Have you or any member of your family ever broken into you home,

[hedgehog]

and were there any consequences?

[MrSlayer]

1. Many times in my wayward youth.

And no, there weren;t any consequences. I could have been a great second story man had I decided to go in that direction.

[hedgehog]

3. My two oldest were excellent first story men. They just popped a screen off a downstairs

window the couple times they forgot to take a key to school.

[anigbrowl]

2. I should be able to vote on both yes propositions :-)

In the second case, I set off the burglar alarm in the process, and yes the police did come around. Seeing as I was able to easily prove my identity and residence there, they left again without me a mere 3 minutes later.

[panader0]

4. Not just my home

'kidding'. Actually, I live out in the boonies. If I'm gone and someone wants in, it would be easy to break a window or kick in a door. So I don't lock my house while I'm gone. Besides, I have nothing worth stealing. There are several items I would help someone load up.

[Donnachaidh]

5. Is this poll in reference to Professor Gate's arrest?

http://blog-aroundharlem.com/2009/07/20/harvard-professor-henry-louis-gates-arrested/

Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates Arrested

henry-louis-gates-jr

Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. (Skip Gates), one of the nation’s pre-eminent African-American scholars, was arrested Thursday afternoon at his home by Cambridge police investigating a possible break-in. The incident raised concerns among some Harvard faculty that Gates was a victim of racial profiling.

Police arrived at Gates’s Ware Street home near Harvard Square at 12:44 p.m. to question him. Gates, director of the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research at Harvard, had trouble unlocking his door after it became jammed.

He was booked for disorderly conduct after exhibiting loud and tumultuous behavior, according to a police report. Gates accused the investigating officer of being a racist and told him he had “no idea who he was messing with, the report said.

Gates told the officer that he was being targeted because “I’m a black man in America.”

more at the link --

[hedgehog]

8. Of course it is. Someone in this thread posted that they tripped their

own burglar alarm while getting in. They were able to convince the responding officer that the belonged in the house in 3 minutes. Any bets as to race?


If it'd been a white Harvard professor, would he have been arrested?

[dysfunctional press]

11. you left out a pretty big part of that response...

"Seeing as I was able to easily prove my identity and residence there they left again without me a mere 3 minutes later.

that wasn't necessarily the case in the gates' incident.

[hedgehog]

14. According to the police report, the officer was pretty sure that

Gates belonged in the house before he asked for ID. He called for back-up after he saw the ID, and made the arrest well after GAtes' identity was established.

[dysfunctional press]

21. the id was a harvad id, which most likely wouldn't have his address...

and what part of the police report says that the officer was pretty sure that gates belonged there before asking for id?

and fyi- the part about "while i was led to believe that gates was lawfully in the residence..." only means that gates told him it was his house- the officer then wanted proof of that- both because he had been told of a possible break-in, and because of gates' demeanor about it.

[Donnachaidh]

28. Gates' demeanor? You mean he didn't have a valid right to be PISSED

About his treatment by the police when he was in his OWN home?

[dysfunctional press]

29. "his treatment"?

the cop was just trying to verify that he WAS in his own home- a witness had seen him trying to force his way in. the cop was doing his job, and if gates had been rational about it, he would have realized that, and that the cop was trying to protect the homeowner.

[efhmc]

6. Sure and sent my teenage daughter on a ladder to the second

floor to preform the task when I thought a window upstairs was open. It was and we got inside.

[onehandle]

7. Home invasions into homes with guns Always end up in a homeowner as Dirty Harry situation.

Home invasions into homes without guns Always end up in a homeowner, family, and the entire neighborhood dead.

According to a certain dungeon at Democratic Underground.

What was the question?

[ProgressiveProfessor]

16. Stereotype Much?

[Gwendolyn]

9. I have, and it was too easy for comfort. Nothing happened, no one cared.

I have also been one of those busybodies like the woman who screwed up Henry Gates. Walking the dogs at the park around 10 pm, noticed some young guys dragging a TV and other equipment out of a house and into a car under the cover of darkness. Called the cops and it turned out they lived there (had never seen them before) and were just moving stuff in the dark cause they felt like it. They were furious when the cops arrived and it became obvious some neighbor had interfered. I felt kind of embarrassed for that woman who interfered with Gates... sometimes do-goodery can have less than stellar results. :blush:

[hedgehog]

12. I have to say, seeing young guys you don't know taking high priced items out of a house

at 10:00 is a reason to call the cops.

