Today when I arrived home at my low rent apartment, I found that someone had parked in my parking space.  I was angry about it, because I had to trim tree branches and clear out some debris in order to make this parking space at the far back corner of the parking lot that abuts neighbors’ backyards.

I didn’t know if somebody was fucking with me, because this has been my spot for months, this spot is away from all of the other parking spaces, everyone has picked their own spot, and there hasn’t been a parking dispute here for at least four months.  I wanted to find out who did this, was this a new tenant, was this a visitor, was this unintentional, or was this intentional.

I was angry enough to yank this car out of this space with my truck, but I quickly realized that this would lead to retaliation against my truck.  I knocked on a neighbor’s door who I thought might have parked this car there, but luckily they were not home.

I was going to leave a note on this car’s windshield saying that I had to clear out this space by trimming tree branches and moving debris, I had been parking here, and asking if they were a new resident, to call me.  The way that this car was parked, it looked like it might not even be running.  It was a very beat up car.  It was parked back up against the side of the garage.  The driver’s door was so close to the side of the garage, that I didn’t see how the driver could have even got out of the car if they had backed it in, they might have pushed it back.

I walked over to the car, to look at it, and I was very surprised and startled when someone got out of it.  They were startled too, because apparently they were trying to hide.  The person who got out of this car, he immediately started saying some lame, nonsense excuse about what he was doing.  I asked him right away, if he had just moved in to these apartments, or if he was visiting someone.  I could tell from his erratic nervous behavior that it was neither.  He said that he lived in this area.  Nothing that he was saying explained what he was doing here on this property, at the far back corner of the parking lot, backed in beside the end of the garage, like he was hiding.

This person said to me, hey, if you want your space that bad, I will leave.  I got his vehicle license plate number and I walked away.  To me, this is what it looks like when someone is getting ready to, or is in the process of going through other people’s vehicles in a parking lot in order to steal things.

I telephoned the Dickinson Police non-emergency number to explain what was going on, but the dispatcher at first was dismissing what I was saying, thinking that I was calling about someone taking my parking space.  I tried to explain, “No, there is so much theft going on in Dickinson right now, and in the area that I live in, I think that this person is here to steal things, they don’t live here, they aren’t visiting anyone here, their story does not make any sense, and they don’t belong here.”

I gave the Dickinson Police dispatcher the vehicle license plate number, and I asked if they could send an officer over so that I could tell them what was going on.  While I was waiting for the Police, I talked to some of my neighbors about what was going on, and they knew a little about this vehicle and the vehicle owner.  He and his vehicle had been spotted at a suspected drug house in the area.  We speculated that what he was doing here, involved either stealing or drugs.

When the Police Officer arrived within about ten minutes of me calling the non-emergency number, the Police Officer said that he knew, and the Police knew, who this person was, and that this was someone that the Police needed to be called about if he showed up at the apartment property again.

I gave the Police Officer the license plate number and a complete description of the vehicle, and some additional information about the vehicle that I got from the neighbors.  I let the Police officer know that some of my neighbors had had items stolen from their vehicles in the recent past.

I know and my neighbors know, that if we find items missing from our vehicles later today or tomorrow, who it was that probably got into our vehicles.  The Police now know, that this guy was caught recently in this neighborhood, parked behind a garage on private property, where he had no reason to be.

The reason that I am acting like this, is because me and my neighbors have had things stolen out of our vehicles recently, and there has been illegal drug activity at the apartments where we live in the recent past.  If we don’t do something about the people who show up here and don’t belong here, the crime will just keep happening here.