Man on push bike knocked on door

[Medusa]

I have been thinking of how many times I have gone to pick stuff up from other forum members, forgotten their house numbers and rung the wrong doorbells, sometimes then walking away when I have realised. Oh dear.

[phobic3000]

Sounds suspicious to me. He could have been cycling away because the light was turned on and someone came to the door.

[northlondoner]

Ok Phobic. Explain to us EXACTLY why it sounds suspicious.

The irony of your username has not escaped me.

[Earl Aelfheah]

To be fair, it's hard to judge from a second hand description of what may now sound fairly innocuous events. The original poster obviously felt that something wasn't quite right. Part of being 'street wise' is to some extent, learning to trust your instincts.

[Jeremy]

Entirely possible that while the lad was knocking on the door, he realised it was the wrong house and took off. But also entirely possible that he was casing the house - so surely it is at least slightly suspicious... (suspicion does not necessarily imply guilt).. so seems reasonable to attempt to find out if he tried it with other houses.

Of course nobody likes to be stereotyped, and a more detailed description would have helped. But ultimately "young black male" whittles the local population down to around 10% in three short words, so clearly as a description it's not a complete waste of time.

[northlondoner]

It's incredibly useless. "Whittles it down" to me and dozens of others who look like me.

May I refer you to the brilliant "man knocked on my door " thread passim.

[Jeremy]

The other thread might seem "brilliant" to you.

I think that says more about you than it does about anyone else.

[brain_opera]

How does it say more about him? This "incident" was a dude getting the wrong address. Then inflated because he's black. Unacceptable racist comments are allowed to stand in this thread.

[Jeremy]

Because that thread is not funny or vaguely clever, it's a childish attempt to mock people for showing caution and vigilance.

One post was out of order (I suspected it was another joke, albeit one in bad taste) and it was deleted. I do not see what other unacceptable racist comments there are here.

Wrong address? As I said, maybe. But you don't know that. There is chance it was something else, hence the original query. The OP was no more racist than it is sexist, ageist, or anti-cyclist.

[charlesfare]

hahaah the way people bend over backwards to defend racist bullshit is astounding sometimes.

[charlesfare]

hahah, did that man with bag thread get deleted? Maybe some of you joyless, fearful pearl clutchers deserve to have your homes broken in to.

[Loz]

charlesfare Wrote:

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> hahaah the way people bend over backwards to

> defend racist bullshit is astounding sometimes.

Would you like to quote any racism? There was one rather unacceptable comment, but that was, rightly, deleted.

Also, if you think a comment is racist, then the 'Report this Message' button is there for your use.

[ZHM77]

My housemates and I initially started this thread as we were really scared and fearful about what happened - it was I who answered the door and it was extremely clear what was going on. We are presumably all just trying to keep our community safe, so let's focus on that instead of turning it into a back and forth. Thank you to those people who commented appropriately and gave advice. I called the non-emergency police, reported it and they did a drive by shortly thereafter.

As we're pretty much always in, it was a stupid house to target.

[phobic3000]

northlondoner Wrote:

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> Ok Phobic. Explain to us EXACTLY why it sounds

> suspicious.

> The irony of your username has not escaped me.

I meet victims of burglary on a daily basis in my job. I hear a lot about circumstances leading up to these crimes first hand. I have heard many accounts from victims of burglary where the police have subsequently caught the criminals and informed them (the homeowner) of the circumstances of the crime. Some of these cases bore similarities of this.

Now it could well have been an innocent mistake, wrong address etc. Or it could possibly have been someone checking the house was empty to carry out a burglary.

[charlesfare]

I wonder if you would have been so scared if it was an old white man or a young white lady who knocked at your door and then walked off when they'd realized it was the wrong one. We can back and forth about it all day, but we all know there is nothing inherently suspicious or unseemly about knocking on someone's door. We can also put our blinkers on and pretend that the whole guilty until proven innocent thing re: black men doesn't exist and like black men aren't disproportionately stop and searched by police on a daily basis.

Fair enough if you were scared at that point in time, but have enough self awareness to consider the reasons why.

