A Really Brave 13 Year Old Girl
When I was 13, I know if two guys broke into my house and I was alone, I would have probably freaked out. Chloe Symington of Detroit though stayed calm when two guys broke in while she was home from school sick. They did not know she was home and when she saw them breaking in she ran to a bedroom and hid under the bed while she dialed 911. Her call lasted 18 minutes and during the call one of the intruders came into the bedroom and Chloe was not fully hidden under the bed. The intruder never saw her and left the room and even the 911 operator was amazed Chloe was not spotted.
Let me stop here for a second. 18 minutes? Seriously? During the f**king day it took 18 minutes for the cops to get to her house? That seems inexcusable and as part of the story about how brave this girl is should be a story about how long it took the police to get to her house. It took them so long to get to her house that the intruders had already left! The police managed to find them still in the neighborhood and the girl recognized one of them as being someone who had previously been a guest at the house. There is no excuse for that long of a delay. None. Some people should be fired. Tell me what could possibly be more of a priority than two guys who broke into a house alone with a 13 year old girl hiding under a bed from them.
28 comments:
Oh, the cops in Detroit were probably too busy racial profiling the shit out of all the local minorities to pay attention to a teenage girl enduring a burglary.
That's like the town where I grew up just outside New York City, one police car....one ! So you either got lucky or not.
I grew up in a town, where the town next to us lived rock stars, actors, millonaires out the wazzoo. So if we called the police for anything, they were there in 30 seconds flat. Gotta protect the rock stars adjacent.
Thank god the girl was ok. Not knocking detroit, but come on 18 minutes?
Sorry I have friends that are Detroit cops. They're not all bad. And since Michigan ad Detroit are in a financial crisis theyve been cutting firefighters and cops. So all f Michigan is hurting. Plus she wasn't in Detroit. She was in harrison township which is about 20 miles away from Detroit. It is kinda in the boondocks. So please quit judging when enty didn't even preset the facts correctly
When you need a cop in 5 seconds, they are 5 minutes away. I work for the Sheriff's Department, and sometimes you are just not close enough. It sucks but it's not the cops' fault.
With all due respect, AmyinMI, twenty miles away from one of the country's largest metropolitan areas is hardly "the boondocks."
Eighteen minutes is an inexcusable amount of time to wait for police assistance, especially if this girl lives in a Detroit suburb.
Folks, Detroit Police are NOT the police for the suburbs. This girls lives in Harrison Township, an area that doesn't have a police force. There are a few county cops assigned to the area. (Note that this is not even in the same county as Detroit.) That doesn't excuse the 18 min.
And Amy is correct, this place is borderline boondocks in terms of Detroit suburbs. People drive through it to get to the beach or their boat.
You know I was watching America's Most Wanted last night and at the end John Walsh gave a speech - about how so many cities in America are "shrinking" the government by reducing police forces and fireman and teachers etc.. and he specifically listed Detroit as one that has laid off 2/3 of their police department. He said "what if you needed them and they couldn't respond because they didn't have enough police available".
Sounds like he was right on.
How did they not see her or hear her? Thank GOODNESS she is ok and she is definitely a brave girl. This is my worst nightmare.
MonstersInc rocks! Let this be a warning to the criminals cause homegirl WILL put a gun in your face....I love it! That was very brave of you to protect your dad.
Welcome to the realities of the economic crisis this nation is having but is apparently unseen by people not near it .. economically and geographically.
Lack of good paying jobs lead to foreclosures and lack of payroll taxes, which lead to a serious lack of tax revenue for municipalities, which leads to a wave of reductions in workforces for that municipality .. i.e., police, fire. Thus we have 18 minute wait times for police. And, sadly, Michigan has been at the fore of this terrible economy of ours.
Had a case like this in suburban Chicago when I was a teenager and it did not end this well. .. for her or the men accused of her murder. It is the case that lead to the moratorium on the death penalty in Illinois - Jeanine Nicarico
Thankfully this girl was spared a horrible fate and hopefully she will recover emotionally from this rather terrifying incident.
I'm sorry trollslayer but as was backed up by Beth it IS boondocks like. I grew up 30 Mrs south of Detroit and there are a lot of farms around. A lot of cities and townships can't afford police forces so they rely on the sheriff dept. however in the county I grew up in thy are a t pre-1977 levels for staffing and the population had doubled. This is what happens when they don't have the tax base anymore. Yes Michigan has high taxes and insurance rates but because of the cuts in
The auto industry everyone is leaving. It's like a ghost town in some places
What a brave girl! I'm so happy she's okay. :)
Well, if a CHILD has to wait nearly twenty minutes for the cops to rescue her, then we're ALL fucked. I don't care if you're in Phoenix or Peoria. And I stand corrected.
