Shock and Outrage...My Recent Experience with the Davenport Police Department

Several days ago my husband and I were sitting out on our back deck. He had just gotten off of work and we were just talking about our day. We live in an apartment and behind our building is our parking lot and a very steep road that leads up to more apartment buildings. There are many children, including my own three, that play and ride bikes in this area. As we are sitting there a car comes flying down the hill so fast that the car bottoms out and tears through the parking lot. As the car passes by I yelled out "Slow down!". That's it, two words. Apparently the man driving the car didn't take kindly to being told what to do because he put his car in reverse and slammed on his brakes and proceeded to yell and swear at me, telling me to "Mind my own f***ing business". My husband calmly said that it was our business because we live here and our kids play here. This guy proceeds to yell and cuss me out and then drives off. We then both go inside to mind our own business and relax. Approximately 15 minutes later we here yelling coming from the parking lot. My husband goes to our back door and see the guy plus two of his friends are now outside. My husband goes outside and tries to talk to the guy and diffuse the situation. This guy didn't want to talk and starts coming up our deck stairs all while taking his shirt off. At this point my husband starts backing up towards our patio door which was still open. My husband comes inside the apartment and shuts the door. He goes to grab his phone to call the police when he hears the patio door open and sees this guys to start to cross our threshold.

At this point I should state that we are gun owners. We own three hand guns a .22, a .380 Beretta, a Taurus Judge which fires a .45 caliber bullet as well as a .410 shot gun shell. The Judge is no joke, and my husbands favorite and the closest to him at the time. My husband cocked the hammer and pointed the gun at the ground in front of the man who was entering our home. He informed him that if he took one more step he would defend our home and family with whatever means necessary. The guy stops and my husband proceeds to call 911 and during this call informs the 911 operator that he has a gun pointed at this man and that he will fire if the man comes farther into the home. The man threatens to kill my husband for calling the cops and then turns and runs down our steps gets in his car and takes off, we were only able to get a partial plate number but knew the guy lived up the street. This is where my shock and outrage comes into play. My husband tells someone that he is about to shoot an intruder and it takes the police 45 minutes to get there. And by police I mean ONE cop, ONE! Not the cavalry blazing in all lights and sirens and bullet proof vests like you see on TV or movies, one guy who looked like he was on the verge of retirement. My whole family could've been murdered and this guy would've been heading to another state by the time he showed up. Oh and he was thrilled to be there too. He took down our information and the details of what happened, got back in his car and drove up the street to see if he could find him, he couldn't. He then tells us that there is nothing more he can do, gives us a report number, says a detective will be in touch, and then he leaves. We were dumbfounded.

A couple days later we are outside again and here comes the same guy driving through our parking lot again! This time we got his license plate number in full. My husband quickly calls the police and tells them that the guy is at his house and that we were able to get a plate number. They send a regular uniformed officer, a different one, who comes in and asks what's going on. We explain what happened previously and that we got his license plate number and that he is up at his house now. The cop says that there is really nothing he can do because he didn't originally respond to the first call. He said he would note the report. He then proceeds to chastise me for yelling at him in the first place saying that all this happened because of that. He said that in this day you can't do that because this is what happens.

A few days later they finally send a CSI tech to dust our door for his fingerprints, after it happened almost a week ago. This guy is still driving around my neighborhood and the police have still done nothing. I have a huge respect for the police and what they do, but this has definitely tarnished that. I no longer feel safe in my home or in the fact that the police are there to protect us.

Confused & Frustrated

For as long as I can remember I've wanted to be a nurse. I started going to school to pursue a degree in Nursing. After completing all of the pre-requisetes for the Nursing program, I was placed on the waiting list which is as far as I got. I got bumped from the list not once, not twice, but three times because there were people waiting longer than me or that had better GPA's than me. Now I was an A/B student so my grades weren't bad. Each time I got bumped I had to take filler classes so that my student loans wouldn't go into repayment, by the third time I had run out of classes that related to my field of study or that interested me. I made the decision to drop out of the program because at the rate things were going I'd be 40 before I graduated with an RN degree. I've thought a lot about what I wanted to do instead and finally decided to go into criminal forensics. Now I'm struggling with the fear of not being able to find a job once I graduate. I live in Iowa and I just don't see a future in it around here and at the moment I can't even consider relocating. So, now I'm back to square one and don't know what to do with myself. I'm scared of going to school and being stuck doing something I hate and I'm scared of picking a field that will get me nowhere because of the lack of jobs. It's so stinkin' frustrating I want to scream. I want to set a good example for my kids and graduate from college and I want to make my mom proud because I would be the first to graduate college in my family. The career counselors at the college are essentially worthless and couldn't help me and actually made me more confused and frustrated than before I talked to them. I'm a science minded person so I know I want to do something in that category but I just don't know what. If anyone has any suggestions I would LOVE to hear them!

Awesome Weekend!

This weekend was awesome! Hubby and I got our tax refund so we decided to go out to the riverboat casino, Rhythm City, and have some fun. I put $20 in a penny slot machine and started playing. I sat there not even five minutes and won $400! I have never won that much money before it was crazy. I cashed that baby out and left! When we left we decided to go to Walmart where we finally found a TV we liked that was in stock so we bought it. When we got home and set up the new TV we started talking about going away for the weekend. We decided to go up to the Dubuque/Galena area which is where we spent our honeymoon. Grandpa Joe watched the kids and off we went!

We stayed at a really nice Holiday Inn in Dubuque. It was so nice to spend some time together alone, we so needed a break from our kids. I love them to death but their fighting is seriously driving me nuts. I got the best nights sleep, when I woke up it was so dark in the room I didn't know where I was at or what time of day it was, it was wonderful. We left with our batteries recharged and headed back to Chaos.