The children are wailing in response to being hit — I can hear it all through the door, and the mother threatening to throw the children out. I do not want to involve the police for obvious reasons and can only imagine how stressful it would be to care for two young children in an apartment alone during a pandemic. A neighbor whose first interaction with you concerns the question of whether she’s abusing her children isn’t likely to give you much of a hearing — and sadly, mistrust may be heightened if she’s Black or brown and you aren’t. 