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Brookline resident calls police to report suspicious Hispanic women with cleaning supplies

Seems she didn't buy their story they were in her building to clean an apartment. Wicked Local Brookline reports the three women, who fled after the resident told them she was calling 911, were, in fact, there to clean an apartment.

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Comments

Putting aside the uncharacteristically troll-y headline, the whole fleeing thing does suggest that something was not completely on the level. If I showed up for work and someone didn't buy why I was there and threatened to call the police, well, I'd probably pull a Ferris and tell them that I thought that calling the police would be a swell idea.

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Your papers are in order

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you were here legally. But they probably aren't.

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Going with the trolly headline, they were Hispanics apparently working in a part of the service sector which is frequently employing immigrants (many of whom are Hispanic) who may or may not have permission to work and/or be in this country. You could be in the building for perfectly legit reasons, like doing what you get paid to do, and if someone threatens to call the cops on you, you might want to not hang around for fear of getting caught up in a world of shit should the case be that you do not have za proper paperz, fräulein.

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A few years ago my roommate hired a cleaning company to deep clean our apartment. A man showed up with 3-4 hispanic woman. We told the man what needed to be done, he explained it to the woman in spanish. When we needed to ask the women a question we quickly found they didn't speak any english and we didn't speak spanish. But we got the point across and they did a great job.

My point is that it's entirely possible these woman didn't speak english and only know a few select words like "police". They don't understand the question being asked but they can tell someone is upset and calling the police. So they do the natural thing to diffuse the situation -- they leave.

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Let me guess...the g in issacg doesn't stand for Garcia, Gomez, or Gonzalez.

If I'm in a minority group and someone calls the police? I can clean the apartment another day.

What's the best thing that happens by staying? You get the job done after being delayed by some cop asking a bunch of questions just to satisfy some busybody whose only trouble in this situation is they get told "they check out".

What's the worst? You falter on one explanation that the cop latches onto like a pitbull and ends up citing you for something nobody in their right mind would even think to know is even a law...or even worse, you end up arrested for something you didn't do.

No thanks. If someone involves the cops these days and I have a chance to leave before that happens, I'm gone if it's not my personal place/property to defend or care about. Too many stories about too many people meeting too many cops that are less pragmatic and more punitive these days.

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No need to cast aspersions on our friends in local law enforcement. Local Brookline police could just be doing their job and dealing with local Ms. Busy-body's paranoid demands and end up seriously screwing over an undocumented worker without even wanting to. If the ladies can't prove they're there with permission (client won't answer the phone or whatever) and Ms. B-b pushes the issue with the cop and he asks the ladies to accompany him to the station just to clear things up, no problem. If a booking occurs, with the idea of don't worry about it, you'll be free to go we're just trying to keep Ms. B-b quiet, the fingerprints automatically go to Dept of Homeland Security (via Dept of Justice) and there's a hit in the database that these ladies have overstayed a tourist visa, don't have a work visa, or were previously deported, then the station gets a call from ICE telling them to hold them ladies (with no right to a phone call, lawyer and practically an indefinite stay, i.e. until ICE shows up to pick them up). Or they're let go, but are then paid a later visit by ICE who now has their home address (if they don't flee in a panic).

So the local law enforcement doesn't care that they're in violation of our civil immigration code (not their job to enforce it), he's happy that they're just working and not causing criminal mischief in his district (and he shut up Ms. B-b). But for these women and their families, including any U.S.-born children they may have, this is their entrance into a long nightmare of for-profit detention facilities, potentially around the country, shitty conditions like lack of access to proper health care, needed medicines, sexual harassment, etc.. until they are finally sent back to their countries and whatever they were originally fleeing from there. That scenario is not supposition or just-so stories, it's testimony from any number of the thousand of non-criminal immigrants who have been deported by this administration, which by the end of this year will have deported more people than any other President in modern history (2 million out of the estimated 11-12 million undocumented in this country).

So fuck Ms. Busy-body.

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Which is what, exactly? Remember the time somebody posted on here that a Brookline cop resorted to pleading with a tow truck driver to unhook a vehicle, seemingly forgetting that he had handcuffs and a service weapon?

