I’m often the one to close up at work. We share a long ‘driveway’ with another business, which is now out of business. From time to time–maybe about two times a month–there’ll be a car sitting, facing us, in the parking lot of the neighboring business. They’re far enough away that I’m not too concerned for my safety: if they were to come after me, I could get into my car long before they got to me/it.
Being the paranoid person I am, though, I always worry that they’re waiting until I leave to rob the place. So I’ll typically drive away and then come back a couple minutes later, although I don’t drive up the access road/driveway, I just carry on the main road as if I weren’t snooping on them. They’re often there for 10-15 minutes, and, when they’re gone, I’ll drive back up to make sure they’re not somewhere on our property. Tonight I was able to jot down their license plate, although I worry they may have noticed that I drove by at like 2 MPH and noticed me noticing them.
This time, as I drove by after leaving, I noticed another car pulling in. I drove by a bit, turned around, and went by again, as the two cars were leaving.
It’s not always the same car(s), but it is always the same spot. They’re clearly not (thus far) looking to rob me / my business, nor are they doing anything else obviously nefarious. However, it still seems incredibly suspicious to be waiting in your car in the parking lot of a deserted business at 1am.
So here’s my question: what do I do? I’ve been tempted to call the police and report it as a suspicious car, but I can never decide if I should.
- They may well be doing nothing wrong. The police would be obligated to check it out, in which case I’m sicking the police on people who are doing nothing wrong.
- They may well be doing something wrong. It’s not breaking into my business, and it’s not mugging me, but it’s really pretty suspicious. (Selling drugs seems the most likely explanation, although all the evidence I have of that is that they’re sitting in an abandoned parking lot and meeting someone at 1am… Hardly proof.)
- The police would be obliged to investigate and would probably catch wind of what was going on. A vote for calling them in.
- It’s not like the suspicious cars don’t know where I work and what type of car I drive… Even though I always park right in front of one of the security cameras, I’d still hate to come out of work a few days later and find my tires slashed and my car egged.
So do I call the cops next time or not?
The answer from those I asked (in person) is yes, it’s probably better to call.
haha, you didn’t ask me. This is the sort of thing I would think is right up my alley considering the family I grew up in. The answer to your little question here is in fact a resounding no.
They could be a pair of married people having an affair, now you have broken up two families, nice going. Or perhaps they are doing something a little less immoral, some nice friends of a young girl that works nearby and closes just like you and has asked these people to wait for her in that parking lot to follow her home so she isn’t run off the road and raped by some evil doer in the night.
On the other hand, they could be doing something illegal (such as selling drugs, yes). So what? Despite the unfair laws of this country, the laws of economics say that they have every right to peddle their wares to willing customers in the dead of night (that’s just good business). Either way, these people are obviously not casing the joint since they’re only there two times a month and they appear to have been doing it for awhile, and they certainly have yet to rob you or the business… so really, what is the harm?
Besides this, cops are almost always pompous bastards trying to settle some sort of crazy score or living out their childhood fantasies to protect and serve; calling them in will only cause trouble for those kind drug dealers (serving the public in a way that doesn’t make everyone hate them) and needless trouble for you when the cops show up to ask you questions (and somehow making you feel like the criminal). Trust me bringing in the cops, when you really don’t have to, is a bad idea… but hey, why bother to listen to the girl that has had plenty of experience with both sides of the police.
Haha, everything you say is what I initially feared. (You could always file an anonymous report.)