To feel concerned at seeing a neighbour being taken in police van...

I used to live in a flat and a neighbour about 2 floors about us (it was a converted Victorian terrace) was arrested twice for being abusive to his partner. It never occurred to me to be worried for my own safety.

I can understand you feeling that this is jarring but I think YABU

If he is a dangerous person it should be safer now he is not in.

I wouldn't be worried. He's lived beside you prior to this and caused no issues why would that change now he's been arrested.

If he wasn't handcuffed I'd imagine its more down the immediate threat to life/removed for his own safety kinda thing?

😂

Could be anything and it's none of your business.

You just want to know what's happened

That is a misleading statistic, although I see the Free Speech Union is quoting it. That figure includes arrests for inciting violence, inciting terrorism, online threats and abuse, including unwanted communications via email and even, in some cases, abusive letters. Only around 2.5% of these arrests lead to the suspect being charged. And the reason for the massive increase in arrests is that the police are obliged to investigate every social media post that is reported, and the number of such reports doubled from 2017 to 2022, although it appears to have levelled out a bit since then.

Also to add - career criminals rarely do crime in oen neighbourhood...

I was taken in a police van once.

They kindly gave me a life the the station to see if I could pick the chap who assaulted me from a line up and dropped me home afterwards.

Not sure if this would happen now or if they aren’t allowed/dont have the time to do it.

It's got nothing to do with you or your young teenagers. They could be walking past undetected crims any day of the week. This one has been dealt with. I totally get the inclination to speculate/dramatise/goss but it's not a real concern.

This doesn't follow. If they found loads of child porn for example on a computer that is just downloaded but not created by the person arrested, they will probably get bail and there won't be any police presence.
You have a person who may very well be a sex offender right next door.

It all depends on what the charges are.

I think the comment rubbernecking disgused as concern is really unfair.

If someone is arrested right by where you live, it could be anything and it's pretty normal for people faced with uncertainty to start catastrophising.

He could be a sex offender looking a child porn - he's had potential access to our kids.

He could be a killer bodies under the patio Fred West type.

He could be violent thug on and on.

Curiosity in this situation is perfectly normal. You might want to know because it might actually affect you.

Even if he's been arrested, he may be out on bail. who knows.

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Gahh it feels so unfair how much people get slammed for curiosity these days

I think it's more where that curiousity is directed.

If people directed 1/100th the curiosity shown here to asking things like "Where is all our tax money going ?" and "What are my local council up to" then maybe we'd need less police.

If it's your first time seeing this sort of thing I can understand why you'd be concerned, but honestly, the vast majority of people arrested aren't a direct threat to strangers. He could have been assaulting his partner (which is obviously bad, but no reason for you to worry about yours or your children's safety). It could be drugs offences or shoplifting, or even an online offence like insulting someone on social media. I used to live in an extremely rough area... at one point there was a police car parked permanently outside our block of flats for months due to the amount of knife crime, but even then it usually only affected people who were involved in it, me and my mum never had any problems at all. And, living in more middle class areas, twice in two different places I've seen the police raid one of our neighbours and arrest their adult son. No idea what for, but nothing that affected us. Honestly, things like this happen all the time, everywhere you go. I wouldn't worry too much about it (although personally I'd be very curious to find out the details 😬)

A few years ago there was a whole spate of innocent people getting a police knock because of the combined incompetence of the police and an ISP meant that the timestamps on the IP address allocation they were using to target real addresses were an hour out.

Mind you, a couple of years ago, someone in our road was caught with an assault rifle (right wing extremist) and ended up doing a "10-stretch" as I believe they are called. And I didn't see that police operation despite WFH.

The thing is tge time that could have been iffy if BEFORE the Police arrived. When whatever the guy was arrested for was happening.

I get you’re uneasy now that you know something was going on, but surely now you’re actually safer?

That happens around here all the time. Twice this week infact. (A man got taken away then he returned and his wife got taken away for beating him) But it's usually drug related. It used to worry me but sadly I'm used to it. I also hate it and am desperately trying to move.

Wow, what a prejudiced and judgmental comment

I don't blame you for being curious, but why on earth would you be worried on account of working from home, alone?

Whatever it is he's been arrested for, and it could be anything at all, quite probably not even anything violent, he's already done it and he's been taken away. He may be free to come home later, but I highly doubt he's going to decide to come and bump you off in the middle of your working day.

I do understand the curiosity and maybe a little the unease, but you don't even necessarily know that your neighbour has been arrested let alone convicted.
Do you know the ins and outs of all your neighbours? For all you know you could be living on the same street as a convicted murderer who has served their time. You could be cheerfully wishing them good morning and be none the wiser.

@ThatBreezyRaven - if there was still any danger to the neighbourhood, I imagine that there would still be a police presence there. So if there are no police there, then you don’t need to worry - and to be honest, if there are still police there, I wouldn't worry either, because they’re there, if that makes sense.

The biggest (potential) risk to you and your family would have been before any arrests/police action happened, because you had no idea there might be anything criminal going on.

I was arrested once and put in the back of a van.

Sometimes things are not what they seem.

I'd say my neighbours had a right good gossip.