Hi, first time poster here so please be gentle. I have been reading a lot of threads recently and I feel like you'll have some advice for me, I am feeling shaken and like I should do more.
Scene setting:
My kids have grown up and live locally. DH and I are still in the little terraced house they grew up in. Lots of children in back gardens playing noisy games. My garden backs onto an area that used to be an individual estate but was bought by a housing association and turned into a mixed development with temporary accommodation and shared ownership. They started moving people in just before lockdown and it's been noisy and various children have been battling unsupervised in the close,and as I'm out in my garden a lot I will peer over the fence and if they sound like they're hurting each other i will shout at them to leave each other alone. There are also teens and young adults out in the evening with motorbikes and weed who I have learned to ignore and I only yell at them if they're literally trying to climb into our garden. It's not been very peaceful for me but I feel like we all have an understanding. I WFH in my shed so am outside a lot and I never complain or call the police unless someone sounds in real trouble.
I have worried for some time that people not from the area are using the close to deal drugs. The housing association is not very responsive but they did eventually install 24 HR lighting in the dark corners which has cut down on the amount of screaming.
11th June near to 9pm I heard a scuffle and crying and then a boy's voice said "why won't anyone HELP ME" and it somehow felt much more urgent than all the play screaming so I ran over and looked out. My vision isn't great so I didn't see what was happening except for some blurred figures moving, so I did an all purpose shout "No! Leave him alone! Leave him alone!" and they all paused briefly then I heard someone say"get him inside " I could see the boy shoot into the front door of a house and it went quiet and I thought it was ok, but then when I looked out 10 mins later there was a man, a woman, and 4 kids in football gear all searching around the close climbing on walls to peer into back gardens etc and it looked really weird. After thinking about it for a while I made a report on the online form for our local police (which is really hard to do when your hands are shaking) in case the boy reported anything and needed corroborate evidence, and went in and told DH. I was bothered by it and kept hoping the boy was ok.i didn't know whether it was his own house, whether he went in there voluntarily, whether the people searching were his family or something else was going on (they didn't look like him but families are so diverse) anyway it felt very bad vibes.
So yesterday I had almost forgotten about it. I sometimes put food and drink and soaps etc on a little table outside my house as I know some of the families in the new estate are struggling. I made sure I put more stuff out but otherwise things had been quiet for a couple of weeks.
I was sitting in the garden listening to a hundred kids screaming and squiring water at each other and it was fine but at just after 9pm I heard a familiar voice say "why are you DOING ThIS TO ME?" - not a scream but I recognised the voice and my heart jolted like the desperation in it. I couldn't see anything but I went to where the voice had come from and showed "Leave him alone. I am calling the police" and then a little skinny black dude in a football strip, maybe 8 - 12 years old, ran out from a corner crying and pegged it out of the close, and shortly afterwards I saw a bulky man walk out of the same corner and get into a car, but he turned and looked at me before he did and I just stood there and stared back and then he got into the car and drove away after the boy.
I called 999 and a police man came out in a couple of hours and took the details and it's been quiet since.
Poor boy! What was going on? What else can I do?