Stop Thief! Or Just Leave. Whatever.
Our last entry, which contained the sort of ill-informed generalization we’ve been doing far too little of lately, seems to have generated a bit of discussion on whether A2 has a disproportionate amount of crime for a comparable city (and what a comparable city would be.) It may not, but we wonder if underreporting of crime by college students both masks and contributes to the problem.
Where do we get this idea? The Ann Arbor News police log recently contained an item about a man walking around alarmingly close to our neighborhood, looking in female residents’ windows. He watched a student get ready for school in the morning. She saw him in the mirror, watched as he left and walked down another driveway in the neighborhood (presumably not to read the meters) and called the police - hours later.
Anecdotal evidence backs this up. (Well, the News thing was anecdotal evidence, but we mean less credible anecdotal evidence.) We heard recently about a student who caught a thief in the act of stealing a CD player from his apartment. The student decided that the thief probably needed the CD player and sent him on his way.
And then there’s our roommate, who watched through the window as a naked man on our porch tried on some of her clothes at 7 a.m. She politely waited to leave the house until he decided that none of them were quite right.
wait… where was this exactly? i had the same experience a few mornings ago, but didn’t report it. i live on catherine, and had walked to my house from next door at seven in the morning. i washed my face and saw a man peering in through the front door window through the mirror reflection. i walked over to the door to see who it was, and he made motions for me to come outside. i pushed the door shut, locked it, walked upstairs and proceeded to freak the fuck out.
posted by elise on December 12th, 2003 at 6:28 amI have been meaning to do the comparable city crime stats, even before your last blog posting. I’ll try to put that together today or this weekend and post the results.
I agree that crime stats are problematic due to low reporting rates and the overlapping police agencies. My usual approach is to eschew the incomplete FBI crime stats and use Vital Statistics multiple year average death rates from homicide instead, as an index of the general level of violent crime in a community.
posted by Larry Kestenbaum on December 12th, 2003 at 9:00 amYou can’t assume that Ann Arbor exudes some sort of crime-unreporting-apathy. Spend any time with a criminologist, and you will get a lengthy rant about the uselessness of crime statistics, because almost no one reports crime as often as it occurs. Rises in the rape rate, for example, are often attributed to an increased awareness that rape is a crime, or (interestingly) an increase in the public’s trust in law enforcement (trust that reporting the crime will actually benefit the victim).
posted by Mer on December 12th, 2003 at 9:10 amOh, I know all about that. I used to work for a whole passel of quarreling academic criminologists.
posted by Larry Kestenbaum on December 12th, 2003 at 9:25 amVery weird anecdote about the guy. I wonder if it’s the same one I had a run-in with.
I lived on Ann Street until 2000; I had a guy come into my apartment and start walking up my stairs (I lived on the second floor but had an entrance with staircase on the first; there was NO mistaking that you were in the apartment, though once you were in the door because I had artwork and stuff, and you could see the bathroom and hallway — with bookshelves — from the front door; it did NOT look like a communal entranceway). Anyway, this guy came in with a laundry basket that had a few clothes in it. When I ran to the top of the stairs to ask him what the hell he was doing in my apartment, he kept walking up the stairs, saying he was just “looking for the washing machine”. When I yelled at him to STOP moving or risk being beamed over the head with a baseball bat, he just stood there trying to argue with me about my unwillingness to be helpful. After much yelling and threatening on my part, he finally left. I convinced myself that I’d been over-reacting, so I didn’t go down to lock the door, just stood there trying to talk myself out of total meltdown. Well, he came BACK, opened my door, and came in again, telling me, “look. I’m just looking for the washing machine.”
Either he was clueless or had something pretty sinister in mind. (Hint: if you ever accidentally walk into some chick’s apartment and she’s apoplectic and screaming at you to leave, just go.)
Anyway, I never reported it because I knew it would sound so hysterical (”come quick! Some guy wanted to know where the washing machine was!”).
posted by Anna on December 12th, 2003 at 9:44 amif ann arbor has a under-reporting promblem due to the college students, it shouldnt matter much, cause we’re trying to compare it to other college towns!
posted by just a voice on December 12th, 2003 at 12:08 pmMadison isn’t strictly a “college town,” since it is also the state capital.
