So, my neighbor got hauled away by the cops last night...
 

I'm sitting around playing Blood Bowl on the PC. My g/f opens up a window that points toward the back yard and I hear her say, "Oh! Hello." She comes back and says there was a cop walking through the back yard. He said that there may be a guy with a gun in the neighborhood and to stay inside. Naturally, I shove my face right toward the nearest window I can find and sure enough, there's a team of about 5 cops with automatic weapons walking down the street.

They are heading toward the neighbor across the street from me. I see my neighbor, Ward, throw his hands up (there was nothing in his hands at the time), then get down on his knees, then face down. The cops come up, hand cuff him, and haul him away. It was a very "Cops" moment. Ward is in his deck shoes, cutoff jean shorts, and a T-shirt.

The other neighbor across the street is the guy that's always out in his garage (which is fully stocked with a TV, fridge, and (I think) a bathroom!). Everyone stops by to see him so he's always in the know. Word from him is that Ward's g/f called 911 saying that he threatened her with a gun. Consensus around the neighbors is that he prolly wouldn't do that. However, Ward is an avid hunter so he's got the gear to do it. As I watch the scene lamely unfold for the next two hours (there was a bit of crying and some feeble arguing but all in all the situation was well in hand of the officers at all times), the cops confiscated all Ward's guns (natch). I think Ward is in for a rough month, regardless of the truth.

That's the most exciting thing that's happened in my corner of suburbia since I've been there. Anyone else got a similar tale?

cutoff jeans? really?

Is that not proper attire for being hauled away by the cops?

A guy named Ward who is an avid hunter living in Livonia, MI? Absolutely.

and yes, before my wife and I were married, we came back to our apartment to find a cop with an assault rifle blocking our way. the neighbor (who we'd never seen) was apparently holed up inside his house, threatening to kill himself.

we couldn't go back to our apt until the standoff ended. in the end, after about a half hour of snipers creeping though the bushes, megaphones, the whole nine yards, they got the guy on the phone and he had no idea what was going on. a bit of a false alarm.

Nothing exciting. Some douche bag keeps putting notes in my mailbox about parking on the street though.

Damn, I was going to make a wisecrack about him probably being a Gator fan, and here you are describing someone who lives where I was born!

Seven years ago I called the police on my punk teenage neighbor that was making and setting off homemade explosives in his driveway (which is literally 10 feet from my yard). They came and got all CSI with it and picked up bits of the explosive remains. I ended up getting a subpoena 6 months later to appear as a witness in his trial. Luckily, minutes before the trial started, they settled.

The term is Jhorts. ;)

I'm pretty sure that is illegal to put unposted (I think that's the word) "mail" in people's mailboxes. I saw a story on the news of a little girl that put birthday invitations in people's mailboxes and the mail carriers complained because I guess it is against the law.

When I lived in Chicago proper the Cops tore into our neighborhood frequently enough to nab drug dealers that I stopped getting up to look after a while.

If the little girl got attacked, Flasch doesn't stand a chance. Unless he pulls the Hollywood card.

I'm doing an internship with the police department, so this happens about once a week for me. Last night we had a guy run from a traffic stop into the woods. I hate the woods. Especially when we're chasing someone who may or may not have a gun and all I get is a flashlight.

Wow, I grew up in Livonia and I never saw anyone arrested for anything, except for one guy in my high school for having marijuana. It must have changed a lot!

I called the cops on a young guy who I thought was dealing down the street from me. They checked his garbage to confirm paraphenalia, and busted down his door. The resource officer from my school is who I had informed, he told me they found drugs hidden in his furnace.

STOP IGNORING MY NOTES!!!!

Awesome. Is a fist fight is possible if you catch him? I love those neighbor squabbles.

Well, now I'm in a quandry. Guys, I need to know when is it "too soon". When this all blows over, when is it "too soon" to give Ward the old six-shooter sign when I see him out in his yard. "Hey, Ward! Pew! Pew!"

I plan on using his new nickname, too: "Shooter". When's it too soon for that?

Just so people don't think I'm getting parking notes... :)

the note I put on people's mailboxes today - Front Office Football Central

I just get Wi-Fi messages

My neighbor wants me to limit Wi-Fi use - Front Office Football Central

Not a whole pot has happened around here. One neighbor (across the street and a house down) was a home alone with her baby (the husband is usually gone with his boys) when the home alarm went off about 11 pm. She ran over to my mother-in-law's next door saying she heard someone as well. They called the cops and I went over and stood out front, checked around the sides and stuff. Cops came and went inside...no one.

