Have you been in any shoot-outs?

In My Humble Opinion
21

I’ve never been in the midst of a shootout, but I came close to one. About 18 years ago I lived in a rough part of town near UNM. Our neighbors were drug dealers and were frequently staked out by the police who I guess were searching for enough evidence to make an arrest. These neighbors made little attempt to conceal their illegal activities; they were loud and frightening to the point where my room-mate and I rarely went outside if they were around.

One evening we were informed by another neighbor that there had been an argument at that house–something to do with a drug deal gone bad–and that there might be a shooting soon. We figured that one day as we walked past the house on the way to the University bullets would suddenly start flying everywhere. Days passed as we waited nervously for the shooting to begin.

And then one day I woke up in the morning and noticed it was unusually quiet next door. I asked my room-mate’s brother where the neighbors were and he said that there had been a shooting at their house that night; the police had moved in quickly and arrested them. I had somehow managed to sleep through it. I don’t know what became of the man who was shot–he ran away but the landlord thought he later died. We weren’t terribly sad to see the neighbors go, just sorry that someone had to get hurt before the rest of us on that street could be free of them.

22

I was held hostage at an NA meeting by a maniac who was whacked out on PCP.

The back story. A woman got sick of drugs and got into NA to get clean. Her live in boyfriend didn’t like the idea so she left him. He kept using. He got really pissed that she left him so he came to an NA meeting armed with a .357, a .45 and a shotgun.

My story. I was sitting there listening to someone when there was a boom from the back of the room. I looked around and saw a guy standing in the doorway holding a shotgun. I then looked around in the other direction and saw that just about everybody had dropped to the floor. At that point I decided that was a good idea. So I dropped.

Anyway, Maniac Shotgun Man (MSM) walked around my side of the room. I heard him walking around to my side of the room. At this point I tried to curl up in a little ball and disappear. That didn’t work.

I didn’t know this at the time but the woman I was sitting next happened to be MSM’s ex. So I hear this guy walking around my side of the room. The next thing I know I feel MSM put the barrel of the shotgun against the back of my neck. He kept it there and it seemed like hours but it was probably less than a minute. He then walked down to the end of the room.

Remember, at this point I had no idea why the guy was there or that I was sitting next to his ex.

At this point there were about 40-45 people in the room. Everyone was under the tables and MSM was in a corner where he could see his ex, who happened to be behind me.

Fastforward a bit. MSM was ranting. He was really pissed and loaded on PCP. He kept yelling and twice fired the shotgun into the roof above my head. He also shot the piano three or four times with a gun. (Note, pianos make really interesting noises when shot) During this time the cops showed up and a couple of people who knew MSM tried talking him down. It didn’t work.

During this time some people moved around. I managed to move a couple feet away from where MSM was shooting.

I managed to move next to a guy named Manny I knew pretty well. After I ended up next to Manny he started whispering to me that he had a gun. Manny wanted to take a shot at MSM. I whispered to Manny that taking a shot wouldn’t work. It was a long shot and if he missed MSM would open fire and hurt or kill alot of people. Manny, thankfully, thought it through and agreed.

A bit later the cops showed up and then called and started negotiating with MSM. About an hour and 45 minutes into this little mess MSM agreed that everyone but his ex could leave. A couple of people who knew MSM well stayed but I ran my ass right out of there.

When I got out the cops had a bunch of questions for everyone. I answered the questions and was let go about an hour later. I got into my car and drove home.

Now for the whacky part. I got home at about 10:20. I was 17 at the time and my parent and I had an agreement that I would be home before 10. When I got home my parents were pissed. I explained to my parents what had happened but they didn’t believe me. (Note, I was a jerk in my teen years so I don’t fault them for their disbelief). Then my Dad turned on the TV. The TV reporter was “Live from the hostage situation”. My parents believed me after that.

A note on after effects. About a week later me and my friend Mike, who also happened to be in the little hostage situation, went to the mall. We were walking through the mall and someone popped a balloon. Mike and I both dropped to the ground. That balloon scared the hell out of both of us.