Amherst/Northampton, MA might make a decent comparison. They’re a little farther from a major city than A2, but at least in my experience, Ann Arbor might as well be 1,000 miles from Detroit for how tightly they are connected in the collective psyche.
posted by Anna on December 12th, 2003 at 12:47 pmOops, sorry, that was supposed to go elsewhere.
posted by Anna on December 12th, 2003 at 12:47 pm‘Course, I’d also like to state that people in Ann Arbor (especially moneyed college folk from elsewhere) can be sissies when dealing with potentially dangerous situations. I was at a party on Catherine when some guy came from next door, asking that we be quieter because he had to work in the morning and needed to sleep. Apparently somebody at the party gave him shit as he was leaving, after we’d agreed to tone it down, and he came back with a golfclub. Now, my instinct was to talk him back out the door and, y’know, not be assholes to him. Instead I get a girl behind me start yelling at him when I’ve got him almost out the door, talking about how he’s got no right to confront her in her house, and how she feels threatened and wants him out right then. Which, hey, I can sympathize with, but was totally the wrong tack to take with the guy. She starts threatening him, and being super dramatic, and he ends up going back to his house and calling the cops on us. When the cops get there, we get a protracted lecture about why it’s better to just call the cops any time there’s any sort of confrontation, instead of trying to patch things up so that they don’t have to get involved. They busted up the party, wrote a noise violation ticket, and all because the college kids couldn’t sympathize with a guy who had to work on Sunday morning at 5am.
posted by js on December 12th, 2003 at 1:20 pmIsn’t the relevant part of this story that the cops didn’t do anything about this guy threatening students with a weapon?
posted by ann arbor is overrated on December 12th, 2003 at 1:30 pmOh, and the News item did indeed happen on Catherine St.
posted by ann arbor is overrated on December 12th, 2003 at 1:31 pmNot really. He never threatened anyone with the golfclub, he just had it. And by the time the cops showed up, he had left it at home again. The guy was pissed off, and the people at the party were being assholes. There was never any real danger, but I think that because the guy was black a lot of the assumptions about him being thuggish came out. The cops just told him to go to sleep, and then proceeded to bust up the party.
posted by js on December 12th, 2003 at 1:51 pmjs- your point is well taken by me, to mean that one problem with many college students is their lack of ability to deal with real life, often they only have book learning and no real life skills
one example that springs to mind is ‘the Simple Life’ show with paris hilton and LRichie’s kid. It is a good example of what happens when people with no real life experience have to deal with ‘real life’. BTW, yes i know its total trash tv, but my wife and I ate it up last night
yes, the guy shouldn’t have been at her house, but she shouldn’t have had an obnoxious party. The whole trick to democracy is to try and balance the rights of the individual vs the group as a whole, and i know this is a bit of a stretch, but it also reminds me of a radio story i heard on NPR the other day
It was the story of two small towns, like a few thousand or so, and each town had a real trouble maker, a guy with a real short temper who held a drudge. One town just let the guy get away with it, when ever the guy got in trouble with the law it was like a slap on the wrist, and he was back to terrorising the neighborhood, the storys of what he did were pretty bad, then one day the city gets a new cop, he decides to be bold and ambitious and looks up old warrents for arrest to go out and lock someone up (not a great way to get in good with a new community)and goes to this guys front door, knocks on it and tries serving the warant, the guy grabs the cops gun, kills the cop, jumps in the cop car, drives to a neighbor that he had been fueding with for years, shoots the mom and dad in front of their like 10 year old daughter and then drives around and tried to shoot someone else. He is no longer a problem in that community, but damn did he leave his mark!
the other community had a similar guy, at one point 30 men approached his truck, and one of the men killed him, no one would be a witness to the murder and the case is still open.
Man, do we live in a crazy world.
advice to women in ann arbor,
1- lock your doors!! be paranoid, double check
2- carry mace, or something like that, can help
3- try to travel in groups, its not hard and a good way to socialize as you travel
4- take a self defense course, not only can you protect yourself, but you will be more confident too
i’ll shut up now
posted by Just a Voice on December 12th, 2003 at 2:26 pmI would not go so far as to say that Paris Hilton in Arkansas is similar to what happens when UM students are set loose in the big city, but maybe it’s just me.
posted by Anna on December 12th, 2003 at 2:39 pmHillary and I listen to the police scanner nearly nightly. We hear everything that’s going on over here, and I mean everything.
