the bystander effect is real and many of us fall prey to it. there’s a natural hesitation to call law enforcement, especially if you live in a highly populated area, there’s lots of kids around or you’re near a road.

writing a note in your phone - including the direction the noise came from, the nature of the noise, what you think it might be - can be crucial for law enforcement to establish a timeline if the noise turns out to be related to a crime. there have been a lot of cases where perpetrators alibi’s are corroborated by misremembered times.

be proactive! you never know if you could be helping put a dangerous person behind bars.

edit: for clarity, the reason i’ve shared this is because it recently helped me corroborate my neighbour’s statement to police after she was in a domestic violence situation. i had a timeline of things i’d heard coming from their house over the course of several weeks. i was suspicious of what might have been happening but she was a stranger and i could have easily been mistaking a difficult patch in a marriage for something much more serious. thankfully he was arrested and she has acquired an AVO against him.