is that more neighbors here are becoming less afraid.
I hope some of this information has helped you. If you have questions, just leave them below, and I'll see if I can answer them.