Cops ignored or didn't follow through on calls to the house in Cleveland
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Elsie Cintron, who lives three houses away, said her daughter once saw a naked woman crawling on her hands and knees in the backyard several years ago and called police. "But they didn't take it seriously," she said.
Another neighbor, Israel Lugo, said he heard pounding on some of the doors of Castro's house, which had plastic bags on the windows, in November 2011. Lugo said officers knocked on the front door, but no one answered. "They walked to side of the house and then left," he said.
Neighbors also said they would see Castro sometimes walking a little girl to a neighborhood playground. And Cintron said she once saw a little girl looking out of the attic window of the house.
Israel Lugo said he, his family and neighbors called police three times between 2011 and 2012 after seeing disturbing things at the home of Ariel Castro. Lugo lives two houses down from Castro and drew suspicion after neighbors reported seeing naked women on leashes crawling on all fours behind Castro's house.
Lugo said about two years ago his sister told him she heard a woman pounding on a window at Castro's home as if she needed help. When his sister looked up, she saw a woman and a baby standing in a window half covered with a wooden plank. His sister told him and Lugo called the police.
Later, Lugo's mother called the police because Ariel would park his school bus in front of their home and bring bags full of McDonald's and drinks into his home. They wondered why he needed so much food. Police again responded but didn't enter the home.
A third call came from neighborhood women who lived in an apartment building. Those women told Lugo they called police because they saw three young girls crawling on all fours naked with dog leashes around their necks. Three men were controlling them in the back yard. The women told Lugo they waited two hours but police never responded to the calls.
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http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/05/07/missing-women-cleveland-brothers-arrested/2140359
So what do you do if you repeatedly call the cops and nothing is done? I'm not sure how you can see things like women on leashes in the back yard or women that look trapped in a house that should have only one occupant and not follow up.
This is what makes Ramsey a hero. He could have ignored the screams and signs too, but he didn't.
= new reply since forum marked as read
timing between unanswered calls, knowledge of caller about earlier calls, but surely elevate calls from local police, to county, state, and federal authorities.
AWFUL.
At present, all we're getting are press interviews of second- and third-hand info from people in the neighborhood. They may be 1,000% accurate, but we cannot yet confirm it. When the cameras and microphones swarm into town, one has to take that attention-thing into account.
One of the items is a neighbors saying that some people told him that they saw things, and said they called the police and nothing happened. For me, that's not enough (yet) to convince me that all of that took place. It may turn out to be true. It may turn out to be at least semi-false, and the truth is even more horrible! Either way, I'm ready to cast my rage where it is deserved, once I know the truth.
The Boston bombings were a reminder that info is always in flux at the beginning of a story. I'm trying to keep that in mind.
That being said: I raise a toast to all the brave people who made this rescue happen! The victims, the neighbors, and the police!! 
The police didn't listen. They didn't do their jobs. They didn't care to do their jobs. They were lazy, incompetent, and useless.
This goes well beyond embarrassment for the department. This is an extremely severe, inexcusable, and dangerously negligent, callous disregard for human life and public safety. There ought to be an external, independent investigation of every last call, who received it, when, who made the calls, how often, etc., and etc., and every last police officer on the force involved who failed these women should not only be terminated immediately, but should also be facing charges as accessories. Their failure here was criminal and there is no possible excuse.
There are officers on that police force who now belong in jail for a very, very long time. Were I living in that city, I would never, ever again trust any police officer on that force, and I definitely would never call them for any reason. I'd just handle it myself, take my chances with a jury afterward, and hold up their behavior in this case as an affirmative defense against any and all charges for how I handled it. This breach of trust should make every jury in every case upon which this department's testimony would ordinarily result in a conviction throw out all their testimony as tainted. I hope their force suffers the aftereffects of this abortion of justice for at least a generation. It will take at least that long to restore the lost trust.
THIS is a good reason, a sound reason, to never ever trust police. They are not there to keep you safe; they are only there to clean up after the damage is done.
FUCK the police. Useless pig thugs, the lot of them.
Some of the other neighbors were definitely freaked out.
It pretty much does seem that way. I think I read that both the basement and attic were padlocked so you've got to wonder what living conditions were like. 
I think as noted above race was likely a factor in terms of police responsiveness.
I meant Cleveland. I guess I had Dahmer on my mind.