Two days ago was a fun one. My wife and I are driving home and as we get in front of our house my wife says "There is a guy in our backyard." It didn't really register in my brain right away and I asked what? She said it again. So I pulled into the driveway and ran to the side gate. Sure enough a guy in the back yard (beyond the back yard is a golf course and he was clearly nabbing golf balls with his friend still on the course). I yelled "What the fuck you doing in my yard?" He replies with "sorry man," to which I reply again with "Your not sorry yet, your in my fucking yard." At that point I made a move to hop the fence and wearing sandles I slipped, real smooth like. Ditched the sandles and ran through the house letting the great danes out. By then he was out and taking off on the golf cart though. It has been over 100 all week so I had the two outside dogs in a room with an a/c. The first time I had done that since last summer. The cops show up, they actually had a guy at the golf course looking for them which I thought was funny but they didn't find them. All in all, he was just going after golf balls so in the end the whole thing was kind of fun for me.

My white-trash neighbors leave a note on my car anytime I park in front of their place. It's ridiculous.

First time it happened: my old friend (who I shared a duplex with) had a friend park about 6 houses down the day before she got married. The guy who lived there dumped mud on her car.

Second time: I parked across the street in the only available spot. The owner left a note on my car talking about how she had hip surgery and not to park there and blah blah blah.

Third time: My neighbor lives in a duplex about 15 feet from mine. I parked with half of my car in front of my place and half in front of his yard (not even touching his house). His white-trash girlfriend left a note that said "Do not park your peice of shit car here. We live here!" It's like...my car is in great shape and it was only parked halfway in front of their property and you can't even spell piece? STFU :p

Public streets do not equal public parking apparently. A friend stayed here one night and came out and they left a note on her car threatening to call the police if she parked there again. She put a note in their mailbox saying that the streets are public parking.

It's like I'm in a freaking episode of Cops meets Jerry Springer here. God, my neighborhood sucks.

BTW, I was telling a friend of mine the story about my neighbor as we were driving back to my place. When we got back my neighbor stepped onto his porch without a shirt and with a beer in his hand. Needless to say we laughed for a while :)

I find this story disturbing on a couple of levels.

1. I grew up in Southfield and spent a ton of time in Livonia growing up. I thought things like this only happened in Waterford, Pontiac, or Taylortucky.

2. I believe I own a pair of jean shorts.

Well, let's not overreact. Word on the street is that the g/f is just out to get him for some reason. Don't know if that's true. He didn't even have a gun in hand at the time, let alone engage in a shootout with the cops.

So, don't shoot the messenger... (get it?)

Shoot the gf, sounds like we need less of her DNA floating around.

Wonder if I would still look good in cutoff Jean shorts??

If I were ever planning to get arrested, I'd definitely wear jean shorts. It's appropriate attire. They take years off your sentence of that kind of behavior.

I think it's cool that Detox finally posted his picture.

Not if your name isn't Megan Fox.

Wow, how many of us are from Livonia?

I was born there but moved when I was 10. We lived off of 5 Mile and Farmington Road. I went to the elementary school behind Stevenson High.

I once drove through Livonia

I was wondering what the hell was going on with so many FOFCers having lived or spent time in some random Michigan town that I've never even heard of. It's a bit odd...

Well, it's a suburb of Detroit so it's not like it's a random couple of shacks in the U.P.

Second, it's LIVE-able Livonia!

A better question is how many of those cities aren't ghost towns now?

My dad worked for Ford through the 70s, and after the recession in the early 80s had the sense to GTFO of the auto industry and Detroit in general. Not sure he saw all of this coming, but he knew he didn't want to be around the next time it happened. We left in 1981, moved to Texas. I still have plenty of family in the area, and most of them are hurting bad. Mainly, the ones tied to the auto industry, of course.

I know multiple people who are out of work (involuntarily, of course) which I haven't really seen in the last 20 years. There are lots of stories of people "cutting back" on whatever (ballet lessons, hockey leagues, the new plasma TV, ...) But as far as people willing or able to abandon the area, I haven't really seen that so much. I'm sure there are census numbers somewhere.

As indicators, how's attendance at Tiger's games? Looks OK to me on the televideo box. It'll be interesting to see the turnout at something very Detroit like the Dream Cruise next month.

I wish my neighbor would get arrested...or move.

Detroit's population has fallen 20% since 1990, so this certainly isn't all a recent trend........

World Gazetteer: United States of America - largest cities (per geographical entity)

It appears the younger and better wage-earners are the ones leaving, which only makes the problem worse..........

Leaving Michigan Behind: Eight-year population exodus staggers state | detnews.com | The Detroit News

Has Ward's g/f taught you nothing? All it takes is a phone call...

My neighbor is white trash and batshit crazy. There were kids egging my house a few years ago, so I mentioned to him about if he sees anything suspicious to let me know. His response was "I'll shoot them for you." I was like, no it's ok just let me know. He goes "Im serious I'll shoot them."

