911 "EMERGENCY" ?!?!?!

I think the quickest way to ruin someone's reputation at Wymount is to send a fleet of police cars to their house and accuse them of domestic abuse.

That is what happened to us this morning. It was a nice morning, we showered, had breakfast, Kate watched Clifford. I was going to take Andrew to work and go to SLC with Kate to develop his latest photographs. It was raining, and I made a couple trips to the car with Kate and everything that goes along with her to keep her happy. I noticed a police car parked right behind our car, blocking us, but assumed he was looking for someone and would move his car in a minute. As I was scurrying about, the policeman got out of his car and approached me. At first I panicked because our Nova is sitting in a Visitor spot without current registration. I was wondering if someone had complained about it sitting there. He told me that he was there because someone had called about a noise they heard.

Naively, I asked, "A noise? From where?"

"Your apartment."

Quickly, I went through everything I had done that morning in my head. Did I have music on too loud? No, wait, I didn't have music on at all. Was Clifford too loud? No. Kate hadn't cried or screamed at all this morning. Andrew was busy getting ready for work...

"What kind of noise?"

He motioned us out of the rain and told me that it was a domestic disturbance call. A what what??

Immediately, two more squad cars came swarming into our complex. Two officers asked to speak with me privately in the apartment, while another questioned Andrew outside. I told them that I didn't know why anyone would call and was frankly very disturbed that they would. They were very nice, and it seemed obvious that they believed everything I told them.

He seemed bugged that someone had called and said he was going to go upstairs and talk to our neighbors. They never asked to see Kate, who was patiently sitting in the car.

Needless to say, I was extremely bothered by this all day. When Andrew and I got home tonight we decided to go upstairs and talk to our neighbors and find out why they would call the police. We spoke with the lady who actually made the call (an older woman not in our ward), and she said that she heard a man yelling, "I'll show you!" or something like that and hitting someone, and a child screaming. She said she's heard this abuse going on for months, and she always thought it was us. She was kind and just trying to do the right thing by calling the police. When we told her all that we had done that morning, shower, ate, no abuse...she asked what time Andrew showered, and it turned out that he was showering when she heard the man yelling and hitting--so we were off the hook--with her.

SO STRANGE!! RIGHT?? I've never heard anyone being abused and our windows are open all the time like everybody else's.

This has definitely taught me to NEVER jump to conclusions, listen to gossip, or spread rumors or anything like that. Even if you think you know something for sure (like the woman who called), you might be wrong--and then what?