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We did night CTF (~9 pm) at our local grade school campus. Easily 40-50 kids. We just rode our bikes to the gathering. Similar rules to what this article had, except no out of bounds. We had kids making huge circuits around a nearby corn field to evade detection.
It was indeed someone of my best childhood memories.
Unfortunately it was all brought to an end because people kept calling the cops. They’d see kids after dark at the school and just assume we were up to no good. No property was ever damaged, the principal knew what we were up to, etc. Wholesome fun.
After the fifth time of coming home with a “the cops showed up” story, our well-meaning parents asked us to please find another game to play.
That sounds totally crazy to me, did these people get into any trouble or fined for just calling the police like that? I assume you're american, in my eastern european country they would NOT be happy about getting called 5 times for this...
It's not entirely impossible to get fined or arrested for calling the police in the US but you have to go extremely far out of bounds. Calling the police because there are kids near the school (hehe) is completely acceptable.
If anything it's the opposite: if you do anything slightly out of the usual - all the way to walking through a neighborhood that doesn't know you - there is a good chance someone will call the police. And that some patrol car will check it out just for breaking the dullness of the day.
Some of the cops who respond (because they might ALL head there, if it sounds fun enough), some will be smiling and relaxed and civil, while others will be very much looking for trouble and aggressive from the start. Such that for example, using plastic pistols in dark or day in public is a serious bad idea in the US.
Can confirm. As a high schooler, I used to meet up with friends in the middle of the night at an elementary school playground. Mostly we would just swing on the swings and chat. Occasionally we'd share a 6-pack of beer, shame on us.
One night, somebody called the cops, who called school district security. When they drove up we left without saying hi because we get it, we're not wanted here.
Well they called the cops back, who chased us down (we ran, 'cause we were stupid). I was apprehended and from the back of the cop car I counted six other cop cars and a helicopter all looking for my friends for the crime of being near a school at night (the cops never mentioned the beer).
Some cop noticed the beer, most likely - and they were one of the good guys.
Another one might have taken this opportunity to start an in-depth "investigation" (read "bullying spree") to figure out who sold the beer and who bought it and passed it on (if anyone in that bunch might plausibly have been underage.)
Seems likely. It's still weird to me that it was worth all of that taxpayer money to keep the helicopter in the sky while they searched for my friends (most of whom took to the storm sewer and were not caught).
Large cities usually have helicopters in the sky 24/7. It’s better (meaning get overhead faster) than trying to scramble when actually needed.
The helicopter will go and respond to random calls if it’s not needed for anything in particular.
Not defending the practice, just explaining why a helicopter might respond to something that’s overkill
Yeah that makes sense. We weren't large enough to justify it though. They cancelled the program a few years later (2010ish). I haven't seen a police helicopter over this town since.
I live in a town of less than 3000 people and regularly see/hear the local county shariff's military grade helicopter loitering around for no good reason.
You may be right, but as a former resident of several towns of a similar size hearing a helicopter almost always meant somebody was in critical care and going to a big hospital.
Ours was obvious, at least at night, because it was typically shining its spotlight on some spot on the ground.
Sometimes it would follow you around with the spotlight until a squad car came and pulled you over and accused you of a crime which a similar vehicle was involved with. In my case, the not-me truck was illegally harvesting rock from a park, but my truck bed was visibly empty from the sky so I don't know why they bothered summon the car.
Don’t helicopters cost insane hourly amounts to operate?
Yes but the thing about keeping the little people in their place is that there's always plenty of money to spend on it.
If I’m not mistaken, yes. I believe the flight cost is 300-5k+
Fixed wing planes like Cessna 172s are in the ballpark of 100/hr.
I'm not sure even Los Angeles keeps them up 24/7. Most cities either schedule them for evenings or do as-needed.
Our community has to stage mock events to give these folks some practice. We burn funds every once in a while on purpose to maintain readiness as we suppose. If you plan ahead, you can include hotdogs and soda in the budget.