Oxymoron of the day. Then again, responding to somebody ratting on a cleaning lady sounds like the pinnacle of Barney Fifery to me, so they probably sent three cruisers.

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probably arent legal residents or even if they are have been taught to fear american police

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Brookline PD is the US equivalent to the KGB.

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Wealthy, white anglophone male. No worries about being jailed for not carrying his papers on him at all times, incurring legal bills, and losing days from work for something that isn't even a crime.

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Not to be pedantic but:

" She asked them where they were going, and the woman said they were going to an apartment in the building. The woman told them if they didn’t say what they were doing in the building, she would call the police. According to the woman, the three women ran out of the building."

The source says that although they had cleaning supplies, they didn't say why they were in the building, only they were going to an apartment and fled at the mention of police. There's grounds for suspicion there.

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.

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I keep my answers short and to the point when random strangers start asking me questions about my business too.

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Who enters a residential building is everyone's busines who lives there. A man who didn't live in the last apt. building where I lived was let in. He attacked a woman in the laundry room in the basement. Ask questions and be observant.

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All it would take to scare off a would-be criminal would be someone in the building having spoken with them for a few minutes. No need to be hostile or intimidating. "Heya, good morning...what apartment you lookin for?" would be enough for most criminals to know someone had gotten a good clear view of their face and had heard their voice. You can be a good, vigilant neighbor without being an ass about it.

Why someone is going into a building is, in fact, not any of your business. As someone who visits people in their homes, I often have people ask me who I'm going to see. I tell them the name or apartment number, because they're watching which apartment I'm going to, so I can be courteous without giving them information they don't already have. However, a lot of people will then follow up with asking if I'm a relative, asking if I'm from an agency, asking if I'm one of the people who comes to see the child with a disability and what's up with that kid anyway, telling me that my adult client stays up all night making noise and doing drugs and don't they have a guardian or someone they could call and complain to. WTF, people?! I of course respond with "yep, I'm going to see John on the third floor, have a nice day then" or something.

I think it's perfectly reasonable that it isn't anyone's damn business what a visitor is going to do in the apartment.

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My neighbors and I watch out for each other.

I think it's perfectly reasonable that it isn't anyone's damn business what a visitor is going to do in the apartment.
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You have a different point of view. No need to be hostile.

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Officially not their business by law.

It is your business to ask if someone has a reason to be in the building. It is not your business what they do once they are in the apartment that somebody lets them into or they have a key to enter. Period.

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The cleaning ladies in question were in the common areas of the building.
On another point, if someone falls asleep with a lit cigarette and the building's fire alarm sustem goes off, it's all of the residents' business and now the fire department's business. Period. Here's another example: if you hear a person being beaten up in the adjoining unit, it is your business to dial 911. Period.

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I'm sorry that you've had so many troubles that have caused this issue to be such a hot topic for you. However, safety of the residents shouldn't be compromised to make your job more convenient for you. Most apartment and condo buildings in cities have safety rules as to visitors and buzzing people into the building. It is important to be aware of your surroundings and ask questions if something doesn't seem right. That's not being rude, that's being smart. If you want to isolate yourself, move to rural Maine. However, in the meantime it would be wise for you to meet your neighbors and learn how to be assertive; it could come in handy one day. The days of people pretending they don't see anything because they don't want to get involved are long gone. You might want to consider taking a self-defense class.

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Two junkies go around, one female with a handful of cleaning supplies, and her junkie bf waiting for her to get in the building.

Junkie BF goes around the top floors looking for open doors or doors that can be easily smashed.

Junkie GF waits in lobby/first floor incase someone comes in (and will then alert junkie BF on upper floors of people coming in).

Junkie BF gets loot, meets up with Junkie GF down the street where they go down to their fence/pawnshop and sell their goods.

As a police officer, I have sort of an unconscious bias towards Brazillian women, as Hispanics and Brazillians are usually not the stereotypical group to break into homes, especially 3 women. But you never know I guess.

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You don't need to approach people with hostility even when you know that they don't belong there.

