Bluff Park, Alabama Forum

Bluff Park, Alabama Forum
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General Category >> General Board >> To protect and serve my foot!
http://bluffparkal.org/bpforum/YaBB.pl?num=1188391996

Message started by spideyman78 on 08/29/07 at 7:53am

Title: To protect and serve my foot!
Post by spideyman78 on 08/29/07 at 7:53am

Last night a dear friend of mine was attacked by a random stranger. In front of the dollar general parking lot a stranger beat my friend. Yet when my friend approached the police substation, he had to BEG for the ONE officer to come out and help him and she took her time and almost completely refused to help him get his attacker away from him. How lazy and uncaring has our police force become? I see five officers pulling over one speeder for going five miles over the speed limit, but yet one officer almost refused to help someone who was being attacked! Has anyone else noticed this? That our officers obviously dont want to get their hands dirty? ITS THEIR JOB TO PROTECT AND SERVE, NOT TO SIT AND IGNORE! Please post your opinions on this, and also if you have experienced anything similar to this. (Oh, and for the FEW officers actually doing their jobs, this isnt about them)

your very upset neighborhood spideyman,

Title: Re: To protect and serve my foot!
Post by Bluff Park Forum Admin on 08/29/07 at 8:17am

Spidey,
Please check your e-mail and respond.
Thanks.

Title: Re: To protect and serve my foot!
Post by roxy on 08/29/07 at 2:34pm

Spidey ~ could you please give me more info. on the attack ...
was the attacker trying to rob your friend ? what was the motive ? did they arrest this person ... are they at large. I do frequent that store would like to know more !
I hope your friend is ok , that must have been awful.

Title: Re: To protect and serve my foot!
Post by Recap on 08/29/07 at 8:01pm

I, too, frequent many of the businesses in that particular shopping plaza and would like to know more about what happened. Please, more details so we all can be watchful when we shop in those businesses in that plaza and in that entire area in general.

Title: Re: To protect and serve my foot!
Post by straycatmom on 08/30/07 at 7:54pm

What is going on here? A man was attacked and beaten, and a police officer was informed, and nothing else happened? She 'almost completely refused to help him'. What does that mean? Was a report filed by the officer or the attacked man? If not, why not?

Title: Re: To protect and serve my foot!
Post by BluffParkLifer on 08/31/07 at 8:34am

Somethings a little fishy about this story :-?

Hello to everyone!

Title: Re: To protect and serve my foot!
Post by spideyman78 on 09/01/07 at 6:59am

more details: It was random, the person who attacked claimed my friend called him "crazy" also it was confirmed by the mother of the attacker ( who was there the whole time!) that he was on coke and was off of his meds. Also i need to retract the previous statment about my friend being ignored, the officer did respond, but slowly and apatheticly. My friend did press charges and did file a report, I dont know if the attacker is free or not, but his parents promised to keep him at home(he was put in jail that night though). Just look out for a short irritable-looking vietnamese man who is mumbling to himself for no good reason. Sadly though, the officer tried to talk him out of pressing the charges because "there was a lot of paperwork" that in my opinion is pure lazyness.

your friendly neighborhood spideyman

Title: Re: To protect and serve my foot!
Post by straycatmom on 09/01/07 at 4:18pm

So what we have here is a disturbed child, off his meds, in the presence of his mother, doing something inappropriate (on coke is certainly worrisome, and she should have avoided that, but it sounds like she's there and taking care). I'm sure it was unexpected and shocking, but did your friend ever feel truly in danger? How old was this person?

Title: Re: To protect and serve my foot!
Post by meredithshepherd on 09/01/07 at 8:32pm

spideyman's info is enough to convince me that those two shopping centers have just lost our families business. That description does not paint the picture of just a "disturbed child" and it does not seem that dear old mom is "taking care" of anything!!!
This is really sad.

Title: Re: To protect and serve my foot!
Post by Bluff Park Forum Admin on 09/01/07 at 9:44pm

meredithshepherd wrote:

I think what we have here is a third party information without any official release from the Hoover Police Department. One thing I have learned from forums is the following: if information is unclear or missing, you go directly to the source, which we will do on Tuesday.