Once when it happened to me and the whole gang responded, the "lead responder" was clear that he considered that this was a bullshit call and that WE totally had the right to do what we were doing and HE was sorting out a nuisance call to the police. He may also have been playing "good cop" - it's not like I was trusting him. While one of his buddies had parting words for me: "Do you realize what it looked like <insert saucer eyes>?" and "It could have been XXXXX, so of course police has to respond."
About a helicopter, the problem is compounded because that whole outfit needs some quota of flying hours to remain certified. It might be a boring area, and any opportunity to take it out and fly then counts as training, if nothing else can be written up for that flight. That there is a helicopter guarantees that it will be used. And same for SWAT and such.
They need to justify having it in the first place, that's why it'll get dispatched for less than needed situations. Use it or lose it.
I bought alcohol for some underage people who asked one time, not perceiving it as a risk because who could tell why I was buying it or watch me give it away? Not until today did I understand what could have happened.
I like to say that in suburban USA, it’s illegal to be underage in public after dark. Cops will harass you for no reason, detain you for no crime, question you with no motive other than to try to peg you with a crime, on the assumption that you don’t know your rights and won’t assert them. If you try to assert your rights they will work harder to try to put a crime on you. And then we wonder why our kids get addicted to screens and don’t leave the house. It’s insanely fucked up and it stems from bored cops fucking with kids because they have nothing better to do.
in the urban city i grew up in, it was quite literally illegal to be in public after 11pm
Wow where was that?
dc - curfew for all kids past 11pm
It's funny, where I come from cops behave exactly like you describe towards anyone. Not just children, grown up adults too.
oh definitely american.
i’ve had the cops called on me frequently for stuff like breaking into my own house?? they’re also really on edge, i’ve had them shout at me to take my hands out of my pockets which… fair i guess?
not to stereotype, but America just has lots of SAHM busybody types
To clarify, you would prefer the cops not be called if someone is breaking into your house?
i think i would prefer if people had a little more evidence. i wasn't even entering my house, let alone breaking in, just outside with a flashlight
It sounds that the neighboirs doing those calls, did it to cause problems for the poster above, not to be helpful (basically harassment via fake calls to the police).
I bet they would NOT call the cops if real thieves showed up.
Some people try very hard to be assholes.
The more calls the police get, the more money they are able to justify by pointing to the amount of calls received.
And, I think, generally it would be a much more enjoyable call to go talk to some parents about a few kids, than to respond to more demanding complaints.
Yeah. I cringe that this mentality is also exported from the US to other countries. I firmly believe that breaking a leg, getting lost in the woods for an hour, being able to play somewhere without any adult supervision, really made me a stronger, more capable, stress-resistant adult.
American, yes.
Can’t speak for the whole country, but in the Midwest, rural community I grew up in, people had a “better safe than sorry” attitude, and would call police on mere suspicion that you were up to no good or that something was amiss.
Even told them afterward how wrong they were, they’d probably shrug and say it was still good for the police to check.
One time in Highschool at a party we played a game of “Fugitive” across a few miles of neighborhood. I don’t think anyone crossed any private property, but the police showed up and told us “You’re scaring the heck out of some people”. We’d basically finished up anyway.
It’s tragic that this kind of fun gets quashed. Arguably avoidable with a little community communication. I generally think it’s a product of fear-mongering. People being told that their neighborhoods are under attack from nebulous “others” who don’t look or sound like them. A ghost story.
It’s super sad how much childhood joy and fun is being sucked out if the world purely due to nosy busybodies. And the fact that police even respond to these (when they won’t even show up if you’re actually robbed) is also ridiculous. Mind your own business, people.
Seeing a lot of similar stories here. We used to do a game of hide and seek on our massive dead end street. Wed use peoples bushes and cars to hide. I still remember the sound of crotchety old mr peabody chambering a round in his shotgun behind us one night. Pitch black. Never saw his face, just heard him let us know we were about to die if we didn't leave. Pretty sure he knew it was 2 little kids
So a pretty good seeker
Our games cover a couple of miles of almost unoccupied property. But teenagers don't always make the best decisions and sometimes treat others' property as their own. It can be super disconcerting to have somebody dressed all in black climb over your back fence, run across your porch and disappear around your garage.
