(Community Matters) Possible additional sighting in Hyde Park. The email below was sent to our neighborhood distribution list.
1/18/12
very suspicious man 49th street
I’m posting this for my neighbor who is not on this listserv at her request. It’s not to inflame anything or scare anyone but just to be informed and to be ALERT that this guy MAY still be around!
This has all been reported to 911 (2 times now).
Last night a man “fitting the description of the suspected killer” came to her door (49th street btwn Caswell and Duval), was peering in her front window. She said as she approached the door (she thought it was her husband), this strangers face was against the glass looking in, and she froze and asked him what he wanted from about 20 feet back. He said he was a neighbor, looking for a dog. She turned and walked away to get her phone (she didn’t know why) and when she peeked around another corner he had gone. She immediately called 911 she was so frightened by this. She reports it just felt wrong in her body. At the time she didn’t immediately think he looked like the suspect but this morning feels certain it was him — it is unclear if this is witness error or just her truly getting more clear. To represent her most fully, she says now she is “sure” he matched the photos.
First thing this morning she knocked on the neighbors doors in houses all around hers, and no one else was approached last night by a man looking for his dog. Together, we both called 911 again this morning to make sure they understood this was not just a suspicious person report. This time they came out and took a report (last night they did a drive by and found no suspicious activity in the area). The officer said they receive hundreds of these “tips” and it would be referred to homicide to be sifted through. The officer was professional and she took our concerns seriously but said her hands were tied w/ a process that she would follow, take the report and refer it to homicide as a tip. She did seems to accurately understand the level of threat this woman felt and her certainty re: the description.
She mentioned a few other things that might be helpful:
1. If you call in a suspicious person report and you want to make an actual report, you have to ASK for the officer to make contact with, otherwise they won’t assume you want to be contacted.
2. The key is IF YOU ARE ALONE AND FEMALE different protocol gets enacted so you must tell them that when you report it — they have more options to act. Although this was the case w/ my neighbor (she was alone w/ 2 small children), and she reports telling them that – it wasn’t necessarily conveyed last night to the Sargent. This is unclear. (English is not her first language and she did not understand to ask for an officer to come by.)
3. BE ON THE LOOKOUT for this guy — whoever he is.
She said he was dark skinned but she wasn’t sure he was African American, had close cropped afro-style hair, scrubble of dark beard, kind of round, stocky man. Only saw him for shoulders up before he disappeared.
Whether he’s your run of the mill suspicious guy up to normal no good activities or the suspect we see plastered all around, just thought the neighborhood would want to know.
There are many more of us than him, so let’s neighborhood watch that much more alertly now!!!!
Community Matters 