Sorry this is so long. A little background. We live in a small older (50 years old) neighborhood in South Jordan. For the past 5 years it has been very quiet for the most part. Over the past year my next-door-neighbor (Single mom, early 40's) has decided that she needs to be a halfway house for several dead-beat teenagers. Cars constantly coming and going, different kids constantly in and out of her house. About 4 months ago SJPD decides to surround my house at 12:30am and pounds on the door looking for one of the deadbeat teens - I tell them they have the wrong house and they rudely leave and go nextdoor.
Fast forward to tonight. I'm in our front yard with my wife and 4 kids with our other neighbor and her 2 kids just spending some time with the kids riding bikes. We look up the street and notice 1, then 2, and soon 4 South Jordan cops parked at the end of the street. We knew something was up as they sat there for about 20 minutes. I start thinking maybe we should take the kids to the backyard, but I dismiss the thoughts. A few minutes later 2 cops walk down the street and over to the next-door neighbor's house. They knock on the door and enter, and then I hear a commotion from their backdoor and see this teenage punk running from the cops. He jumps the fence into my backyard, then into our other neighbor's yard, and then into the one next to them with the 2 cops in pursuit.
I grab our neighbor's youngest boy (18 months old) and run him over to her and then start running down the street to try to keep an eye on the punk the cops are chasing. Another cop that can't seem to keep up with me is following me down the street on foot. I point him to the yard where the other cops finally caught up to the punk and they take him into custody. I am just thankful that we didn't take our kids to our backyard, so that at least they weren't in the middle of the chase.
Now finally to my questions...What do you recommend we do to get this kind of crap out of our neighborhood? Should we try to meet with SJPD and see if we can work together with them to clean up the riffraff? We have already had several conversations with our neighbor (the self-proclaimed halfway house). Things improve slightly when we do, but quickly go downhill again. All of the neighbors are fed up with this. I am still so pissed that I can hardly stand it. What should we do so that we don't end up on the next episode of "COPS"?
Fast forward to tonight. I'm in our front yard with my wife and 4 kids with our other neighbor and her 2 kids just spending some time with the kids riding bikes. We look up the street and notice 1, then 2, and soon 4 South Jordan cops parked at the end of the street. We knew something was up as they sat there for about 20 minutes. I start thinking maybe we should take the kids to the backyard, but I dismiss the thoughts. A few minutes later 2 cops walk down the street and over to the next-door neighbor's house. They knock on the door and enter, and then I hear a commotion from their backdoor and see this teenage punk running from the cops. He jumps the fence into my backyard, then into our other neighbor's yard, and then into the one next to them with the 2 cops in pursuit.
I grab our neighbor's youngest boy (18 months old) and run him over to her and then start running down the street to try to keep an eye on the punk the cops are chasing. Another cop that can't seem to keep up with me is following me down the street on foot. I point him to the yard where the other cops finally caught up to the punk and they take him into custody. I am just thankful that we didn't take our kids to our backyard, so that at least they weren't in the middle of the chase.
Now finally to my questions...What do you recommend we do to get this kind of crap out of our neighborhood? Should we try to meet with SJPD and see if we can work together with them to clean up the riffraff? We have already had several conversations with our neighbor (the self-proclaimed halfway house). Things improve slightly when we do, but quickly go downhill again. All of the neighbors are fed up with this. I am still so pissed that I can hardly stand it. What should we do so that we don't end up on the next episode of "COPS"?