People in Ann Arbor call the police about the stupidest things I’ve ever heard of. In fact there’s no other place I’ve ever lived where people called the police about things as trivial as the ones to which I’m referring.
During early party patrol days there was a helpful OFW property owner walking around the neighborhood with his cell phone reporting loud parties to the police.
A2 is full of RATS.
By the way 3500 is “odor of marijuana”.
posted by Steven B. Cherry on December 12th, 2003 at 3:19 pmSteven, next time you’re huddled round the old police scanner, try reproducing some transcripts of these phone calls. I’m sure they’re absolutely hilarious and we’d all love to read your transcripts thereof.
I’d post more, but I have a big meeting this afternoon with Parker Brothers. Ms Strayer and I are trying to get Oriental Avenue taken off the Monopoly board.
posted by Boris on December 12th, 2003 at 3:31 pmThe last post aside, I think we might be getting away from AAIO’s original point. THe argument that underreporting makes it difficult to validly compare crime rates in different cities is correct - AA might well be no more crime-prone than comparable towns. But from the data we have (and from the disturbing anecdotes others have posted here), we do know that some very unpleasant things go on with some regularity. I would argue that the problem in AA is the general perception (at least as I’ve gathered in my limited time here) that the town is very safe and crime doesn’t happen, and the fact that the police presence matches that perception. As Anna pointed out earlier, many residential neighborhoods around campus have little foot traffic and no police around late at night, which is at best creepy and at worst dangerous. A friend of mine found this out a couple weeks ago when a strange man followed her home from the bar (resulting in nothing worse than a shouting match in the street, thankfully). Obviously, ladies, take as many precautions as you can. But I don’t see problems like this going away until folks here start to recognize that AA is not perfectly safe.
posted by Nick on December 12th, 2003 at 3:34 pmAnna, sorry but I think your wayyyy off on that one, some of the kids who come to UM, specially undergrads, are like fish out of water, having grown up in rural areas, suburbs or even big cities, they often just don’t know how to survive in A2. rural kids dont lock doors, cause they never did thier whole life, burb and big city kids think its just little ole ann arbor what can happen hear.
On a note about crime in ann arbor, I know that a lot of CD’s and electronics get stolen in AA, well I never stole any but I did dumpster dive after student move out many a time, including a 5 CD player sonny back in 92, when multi-disc was still newish and expensive, most people had single disc players
I’ll shut up now
posted by Just a Voice on December 12th, 2003 at 3:53 pmBoris, those special-order thinsulate kimonos weren’t cheap. When are you sending me a check?
posted by Anna on December 12th, 2003 at 4:23 pmsome of the kids who come to UM, specially undergrads, are like fish out of water, having grown up in rural areas, suburbs or even big cities, they often just don’t know how to survive in A2.
Wait - so living in a rural area, a suburb OR a big city isn’t enough to give you the street smarts to survive in Tree Town?
posted by ann arbor is overrated on December 12th, 2003 at 5:09 pmBoris, you and Ms. Strayer seem to be spending an *awful* lot of time together lately.
posted by Joe F, on December 12th, 2003 at 5:12 pmAAIO, pretty much nothing could have prepared me for the boredom of a frigid winter night in AA, so in a sense, he’s right.
posted by Anna on December 12th, 2003 at 5:34 pmBoris: I can do you one better than mere transcripts, the Revolution makes recordings. I’ll go through what I have recently and see if I can pick out the useless calls.
I’ll bet dollars to doughnuts that the police could spend more time policing dark neighborhoods if they weren’t responding to apartments where people leave the bath running while away.
I’ll make sure my next post has some police calls. Get your ogg players ready, the The Revolution has recordings.
posted by Steven B. Cherry on December 12th, 2003 at 7:04 pmSteven what frequency can i find the aapd on? I’m getting a scanner next week for kicks.
posted by Dan on December 12th, 2003 at 7:59 pmDan, send me an email.
posted by Steven B. Cherry on December 12th, 2003 at 8:47 pmAs promised: some scanner fun.
posted by Steven B. Cherry on December 13th, 2003 at 3:00 amyes living in all three kinds of environments rural, suburb and big city are all different from living in a mid-sized college town. If I have to spell out how kids from each of those backround could have a hard time transitioning to this enironment, then you dont have much of an imagination.