[Loz]

The problem, charlesfare, is you are looking at one thread. Check out these:

http://www.eastdulwichforum.co.uk/forum/read.php?5,1116067,1116503

http://www.eastdulwichforum.co.uk/forum/read.php?5,1287419,1288969

http://www.eastdulwichforum.co.uk/forum/read.php?5,1267030,1269786

http://www.eastdulwichforum.co.uk/forum/read.php?5,1234757,1252324 (ok, this is one white guy and one black guy)

People are forever posting warnings on here about suspicious people of all races and both sexes. You are seeing racism where there is none.

[charlesfare]

I'm looking at one thread because we're discussing one particular instance involving one poster and one alleged scoundrel. Those are all also excplicitly more suspicious situations, someone fidling with a door, someone rifling through bins etc - not someone knocking on the door, leaving and announcing they've gotten the wrong house.

That could have easily have been me or someone I know, wrongly regarded with suspicion because of prejudices no one here is willing to acknowlege exist.

[Loz]

No, I admit that such prejudices exist. I think that is pretty much undeniable.

It's just I do not believe this is an example of that, when you take into context all the other (many) warnings on here.

[charlesfare]

Completely unrelated situations brought up by completely unrelated posters really count as context for this particular thread.

[Loz]

Errm. Yes. obviously. It's the context of how warnings on what is perceived as suspicious behaviour are posted to this forum.

Yes, we could have got people of various genders, ages and races to wheel bicycles needlessly up people paths, going though bins, jiggle locks/doorhandles, etc, etc, and gauge if they were reported on the forum. I sure it would make a great sociological experiment. But that hasn't happened, has it?

But we do have the context of the other 'suspicious people' reports made this year and that does show all manner of genders, ages and races are cropping up.

Calling the OP a racist because, in this single case, it happened to be someone of a certain age/gender/race doing something unexpected is, frankly, a bit out of order.

[DaSilva]

I agree Loz,

To my mind the OP was merely trying to give other forum users an accurate description of the youth in question; and their colour is, in this instance, just another identifying feature. Had they had ginger hair, or a distinctive tattoo, or were wearing a polka-dot-pink body-suit (aka Mr Blobby), I'm sure the OP would have included this in their description as well

I wonder whether some of the posters on here who cry 'racism' at the drop of a hat should consider the mote in their own eyes first

Oh, and for the record, I happen to be black ...and male ...and I sometimes ride a bike

[Jeremy]

We weren't there, we didn't see the body language of the kid as he took off. To claim that the event was categorically not suspicious, and therefore a racist reaction, is completely absurd and totally unfair. Just pointless posturing.

[charlesfare]

Loz Wrote:

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>

> Calling the OP a racist because, in this single

> case, it happened to be someone of a certain

> age/gender/race doing something unexpected is,

> frankly, a bit out of order.

All those threads you're mentioning had people engaging in explicitly suspicious behaviour. There is a huge difference between pouring glue in someone's door/crowding their doorway/going through their trash and knocking on their door before walking away and realizing it was a mistake. No one has really explained exactly why that is suspicious other than it just is.

Odd that you can all sit here assuming someone doing something completely innocous is up to no good, but that the implication his race has something to do with how suspicious he appeared is "completely absurd" as if people only think like that in Kafka novels.

Fair enough, you're all nice people and this guy was clearly up to no good. Sorry for rocking the boat like that.

[Penguin68]

I believe that the differences being discussed here may be that, in some people's views, reporting identifiers for someone undertaking suspicious acts is entirely reasonable and sensible, to warn others to be specifically aware of a perceived threat - HOWEVER if you perceive the threat because of the identifiers then this may be (albeit possibly unconsciously) racist. It's the equivalent of the institutional racism described during examinations of police attitudes.

[Jeremy]

Neither "clearly up to no good", nor "completely innocuous". I would say "fairly suspicious". I can understand the OP wanting to check out whether the same thing had happened to others that night. That is all.

I'm sure people sometimes do, sadly, make judgements based on race. But it is your declaration that a) the guy in question was not acting suspiciously and b) this clearly makes the OP racist which I find absurd.