Slee

23

when i was in my early 20’s a guy came into a room with several of us and fired at me point blank with a “blank”
i still have the scar on my arm from the little piece of metal that holds the powder in

when i was in my early 30’s a guy who owned a bar was holding a pistol behind himsefl while having a heated discussion with me - he fired the gun into the floor to intimidate me

24

Some guy in my building was amassing beefs from the local “organizations”. One night, someone decided to do something about it. They rang his bell, and when he came downstairs, they just blasted away. I was in my room, doing my 5th grade homework. The thing is, the hallway where the guy was shot and my room were seperated by a flimsy wall. I guess one of the bullets got way off course and went into my bedroom. I was nowhere near the shot, fortunately.

The guy continued to live, but I never saw him again. He just up and ran off.

25

During a boyscout campout, we were all sitting around the campfire when some jerk of a kid tossed a box of .22 rifle shells into it. When those things started cooking off, it was like being in a shootout, or so I would imagine—bullets were zinging in all directions, guys were hiding wherever they could and there were a lot of threats yelled at the guy who did it. But, no one was hurt and when it was all over, we laughed about it. The scout master took it up with the kid’s father, but I don’t know that the father did anything.

26

Nope. Making multiple trips to buy ammunition, reloading, calmly sitting down and ordering a drink afterward are signs of premitation and lack of remorse. Battered she might have been, but this situation is premeditated murder. She’d be lucky to ever get out of prison.

27

Sorry to deflate your baloon, but FYI bullets dont go flying in all directions when they’re tossed into a fire.

Look here…

28

hehe, that’s why biggrl most people try to stay out of the kind of neighborhoods like one where you apparently live :slight_smile:

of course if your entire family lives there it would be kinda hard …

29

I have encountered violent incidences involving guns twice in my life, though neither were “shoot outs.”

When I was 18, my friend and I were walking in one of the finest neighborhoods in Louisville (seriously). Of course, it was 3:30 AM, but still, we were walking from her house to her car when were approached by three men. I’m a little more street smart that she is and I opened the door of the car and jumped in, locking the door immediately and loudly whispering to my friend to do the same. She tried, god love her, but one of the men grabbed the corner of her car door at the same he was asking, “Hey, do you know the time?” As if he really wanted to know! Good lord. Anyway, she struggles to get away from him as he grabs her and tries to pull her purse off her shoulder, we hear a pop and they run. He’s knocked off her glasses (blind as a bat, poor thing) and she’s sitting in the driver seat, two blocks from the major thoroughfare. She says to me, “I think I’ve been shot.” She says she doesn’t know if she can drive, since she can’t see. I tell her, “B, you’ve been SHOT! I think if you hit a car or two on your way to safety, people will understand. Get to the major thoroughfare (and away from these guys) and I’ll drive the other two blocks to the police station (much closer than the hospital).”

It ends up she’s okay, though she’s shot in the thigh, but the doctors tell her the bullet (small caliber, I forget) was just centimeters from her femoral (?) artery, and could have killed her.

About a month later she and I and a group of about three other people are hanging out the library downtown (a beautiful building with lots of cool statues and a place kids used to hang out at night) when were approached by another man. He’s “panhandling,” explaining to my boy friend that he needs to get away from someone trying to kill him, so he needs money to catch a greyhound. He pulls a gun out of his pants and starts waving it around, explaining that he’s gonna kill “that muthahfuckah” if he sees him. The man is obviously whacked out crack or some other dangerous drug, but I am completely oblivious to the fact that we are being mugged until I try to be helpful and show the man that all I have in my purse is about 60 cents. I open my pillbox purse wide for him to see when my friend grabs my hand and jerks me behind him, whispering, “We’re being mugged!” At which point I finally “get it” and get scared as hell. Luckily, the man leaves after we tell him all we have is $5 between us and we give it to him. I can’t believe I was so oblivious, but I was 18, and on drugs that were not dangerous enough to cause whacked out violent criminal behavior, but which I don’t indulge in anymore (in case the DEA is lurking :wink: ).