Spidey, I like your posts, but before posting information that is, to say the least, "vague", you need to get all the facts. I asked you to check your e-mail right after you made the first post, which you have not done, or at least not responded to it. We don't post vague information on this forum.

meredith, I don't want to say that you are overreacting, but I think you're overreacting. Many, many people frequent those shopping centers daily. I know I go to them at least once a day. They are safe. The fact that we may have some isolated incidents happen in no way makes them unsafe.

That having been said, I will make you one promise: I will speak to Asst. Chief Roper and get the exact details as to the officer's actions during the incident and will not mince words on this forum. What I will post will be exactly what happened.

Our goal is for all Bluff Park residents to feel safe and secure in all parts of Bluff Park. Got questions that you'd like to discuss off line? E-mail me at info at bluffparkal.org

Title: Re: To protect and serve my foot!
Post by roxy on 09/02/07 at 4:25pm

I think the Mom should have been arrested for being a "bad" mom
She knew her son was on Coke/off his meds?????
Out in public???!!!! :o
This does sound fishy

Title: Re: To protect and serve my foot!
Post by straycatmom on 09/02/07 at 6:00pm

Thank you, admin. No offense, Meredith, but why don't you move to Mountain Brook? I can't you see being happy anyplace else...

Title: Re: To protect and serve my foot!
Post by meredithshepherd on 09/02/07 at 6:44pm

StrayCatMom - No offense taken. Perhaps we will soon. I grew up in "old Hoover" and have always loved it. It makes me sad to see that some parts of it have sort of gone by the wayside so to speak. All we expected and wanted out of this area is a safe environment for our kids and yes, we do expect the neighborhood residents to keep their homes up to an average acceptable standard. If that makes me a seem snobbish then so be it.
On a slightly different note, our neighbor feeds about 14 cats that stroll around our street. Perhaps you would like to adopt a few over here and keep them in your home?

Title: Re: To protect and serve my foot!
Post by straycatmom on 09/02/07 at 7:04pm

I'm called straycatmom for a reason, but I'm overflowing right now. And I'm sorry, I knew as soon as I typed that it was a mistake. I don't know what else to say. Can we just keep open minds about our community?

Title: Re: To protect and serve my foot!
Post by OleBloo on 09/02/07 at 7:20pm

If anyone does have questions about this event please ask me or even message me on here, I was personally in the car with my bestfriend whom of which is the wife of the one attacked so I know full detail of what happened. I'm scared to say that our friendly neighborhood had something like this happen but I come out wiser now knowing that if you do go anywhere please be aware of your surroundings and who is sitting outside of places because you honestly never can be ready to see something like this coming but you can be a little safer knowing what to look out for (i hope that didn't sound too strange?) :-/ It upsets me that the police were so stubburn on helping an issue like this. Its even more upsetting the police asking my friends husband "are you sure you want to press charges" a million times makes me wonder if they really seemed to want to do their job. Coming from my friend he is glad he did press charges because he didn't want something like this to happen again to someone else from this crazed person. Now is not the time to start buying guns or tucking away knifes in our socks but maybe a time to bring some more attention to the Hoover police that we are a part Hoover because we are a community of great people just like the rest of the city and also a time to pull together like we have and notice these things that seem out of place. Sorry to ramble but I just wanted to share. You guys be safe please.

Title: Re: To protect and serve my foot!
Post by Bluff Park Forum Admin on 09/02/07 at 7:55pm

straycatmom wrote:

FYI about the board: I don't know if you really meant the part that said "...as soon as I typed that it was a mistake.", but anyone who posts on the forum has the ability to modify or eve delete their post within 24 hours. After 24 hours only the moderators or admins have the ability to do so.

Title: Re: To protect and serve my foot!
Post by straycatmom on 09/03/07 at 2:30pm

I really did mean that. This is not a place for stupid pettiness. Looking around casually on the site, I'm not seeing a way to do that. Can you give instructions? Thanks..

Title: Re: To protect and serve my foot!
Post by straycatmom on 09/03/07 at 2:45pm

Cool, I just deleted my previous reply, which was
Never mind, as soon as I posted that I saw the 'delete' button at the top of the post...
I could have deleted both, but thought I'd leave it for anyone else who might need the info...
This is a really good site. You don't happen to have spell check do you?

