Crime Season: One Woman’s Story and One Neighborhood Coming Together

- by Julie Green, Wednesday, June 13th, 2007

My husband and I celebrated our first wedding anniversary not by going to a nice dinner, or going out of town. We moved from the tiny Midtown apartment I had lived in for 10 years into our first house. It is a home we thought was perfect for us - plenty of room, a nice yard, a great deck for entertaining. Shortly after moving in we had settled into our new, normal routine.

At the time, my husband had to be at work early in the morning, and I would wake up, kiss him goodbye, then roll over and go back to sleep until I had to be up for work. On June 28, 2006 that all changed. After my husband left, I fell asleep again almost immediately, and then awoke again at 4:35 a.m. to find a man standing over my bed.

In my groggy state, I thought that maybe my husband had come home from work sick. When he climbed on top of me on the bed, I still tried to make sense of what was going on, but then the awful realization hit me. This is not my husband; someone has broken in the house, and I don’t know what to do. Is he about to try to rape me? Kill me?

“Where’s the money?” he said. I told him we didn’t have any, my mind still racing, wondering why our security alarm hadn’t gone off, and wondering if my husband was okay. I had no idea if this guy had seen my husband outside and had hurt him in order to get in the house. (My husband was fine, as I would later find out.) To make matters worse, I was lying on my stomach when he came in, so I never got the chance to see his face. He had something in his right hand, but I couldn’t make out what it was.

As the home invasion continued, I was blindfolded and led around my own home for the next 25 minutes, being told to sit down in the same room the burglar was in as he went through our belongings. In order to maintain my vulnerability he wouldn’t let me put on my pajama pants, so I had to go through this entire ordeal in just a tank top and my underwear.

I heard all sorts of familiar noises. The sounds of the floor creaking under our feet, closet doors opening and closing, the pops of cables hitting furniture as he unplugged my husband’s PlayStation. These sounds that were normal, even sometimes soothing, sounds to me from the past were now ticking off in my head like a checklist - “he’s going though the linen closet now, he’s in my closet, he’s disconnecting things in the office.” He continued to speak to me in a voice that was eerily calm, telling me to cooperate or he’d have to hurt me. His catch-phrase was a simple one: “Do you hear me?” If I didn’t answer, he would say it louder until I said yes.

As I sat on the couch in the office and he went through what felt like our entire lives, millions of thoughts ran through my mind. I thought of getting up and running many times, but since I had no idea how he got in, I didn’t want to get caught trying to unlock a door or window. I knew no one would be able to hear me if I screamed inside the house, so I sat, tightening my leg muscles as much as I could so he couldn’t move me easily if his plan was to rape me (which, thankfully, it wasn’t). I hoped that the man delivering the paper would see something fishy and call the police, or that the older woman I had seen walking her dog at all times of the day and night might come by and notice that something was wrong. In between my rescue fantasies and answering his demanding voice, I began to come up with a plan of where to go and what to do if he left me alone in a room.

Finally, after what seemed like hours, we went into the last room, the guest bedroom, and I was told to lie down on the bed. I instantly became more anxious, thinking he was going to try to hurt me in some way, so I rolled into a fetal position and buried my head in the pillows, trying to prove to him that I wasn’t going to try to see his face. “Don’t move,” he said. “If you try anything, I’ll have to kill you.” I heard the sound of pillowcases being removed from the pillows around me (to hold the things he had stolen), footsteps moving further and further away, and then finally, a heavy silence.

I laid there on the bed for a few minutes, my ears straining to hear a car, or more footsteps. When I didn’t hear anything, I pulled my blindfold off, crawled out a window, and ran to my next-door neighbor’s house to call 911. The whole ordeal took only 25 minutes, and as far as burglaries or home invasions go, wasn’t too bad. We lost nothing that was irreplaceable, nothing was broken or damaged, and I was not physically harmed in any way. Too many times, unfortunately, this is not the case.

I would later put together that my husband was long gone by the time he came into the house. He had gotten in by prying open a window with what was most likely a screwdriver, and that this was someone who had been seen that past weekend walking around our house, trying to find the easiest way in. Our neighbors called the police that night, but he was gone before the police could catch him.

I wanted to tell this story not to rant about the crime problems in Memphis, although that’s unfortunately something that all of us have to deal with; nor do I want to tell it as some sort of cathartic exercise for my own well-being, although I have talked to a therapist to try to get over some of my remaining trauma. Something else very important and necessary happened as a result of this. As the sun came up that morning and my neighbors awoke to seeing police cars lining the street, they came by to find out what happened. I finally had the chance to talk with my neighbors, many of whom I had never met before.

I decided to go to work that day, so I wouldn’t just sit in the house and replay the morning’s events. When I arrived and checked my e-mail, I had several messages from concerned neighbors, asking what had happened, if I was okay, and what they could do to help. Some of their responses were angry, some were terrified, but all of their sentiments had a recurring theme ñ this has to stop; we can’t let it happen again. I also learned that another woman in our neighborhood had been the victim of the same type of home invasion a few months before me.

