Re: Police policies
From: Sharon Villines (sharonsharonvillines.com)
Date: Thu, 3 Jun 2021 07:05:15 -0700 (PDT)
> On Jun 2, 2021, at 7:13 AM, Maggie McGovern via Cohousing-L <cohousing-l [at] 
> cohousing.org> wrote:

> I’m curious if any of you have policies/guidelines/agreements/rules around 
> people calling the police?

We don’t have any official policy but I’m pretty sure that everyone would avoid 
it except in emergencies. In fact we’ve had to argue with people to get them to 
call the police.

A new resident notified OSHA when they saw the painting company’s employees 
without something — I think it was up on ladders without someone spotting them. 
People were upset because it might cause unnecessary damage to the small 
contractor's business and workers. We explained that first we would talk to the 
supervisor and point out the violation. If they were uncomfortable talking 
directly to the supervisor, they should ask the community person supervising 
the painting to do it. (OSHA did come out and talk to him just with a warning.)

Another time a resident found a man in his apartment going through a dresser. 
He took him downstairs to the CH where a group was having a meeting to discuss 
what to do. After searching the man and finding nothing on him that appeared to 
be stolen, they let him go. There was some consternation about that but no big 
deal.

Another funny story is that someone in a meeting saw a strange couple rush 
through the dining room and get on the elevator. They were found in the 
basement having sex. We had found condom wrappers (French Vanilla) on the floor 
of the sun room and in the game room but brushed it off. This residents brought 
the couple upstairs and discussed what to do. For some time the couple had been 
coming in by using the code that had been given to them a few years earlier by 
a resident when they were all teenagers. The arguments varied from let them go 
and change the code to call the police and charge them with trespassing. The 
people who found them did call the police and went to the police station to 
file a report but didn’t and didn’t press charges. I think everyone agreed that 
that was a good resolution.

Sharon
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Sharon Villines
Takoma Village Cohousing, Washington DC
http://www.takomavillage.org





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