Ann Arbor is, without a doubt, best in the summer when the students are gone!!! Everyone knows that, and those that stay for a summer often learn the ‘up the sleave’ hidden quality of this town (as stated as absent in some post somewhere).
The other night I was driving downtown, and there was some fool, crosssing the street, a busy one, near main and liberty, cant remember exactly where, but the asshole is standing there in the middle of the road, they saw one lane was clear, and walked into the middle of the road, assuming that they would get all the way accross with out stopping and then they didn’t make it, stuck there, in the middle of the road, with traffic going by both directions. Not only that, but this asshole was wearing all dark clothing. Student, well, I cant prove it, but you got my money riding on that bet. thought we might have a nother death like over on plymoth road,… .. . these stories go to show that for some reason students come to ann arbor without such a basic life skill as crossing the street (usually starts with ‘look both ways before’). Seriously, the UM should start all studnets off with some kind of basic life 101 class, like
posted by just a voice on December 13th, 2003 at 9:19 pm1 how to lock doors
2 how to cross the street
what else should we add??
just wondering, what happens to AAIO when our blogger graduates?? do we all just hope for failure? all F’s, keep retaking classes?
posted by Just a Voice on December 13th, 2003 at 9:22 pmThat, my friends, is a while off. Phase I of my plan here should be complete by then.
posted by ann arbor is overrated on December 13th, 2003 at 9:53 pmAnna - that guy sounds similar, but he was clothed, right?
When my roommate told me that there had been a naked guy on our porch, I started to become rather alarmed, but she said, “No, wait,” as if this were one of those stories that sounds crazy taken out of context but has some PERFECTLY REASONABLE explanation. Another friend said, “The weird part is that he didn’t leave his underwear on when he tried on the stuff.” Yeah. That’s the weird part.
posted by ann arbor is overrated on December 13th, 2003 at 11:04 pmHas anyone called the police about our friend with the fetish yet? He will continue to creep out young women and risk assault or worse. This isn’t going to take care of itself. This is why we have police!
posted by Hillary on December 14th, 2003 at 12:11 pmAAIO — yep, he was fully-clothed (summer, so shorts and a tank top, if memory serves, nice and handy to get into/out of if you find a basket of laundry on some porch).
I’ve been gone for a while now, so maybe I’m wrong, but I was under the impression that it was winter in Michigan. One wonders what your roommate’s laundry was doing on the porch. Is she part of some A2 police naked-guy sting? Inquiring minds….
posted by Anna on December 14th, 2003 at 1:11 pmVoR: in my experience, nearly every college town is best in the summer w/o the undergrads in town.
posted by gyc on December 14th, 2003 at 2:19 pmYep, that was the plan. Leave the clothes on the porch and just wait for the naked guy to show up. It is A2.
Actually, this happened a month or so ago. She had left out the clothes for the Salvation Army, who said they’d pick them up but didn’t.
posted by ann arbor is overrated on December 14th, 2003 at 2:25 pmJaV and others: Just curious, but when you moved to AA were you aware that there was a large university in it? I would think that the presence of naive out-of-town teenagers wouldn’t be so surprising in a town whose major employer is in the business of educating them.
It’s possible though that AA would be better without the students and the U-M. Granted it would be farmland - but the present government is doing wonders in subsidizing farmers. Hmm . . .
posted by Nick on December 14th, 2003 at 6:36 pmAre you all so naive to think that the scenario of the naked man looking for a washing machine or trying on clothes could end there? It is extremely likely this type of person will escalate his activity to include assault! Please contact the police.
posted by concerned on December 14th, 2003 at 7:49 pmAre you all so naive to think that the scenario of the naked man looking for a washing machine or trying on clothes could end there? It is extremely likely this type of person will escalate his activity to include assault! Please contact the police.
posted by concerned on December 14th, 2003 at 7:49 pmI don’t think anyone here is that naive, Concerned; it’s just easy to think of these things as strange isolated incidents unless you hear about others’ experiences. I agree, though, this naked dude, even if he’s a different one from the one who busted into my apartment, needs to be reported…
posted by Anna on December 14th, 2003 at 8:31 pm