I was working late one night when a guy lurking around the office jumped back when he spotted me working at my desk. I saw him, however, and picked up my phone and walked around until I found him. I asked him if he needed help, and he mumbled some bullshit about looking for a bank, and I told him his best bet was to go down to the front desk and escorted him to the elevator lobby and hit the down arrow.

Then I went back and figured out that one of our doors was not closing properly and reported the whole thing.

There was no need to be hostile - I got him out of our space, reported the incident, and secured the office. He was clearly a sneak thief casing the place and probably looking for a card key for off-hours access.

The point is that, by being polite, I got a REALLY good look at the guy. I also did not cause a situation that might have turned violent.

And, had he been the husband of a colleague, I could have shown him where he needed to be - just like my husband sometimes shows up when I'm in the restroom and grabs the hubway key or car key or whatever.

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If you didn't think they were suspicious (because they don't live there) and they were simply maids.

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In other words, the left and went to their next cleaning location, where they wouldn't be interrogated by some bitch.

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The government has spent tens of millions on Neighborhood Watch, McGruff the Crime Dog, If You See Something Say Something, etc. Now, when a concerned citizen sees three apparent strangers who run away on being questioned, then says something to police, she is ridiculed. No wonder why people don't want to get involved.

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According to Concerned Citizen.

More likely they just left, ignored her, and went to their next gig.

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It's "see something" as in something suspicious or out of the ordinary, not "see minorities, say something."

I guess that it would be racial profiling to assume that a group of latinas coming into the building are a cleaning crew, but reasonable deduction to assume a group of women with cleaning supplies are a cleaning crew. Assuming a group of latinas coming into your building is reason to call the cops...well, there's another word for that...

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"No, no, I go."

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Adam you missed the real troll bait in that police log:

Road rage: A caller reported a driver of a white BMW was honking his/her car horn at a woman on a bike near the intersection of Harvard and Washington streets and almost hit her.

While a source of hours of entertainment on UHub, that report pales in comparison to the shocking levels of degradation to which the populace of Brookline has sunk:

A customer at Zaftig’s on Harvard Street who was sitting in a booth with his shoes off, refused to leave the restaurant.

I think I crushed my pearls....(now there's a euphemism).

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BMW Driver Is a Douche ain't news, even around here.

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...I think the douche drivers du jour are now Audi drivers.

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Some blue-collar guy from Dot complains about section 8 or projects folks trashing his neighborhood and everyone gangs up on him and calls him racist. Now, we have some Brookline bleeding heart liberal showing his true colors (i.e. paranoid racist hypocrite) and no one sees anything wrong with it.

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Which Brookline bleeding heart liberal are you talking about? I'm not following here.

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Same damn thing though - bleeding heart liberal when the poor people of color are being oppressed by the evil rightie whities somewhere far away in Dorchester, paranoid racist nutjob when poor people of color are in her neighborhood. Liberal hypocrisy at its finest.

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Do you know this woman? Just because she lives in Brookline doesn't mean she's a liberal or identifies as one. Mitt Romney got 5,717 votes there last year (source).

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And Obama got the other 21,761, so statistically speaking she's much more likely to be a bleeding-heart liberal that a cold-hearted conservative. Say what you want, but the vast majority of the wealthy ultra-liberal suburban crowd starts freaking out and calling cops when they see a harmless Hispanic woman in their neighborhood, let alone an oversized hoodie-wearing, (possibly pistol-packing, crack-dealing) saggy pants thug. Yet anyone who has the said thugs living next door to them in a project or a section 8 house and dares to complain about them is racist wingnut.

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Huh?

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Actually I see more people on this thread complaining about the uptight person in Brookline going beyond normal caution and harassing some apparent Latina workers trying to do their job (despite Pete Nice's story of junky cleaning services cleaning out apartments). Which is very similar to people here who might complain about blue-collar Dot-guys complaining about "section 8 or project folks". And is also similar to people here complaining about gentrifying yuppies moving into Dot or Southie and complaining about those same types of people -- which if we're being honest we mean low income people and non-white people. There seems to be a general disdain on this site for people who complain about the presence of other people in their city.

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This is why my neighbor knocked on my door and introduced me to her cleaning crew when she hired them. And she told me what day they would be cleaning her apartment.

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Smart neighbor!

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