Title: Re: To protect and serve my foot!
Post by spideyman78 on 09/04/07 at 10:31am

Sorry about not responding Bluffparkadmin i actually forgot my password to my email and got frustrated, but you know my wife oleblue and she was there when it happened so you can talk to her, also, do you honestly think the report is going to mention that the officer took their time? or that they didnt want to do the paperwork? of course it should mention all of the other info, but trust me, i might mishear, but i do not misinform intentionaly. I actually spoke with the attacker's mother. Also I was there for everything after the initial atack. And I believe my sources are very valid, considering one was the victim and the other was my own wife. I just misunderstood what my wife initialy told me about the actions of the officer, but please dont accuse me of being "vauge"

your friendly neighborhood spideman,

Title: Re: To protect and serve my foot!
Post by Bluff Park Forum Admin on 09/04/07 at 11:00am

spideyman78 wrote:

Status Update: I have spoken to Asst. Chief Roper this morning. He will be contacting me later on with more information, which will be posted.

The term "vague" was not meant in a derogatory way. When posts are made on the forum, there is no method of filtering out what is truth or fiction. We work very hard in delivering a forum to Bluff Park that contains as much factual information as possible (without mentioning names, etc.). You are more than welcome to PM me should you have further questions and/or comments.

Title: Re: To protect and serve my foot!
Post by Bluff Park Forum Admin on 09/11/07 at 9:29am

Update:

On Monday, September 10 I received a call from Asst. Chief Roper regarding the incident mentioned in the beginning of this topic. He interviewed both officers who responded to the call, including the one who was already at the Bluff Park sub-station. The incident occurred as follows:

Victim leaves restaurant and is struck from behind by suspect. Suspect continues striking victim, then goes into vehicle in parking lot. Victim's friends go to sub-station and knock on door and officer exits. Victim's friends inform officer of event and officer approaches vehicle with suspect inside. Suspect exits vehicle, mutters something to the effect that victim called him "crazy" and places hands behind his back, signifying that he is aware that he did something wrong and will be placed under arrest, which he is.
Victim is treated at scene by paramedics and released. Suspect is taken to Public Safety Center and victim is told to go to PS Center to swear out a warrant.

The above would be the basic release as to what happened. Obviously there is more to it, but this is the "sterile" version that omits names, addresses, emotions, etc.

According to the original poster, the victim had to go to the hospital at a later time since the injuries became more serious. When Asst. Chief Roper was informed of this (yesterday) he suggested that the charges, which were a misdemeanor, could be elevated to a felony.

Roper did explain a couple of things that we should all know.

First, regarding the Bluff Park Sub-Station: The sub-station was placed in Bluff Park after the community asked the city for it. It opened on December 7, 2006. The sub-station was never meant to be manned 24/7. It is meant as a place for officers to write reports, make phone calls, take a quick break, etc. Consider the alternative: if the sub-station was not there, the 30 Beat officer (Bluff Park is in Hoover Police Zone 30, also called 30 Beat) would have to travel down to Highway 31 and then make their way to one of three locations to do what they could do at the Bluff Park sub-station. The drive down to Hwy. 31 and the return to Bluff Park could take more than 30 minutes, which are 30 minutes that Bluff Park is left without police presence. So, in a nutshell, the sub-station was never meant to be manned at all times. It just so happened that an officer was there at the time of the incident.

Second, regarding the incident. The initial charge was a misdemeanor. If an officer does not witness a crime which is a misdemeanor, the victim must swear out a warrant against the suspect, which then give the police officer the right to arrest the suspect. This puts a burden on the victim, as he or she must travel down to the Public Safety Center, go in front of a magistrate, fill out paperwork and swear out the warrant. Keep in mind that this is not Hoover PD's policy, it is State of Alabama law. As stupid as it may sound, it is the law. Although there are certain exceptions to this law, this case is not one of them.

This was an unfortunate incident which revealed a number of things to us, but it is also an isolated incident. One thing is for sure, though, it was not an incident that went unnoticed by Bluff Park. In no way are we saying that we could not use more officers in Bluff Park. To the contrary, our officers are too spread out as it is. The current 30 Beat is too large. It needs to be cut in half and two beats need to be created out of it. Asst. Chief Roper indicated that in order for that to happen, five new officers need to be hired, as that is how many it takes to man a beat 24/7 (3 regular and 2 during off days). This is something that we need to contact our council members about. This issue was brought up in passing to State Representative Paul DeMarco last night also, and we'll have more on the topic soon.