I'll give you an incident that happened here. A new neighbor from down the road was walking with his young daughter one hot day and stopped to take a rest under one of my trees. A long time neighbor from across the road thought he was seeing one of my kids sitting under the tree with a stranger, so he came over to check it out.

I don't know if the woman who called the police on Louis Gates in the middle of the day had cause or not. I think the real problem is the officer's attitude.

[dysfunctional press]

30. actually- the real problem was gates' attitude.

the cop was just trying to do his job, and gates was too indignant to want to cooperate, or even realize that the cop was actually looking out for the best interests of the homeowner.

[azmouse]

10. We have a hidden lock box similiar to what realtors use.

Even if the box is found a code is needed to open it. I've found it useful a few times to get in the house.

[dorkulon]

13. I've had to break in, but if the cops had come I'd probably be pleased

that they gave a shit. I certainly wouldn't have refused to identify myself.

I understand the racist connotation in the good professor's case, and think he may indeed have been suspected by whoever reported him because of his race. But I still think he should have identified himself. After all, once the police had a report of a burglary in progress, what were they supposed to do, ignore it?

[liberalmuse]

15. I locked myself out early one morning (5am)...

and found that it was ridiculously easy to break into my house. I was able to unscrew one of my windows using some garden tools I had on the side of the house. I never felt safe after that, LOL.

[Sebastian Doyle]

17. I locked myself out and kicked the front door in.

My phone was inside, so it's not like I could call the dumbass landlord and wait two hours for him to show up.

So I did what I had to do. Then I went to Lowes and bought a new door knob with a scratch plate big enough to cover the damage. :evilgrin:

[KamaAina]

18. Yup. I ran away from therapeutic boarding school,

caught a bus and a train back to my home town, then walked across town. Luckily the upstairs neighbor had left the front door ajar. From there it was a cinch to go in through a gallery that opened up off the landing, then through a window.

[Captain Hilts]

19. Yes. Went through a back window. Forgot the key. nt

[RadicalTexan]

20. My ex and one of his friends did

In order to claim a computer (that the friend lost at the airport) on his homeowner's insurance. Staged a fake window break-in, ransacked the place, hid all the electronics in a shed down the road, lied to the face of the police, and totally got away with it. This was in the UK.

[Cleita]

22. Not only that, I had to break into my car many times.

Once the police stopped me when I was doing my wire coat hanger thing to get in the door because I locked the keys in the car. (Yes, this was before the days of all the computer stuff.) I really was an airhead about keys but became rather expert at learning how to break into my own house and car. It's a skill that became necessary recently when my son-in-law locked the dogs in the house, but he and his wife broke down on the road and had to be towed. I didn't have a key at the time because they usually left one door unlocked in case of emergency so I could get in. Well, this time he forgot but I didn't forget my skill at picking the lock. :-)

[Blasphemer]

23. Yes without consequences

Most times it was due to being locked out. On one occasion it was by a wayward family member. I can't imagine that anyone in our neighborhood would have thought to call the police - it was a multifamily home occupied by a large extended family plus some boarders.

[graywarrior]

24. I grew up in Lynn

We all did it.

[Fire_Medic_Dave]

25. What consequences would there be for breaking into your own home?

[blogslut]

26. Has anyone here ever seen some actually break down a door?

Professor Gate's door was stuck after he had turned the key. He gave the door a shove with his shoulder.

Some Gladys Kravitz across the street saw this and interpreted it as a break in.

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

27. I was instructed by a friend over the phone to break into HIS home!

Don't ask.

[LWolf]

31. Yes, and someone noticed, and I laughed my ass off when they were gone.

My son locked me out on his way out, not realizing I was at home in the back yard.

When I realized I was locked out, I went to an unlocked window, and found it painted shut. So I got a crowbar from the garage behind the house, and was coming around to the front to the window, when a group of Jehovah's Witnesses opened the gate and walked into the front yard. They wanted to share some good news with me.

I told them I didn't have time, because I needed to break into the house.

They looked at me standing there with the crow bar, looked at the window, and left. Quickly.