He also told me a story about a guy who didn't finish a job he paid him to do, so he went to his house with a bat and "took care of that problem".

They ride quads at all hours of the day and night. They let their 4 year old set off fireworks with no one watching him. I could go on and on.

As long as we're relating white trash stories........

I used to live in Independence, Missouri. Big town. Home of Harry S. Truman. Also made the list as one of the top 10 LEAST integrated cities in the nation over 100,000 people. I'm going off the top of my head so don't quote me, but I think it was 98.7% of the population was caucasian as of the 2000 census. Something ridiculous like that.

We lived in a 50 year old neighborhood. Many of the residents were original owners who bought the houses back in the 1950s-1960s. There was not a single minority living in this neighborhood of 100-125 houses.

One day, I was standing outside my house doing some landscaping. The neighbor a couple of houses down, was mowing on his riding mower, drinking beer after beer while doing it. Suddenly, he shuts off the blade and drives his mower down the street towards my house while pulling out a fresh beer. He comes all the way up the driveway.


Always good to see there are some still stuck in the 1950s. :(

In an effort to keep it a little lighter (maybe) in this thread, I'll throw out my other "gun" story: Ahem,...

(First, a little scene setting) One fine winter Saturday back in college at Ohio State (I just lost any love from the Michigan group, didn't I?), we had a nice snowfall the day before. So, kids being kids, we abandon our studies for a snowball fight -- and I mean everyone, all over campus. I went out of my dorm and there are a good thousand students milling around throwing snowballs. It soon turns into a dorm v. dorm fight. A few brave souls surge forward throwing snowballs and hundreds from the other dorm fall back. Soon, I decide to mount a determined charge to push "Them" from their dorm and claim permanent victory. I tell a few of my roomates and a few others around me of my plan and get enthusiastic nods. I charge forward yelling and throwing snowballs and sure enough, "They" fall back. "Keep up the fire, Boys!" But soon, they aren't falling back. In fact, they're charging back at me. I'm getting pelted. What's the source of their courage? Well everyone who was following me, especially my roommates, had dropped back to a very safe distance leaving me alone in no man's land getting pounded. I know some of you are R.O.T.C too, you sons of bitches. Thanks.

Anywho, as we begin to tire of this "small" skirmish, someone yells out, "To the Towers!" At Ohio State, there are pockets of dorms around campus. We resided in the North dorms at the time. "The Towers" were where the freshmen were kennelled. Long story short(er), we troop across campus to The Towers throwing snowballs at anything that moved. Freshman mobilization is weak and they are soon scattered. Someone then yells, "Greek! Greek! Greek!" and we're all off, no small number of conquered freshmen swelling our ranks, to snowball the fraternities and sororities on the other side of campus. This takes us through The Oval, a large grassy area classic to many campuses. A wintery scene is brewing on The Oval -- small snowball fights, a snowfort, and a group rolling the largest snowman I'd ever seen. The bottom snowball was a good 7 feet at this point and they weren't satisfied with that.

(Now to the point...sorry for the delay) A number of us break off from the main force at this point to man the trenches here at The Oval. The fancy of the group soon turns to snowballing the living crap out of any car that happens to drive by. One beater car is puttering by and receives it's share of punishment but instead of speeding off, he stops. The guy gets out and reaches behind the front seat. Someone shouts, "He's got a gun!" And a couple of thousand students dart away like a threatened school of fish on a nature show. The guy reaches behind his seat and pulls out ... a baseball bat. At this point the sky darkens with snowballs. The man is literally pushed back into his car by the force of the thousands of snowballs hurled at him.

The crowd surges forward pounding the car with snowballs. There was some effort to get in front of the car, stop it, and I'm sure pull the guy from the vehicle to do God knows what but luckily for him, he escaped.

This scene flashed back in my mind as the cops were walking down my street. "He's got a gun!".

Sounds a lot like Livonia...

This story is false...we all know Clarett drove a Hummer while at tOSU and had plenty of guns.

You mean these guns, right?

I think we figured this out a few years ago -- at least it seems familiar to me. I was born in Livonia and lived there until I was 22. Pretty close to you, actually -- in the neighborhood between 5 Mile and Schoolcraft, and Farmington and Merriman.

A few years ago is like 2 decades on a message board. I think I vaguely recall discussing it, though.

I grew up at 11 mile and Southfield in Southfield. I used to date a girl that lived at 7 mile and Farmington in Livonia. I have lived in Southfield, Farmington Hills, and now Sterling Heights.

The top link is for the city of Detroit, which has been declining in population since the peak of around 2 million people in the in 1950's. The metro Detroit area has grown steadily every census to about 4 million people, but as your second link shows, it will probably be flat or down this census and the flight of young educated workers is a major problem.