Time to take this little girl to a shooting range and have her practice her aim. It would be terrible if she ever has to use a gun on another person, but I can think of worse scenarios.
I guess in Harrison Township, 911 IS a joke.
Umm, Trollslayer, I suspect that with a large minority population, the days of racial profiling in the City are long past.
I'm a native Detroiter, and though I haven't lived there for years; I used to know some of the cops. They were so understrength that each precinct might only have a single cop in a single car. Supposedly, if they got a call for a break-in in progress, cops would sometimes get to the area, and then park around the corner to give the crook a chance to get away. Why? If he goes into a house where the criminal is still there, he has no idea what he's getting into, and absolutely no backup. Under those conditions, you'd pretty much have to be nuts to go in there. Yeah, it's awful if a person is stuck in there, but with the way people think now, there's a good chance the whole thing could have ended with a dead kid and a dead cop.
As for it being so slow during the daytime, if most crimes occur at night, when would you rather have the most cops on duty?
Trollslayer, the city of Detroit is 85% black(or higher). The police force is about 80+% black. The only minority to be profiled would be white.
As everyone else has said, this is in Harrison Twp. They lack their own police department. But pay the sheriff department for coverage. The sheriff have to cover a wide amount of space. An 18 minute response time is not uncommon. Although in this case, someone sure as hell should have tried.
Thank God this girl got out alive & without being hurt. And what a brave soul! I guess they didn't think to look under the bed because they wanted to get out there as quick as possible? And for the 18 mins fiasco, who knows what the real reason is. Not enough cops within the distance? Cops not caring? who knows. It was way too long and way too wrong. The next time something like this happens in that town, they will not as lucky this girl.
Last year I was involved in an accident in a predominantly black part of Toronto where a drunk driver in a stolen car rear ended another car (very badly) and me (very slightly). This happened about a 4 minute walk from a large metropolitan police station, yet it took over 2 hours for cops to respond, and this was after myself, the other driver, a tow truck driver, and a random off-duty police officer who happened to be driving by all called it in. Although we gave excellent accounts of what happened and we watched this guy drive away and had a good idea of where he was headed, he was not caught. The detective who was following up on this case with me a few months later was absolutely disgusted at the amount of time it took for police to respond, he said himself that if it weren't for the 2 hour delay, the guy would probably have been in jail. They ended up finding the car but not the driver, who is probably still stealing cars, driving drunk, and endangering who knows how many lives on a regular. I've been involved in minor fender benders in more affluent areas and never waited more than 10 minutes for police to arrive. Poor or high crime areas really are not prioritized as highly as wealthy or "white" areas. I don't know if that was the case in Harrison Twnshp or not but I wouldn't be at all surprised.
Harrison Township is white and solidly middle (to upper middle) class.
True story
April Fool's
My ex threw me out of our apt after a fight and locked the door.
Ex refused to let me in, so I went down to the lobby wearing a thong and no bra and asked the doorman to call the cops.
How long did it take NY's finest to show up?
1 hour!!!
The first cop that saw me started laughing and thought it was a joke when he received the call.
Same cop says after you as we're walking into the elevator.
Funny now but not so much when it happened
This is why I have guns. I'd rather not rely on people who are going to show up on their own time table for my safety.
We have a house in a remote area of CA and there is no police at all. Honestly 18 minutes is fast depending upon where you live. Thank goodness she was safe!
As far as police and fire being cut back due to the economy I can tell you why. At least where I live. My friend is a police officer. He only has to work 15 years and he can retire with full pay and benefits. So if someone becomes an officer the age of 25 by they time he is at 40 he can get his full $90K. (And I could be wrong, it may actually only be 10 years.) Tell me how any company could survive adding new officers when you're paying that much for someone not even workng for you? The way they set that up just isn't fiscally sustainable. Don't get me wrong, being a police officer is not an easy job but this is the reason they're cutting back in northern California.
It's horrible around here.. I have a bachelor's in criminal justice (I used to be a 911 dispatcher in Colorado Springs) and there's NO jobs here. I'm going back and getting a better degree, but some of the kids I manage at work are going for CJ degrees, and even some of the cops I know tell them not too....they don't listen.
My cousin and her family live in Washington Twp (Up near 32 mile) and trust me, it's horrendous on the police arrival times there...go Mark Hackel!
@HannahPalindrome - That is AWFUL! I hope you got a little bit of revenge on the ex at some point??
I used to live in Vallejo (in CA) 1/2 block from police station. I had just moved there from Napa (had been in place less than a week) and someone was breaking into house, so called cops. remember...1/2 block from station...it took them 2.5 hours to get there!!! By then the intruders were scared away by a friend I called to come over. thank jeebus we had a second front door (sunroom at front of house).
I'M So Very Sorry Zac Efron Never Again. Please Tell you True My Secret.
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