It’s around midnight when I hear glass shattering outside my house. My gut instinct was that someone was trying to break into my roommate’s car. My boyfriend tells me to call the police, but I know that won’t help.
Within the first month of living at my old house, my roommates and I filed six different police reports. Reports regarded our house getting broken into, my mom’s car windows getting smashed in, my roommate’s car getting totaled by a drunk driver (thankfully he wasn’t in the vehicle) and a threat reading “You’re next” on another roommate’s car after my car got broken into.
All were legitimate crimes to report, yet not a single cop came out to speak to us. We were scared for a while with a threat left on a car and no cop to take us seriously.
Now if I were to go to a frat party over the weekend, there would be dozens of cops shutting it down and dozens more walking around downtown finding other parties to shut down.
If cops can find the time to ruin college students’ fun, why can’t they protect them when something really serious happens?
Months after all the reports were filed, things quieted down and all was fine. Then, I got T-boned by a car and the dispatcher on the 911 call tells me, “Well if there’s no injuries, there’s no reason for us to go out there.”
I’m sorry, I just got hit by another car and you tell me there’s no reason to come out?
I don’t know what someone has to do to get a cop to see them, but apparently it’s to throw a party. I feel like cops see Chico State students as jokes. They don’t want to take our calls seriously, so they don’t bother with us.
I understand there are probably a lot of things going on all at once, but if you can send dozens of police officers to shut down a party, you can send at least one to check on a car accident.
Maybe I just have really bad luck with police officers because back home, I can’t go anywhere without seeing one. But here in Chico when I need one, they can’t be found.
Brittany McClintock can be reached at [email protected] or @theorion_news on Twitter.
Diesel // Nov 4, 2015 at 3:17 pm
This is an excellent article, one of the best topics ive seen on the Orion in a while and a topic that needed to be addressed. The local police spend all their time breaking up house parties and if your house gets robbed the response time is several hours. they need to get their priorities in order. This is compounded by the fact that they are always seeking more founding, but if you read the weekly arrest log they are primarily writing MIPs and Disorderly Conduct charges to college students. They act like its such a burden to play dog catcher downtown, but enjoy every second of leering at drunk college girls. absolutely deplorable.