Even when you make a clear rule that you can't go past the power line and into the neighborhood, somebody sometimes does.
Do you really want the police to ignore a distress call of prowlers trampling their tomatoes?
Imagine a scenario where some kid is apprehended by a police officer and brought to face the angry homeowner. Restitution cannot be made by having the child buy a new plant to replace the damaged plant. So the child has to buy two ripe tomatoes a week for four weeks to provide the homeowner with some compensation.
No court hearing. No criminal record. Parents involved, but nobody too worked up. Just a valuable life lesson about respecting others and taking responsibility. The angry homeowner still hires the kid to mow their lawn. No hard feelings.
Do we really want our police to be judge, jury, arbitrator, and parole officer?
Well, in this little sketch of Mayberry, my answer is yes. If only we could always exist in the sunny side of Mayberry. It only takes one person in this story to take us out of Mayberry. Fortunately, there are millions of people who do their part everyday to maintain some sense of Mayberry in their community. Some of them are even police officers.
Do keep in mind that these stories aren't taking place in downtown SF or Seattle. In most of the US police respond very quickly to most calls, including real crimes.
And in this case (fugitive) it's likely that the callers didn't know there was a game going on, all they knew was that there were some people acting very strangely in their neighborhood. Dispatch can't distinguish between a legitimate crime spree and overworried neighbors.
I’m not sure it is such a new thing. In the 1970’s we had ann old lady across the street that would call the cops when anyone rode their skateboard on the street or the sidewalk.
The suburbs “cities” have their own very bored and well funded police forces.
I'm certainly glad to have grown up when I did. Lots of fun memories of fugitive when we weren't cooking up fireworks or something from the Anarchist Cookbook. Most of we thought was fun would probably be in jail time these days.
There was a lot of risky Behavior, but it was all non-violent so if anyone got hurt, it was us, or sometimes our parents property. I don't know how kids these days are supposed to learn you need to cook up white phosphorus Outdoors and not in your friend's kitchen
That’s what tiktok is for
oof
Risky behavior can be something as simple as burning ants with a magnifying glass. It might seem obvious not to allow children to play Cops and Robbers with BB guns, but guess what they can do with a 9V battery.
We did this at boyscout camp until one year my buddy shattered his ankle hitting a hole running in the dark. One ambulance ride, several surgeries, major issues with morphine withdrawal, and that was the end of that.
We played it in the fall at a campground. Our cadet group had the group camping and we played in the 50-100 campsites that weren't occupied for the season. So lots of running between campsites through the pine trees.
The only problem was that the roads were blocked off at the end, with picnic tables, with chains from the picnic tables to the trees beside them.
Our fastest guy found a chain in the dark with his waist. Fortunately he just got turned over and not injured.
I did the same thing except it was a barbed wire fence, cut my neck, shoulder and stomach up- had to get stitched up by my friend’s mom but worked out okay.
One time in about 8th grade we had a cap gun fight around a school around dusk. It didn’t end well when a person driving by saw flashes, heard bangs and kids yelling at each other. The local police showed up, sirens blazing and couldn’t figure out what was what, we ended up talking to them and things got sorted. We got a firm warning about how that could have ended poorly and to pick other activities to entertain ourselves.
I remember playing on the Texas State capitol lawn at night with a bunch of UT students.
We played tag or hide and seek at a school one time after dark. We were probably 16 or 17 since at least some of us could drive by then. Cops called all of our parents and said we'd go to jail if it happened again.
The funniest thing to me was my parents just straight yelling at me about it as my only rule at that time was "don't get in trouble with the cops". I tried explaining it was just tag, the cops were over reacting. They didn't buy it. I told them "I was with Friend A and Friend B. I'm telling you the cops were being ass holes". They immediately changed their tone to "oh, if A and B were there, those cops were ass holes"
And that's when you started to do armed robbery for fun instead? :D
We just told the cops we would be out there on certain nights and they were cool with it.