In the days and weeks that followed my ordeal, I decided that I was not going to let this guy make me a victim in my own house, and I became determined to reclaim the house as our own. I especially wanted to be able to sleep there once my husband left, since the first week or two afterwards left me bleary-eyed from not sleeping half the night because I thought I had heard something outside. Friends suggested that I should talk to a counselor just to “empty my head,” and I did just that, breaking down in tears within the first five minutes of my first visit. I had cried a few times after the break-in, but not many.

The counselor agreed that I should do anything I could to take back the comfort level that he took from me, and gave me suggestions of how to handle my mind wandering to thoughts of criminals in the middle of the night. I still consider “what if” scenarios, although now I try to take a lesson from my yoga classes, and “be in the present” when I notice my thoughts moving in that direction. When my husband left for work, I would get up and go in the living room, dozing on the couch until my alarm went off. The living room window became my watchtower, allowing me to keep an eye on things at all hours, to see if the car coming down the street was a familiar one, or if there was anyone walking down our sidewalk at odd times. Since that time my husband has gotten a new job with “normal” work hours, which has also helped me immensely.

There have been some other permanent changes made to our lives. Every night the security alarm gets set before we go to sleep, and I keep my cell phone as well as a remote for the alarm system on the bedside table. Much to my husband’s dismay, I also always wear pajama pants or shorts to bed each night, so I’m fully dressed in the event that another break-in occurs, or we need to get out of the house quickly. Although I know the chances of another home invasion happening are slim, especially with the new security measures we’ve taken, these things bring me a little more comfort.

Last spring, our neighborhood had gathered to discuss a number of burglaries that had taken place in our area, and the police came to give us tips. They told us that we were doing one of the most important things we could do as a neighborhood, which is getting out and seeing who lives in your area. By knowing who is supposed to be in your area, you have more of a sense when something isn’t right, or when someone is walking down your street who shouldn’t.

Since my incident, our neighborhood has become more proactive in making our area safe. We have come to the realization that a neighborhood cannot depend on the police to handle everything, although that’s what’s come to be expected of them. The first thing many people say when crime is on the rise is, “Why isn’t the mayor/police chief/city council doing more to stop this?” Neighborhoods have to work in tandem with the police, giving them information, requesting extra patrols if they’re needed, and helping with any additional information they can give. The squeaky wheel gets the grease, and that has never been more true than when you’re dealing with a police department like that of the City of Memphis, which is grossly understaffed and underpaid.

In addition to working with the police, our neighborhood formed an association last summer in order to have a larger voice when it comes to changes we’d like to see in our area. The process is inexpensive, and just takes a handful of people who are willing to do some extra legwork to get the ball rolling. We officially became the Humes Heights Neighborhood Association at the beginning of this year, and have elected officers who have worked very hard to get our little group off the ground. We’ve invited our government representatives to our meetings, and our city councilperson has joined us in our efforts.

No plan is completely foolproof. Crimes are still occurring in our area, although not as often, but as soon as something happens now, neighbors are ready to respond and work with the police to catch the criminals sooner. In addition, we have worked with our government representatives to petition the city to clean up an area of our neighborhood that has enabled criminals to enter and escape. This spring we met with city leaders and got them to add a fence to an area by the railroad tracks bordering our neighborhood, and in addition, MLG&W will be adding several new streetlights to just about every street. Because of our efforts, the police are sitting up and taking notice when anything happens in our area.

Groups like this are starting to spring up in neighborhoods that weren’t always known for their community involvement. Just a few months ago, after the rape of a woman in Chickasaw Gardens, a group called Citizens Against Crime was formed, a city-wide organization dedicated to bringing together people of all races, financial backgrounds and neighborhoods in order to have one voice against the rising crime in our city.

Of course, a neighborhood shouldn’t just get together to discuss everyone’s bad experiences. This summer we will hold our second National Night Out block party, and we plan to have progressive dinners and holiday get-togethers, as well as setting up programs to remember our elderly neighbors’ birthdays and anniversaries. We have helped out a neighbor whose house caught on fire in the early spring, and two weekends ago we had a neighborhood yard sale that was a complete success, and enabled those interested to get out and spend some time with their neighbors. After all, those are the types of things that make living in a neighborhood fun and worth fighting for.

My experience was a difficult one, but there’s not a day that I’m not thankful things didn’t take a turn for the worse that morning, and that both my husband and I are feeling safer in our own home. The neighborhood that I had a good feeling about when we bought the house still gives me a good feeling - from waving hello to the neighbors I now know by name when I drive through the neighborhood, to the peace that comes from knowing that if you need help, your neighbors have told you not to hesitate to call or come bang on their door, no matter what time it is. With this ordeal I realized that my neighbors all want to be proactive in order to make us all safer. If you subscribe to the thought that some things happen for a reason, it’s possible that I was put in this situation so, in the long run, our neighborhood is even better than it was before. It is hard work to make it happen, but the payoff is bigger than any of us could have imagined.

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