Incidentally, we were in the middle of a heatwave in the midwest that year, and all sorts of undesirable consequences were making themselves known. We had the highest murder rate we’d ever had that year (though we might have outdone ourselves since).

We were attacked once more that summer, though it didn’t involve a gun, it involved a fist in my face and the loss of three teeth. If I ever see that guy again, I’ma kill the “muthahfuckah.”

30

So.

The bartender hung around during all this, then took her order?

Wow, nerves of tungsten…

31

Well, I don’t have a baloon but something was zinging. I have never bothered to think of what it might have been—bullets, cases or woodchips. Bear in mind that we were like twelve years old and it scared hell out of us. Besides, in your linked post, I saw no conclusive proop that such an act isn’t dangerous.

32

Never.

(and oh my Lord now I’m afraid to move to a real city for a job. Thanks Eve!)

33

Because it seems so unbelievable that your hearing gunshots, that’s it’s sometimes easier to believe it’s a car backfiring. That’s what happened when I heard a fellow empty a 9mm into a car parked outside my small house. I woke up to the sound, told myself is was just a car backfiring, and went back to sleep. But in the back of my mind I knew that it wasn’t.

Turns out these two fellows had swapped wives. One fellow was happy with the resulting arrangement, the other wasn’t. Unhappy fellow wanted to get his old wife back, but happy fellow refused. So unhappy fellow emptied a 9mm into the happy fellow’s unoccupied car. Fortunately for me, the rounds were all stopped by the engine block. Otherwise, I would have been hit.

34

I saw the serial sniper shooting at 7 corners in the DC area just last year. There is a thread about it here somewhere.

35

Yes, while on a patrol in the Philippines almost 9yrs ago.

36

Not a shootout, but some drunk yahoo let one loose in my general direction in Denver one night back in the early '80’s. I was driving down Pearl St. one night and the guy, who was backing out of his driveway, had to stop short. For some reason this sent him into a blind rage and the next thing I know, he’s charging his car at me and trying to run me off the street. A friend who is a bit, shall we say, volatile, happened to be driving behind me at the time and decided to chase the guy down.

Two blocks later, they pulled up on opposite sides of the road. Foolishly, I stopped between them and rolled down my window only to find myself staring at one of those pissant nickel-plated .25 autos. Well, that was enough for me and I peeled out, while yoyo screamed something incoherent and let a round off, apparently without hitting anything. I often had fantasies about coming back, finding the guy’s car and spraypainting “unregistered handgun inside” all over it, but nothing ever came of it.

37

[nitpick] Unless I missed something, none of you, except the ex-military folks, have actually been shot at. I believe that’s the first requirement for saying you’ve been in a gunfight. The other requirements being that; A) you shot back, and B) you survived to say so. [/nitpick]

I have not been in a gunfight, either. But, I have been shot at. And, I have a world of admiration for those who have survived a genuine firefight in the service of their country. But, I don’t envy them that experience, and don’t think any of this is something to brag about. But, this is my story, for what it’s worth.

Centuries ago, when I was eighteen, I worked as a Night Manager (glorified title for a clerk who is trusted to balance his own register at the end of the shift) in a convenience store. One Saturday night two stoned women come into the store at about 2 AM. The store’s pretty empty, but not entirely. They wander the whole store, twice; up one aisle and down the other. This is pretty normal behavior, for the stoned, so I think nothing of it. Then I look up from doing something to see them both standing in front of me, with the brunette holding a 9-inch barrelled .38 special about two feet from my face.

Blondie demands all the money. I tell them, “No problem”, and take the entire cash tray out of the register and put it on the counter. Blondie produces a bag and dumps the money into the bag. Blondie heads for the door as the Brunette continues to hold the gun on me. Once Blondie determinces the coast is clear, the Brunette turns to go. At the door, she decides she really doesn’t like me, or maybe she just liked loud noises.

Whatever the reason, she decides to pop one off at me. Now, I don’t know if these women were really stoned, or just acting like it. They seemed pretty together during the robbery, itself. So, I can’t say whether she intended to put that bullet between my eyes, or just wanted to scare me. At the time, I wore my hair roughly shoulder length. The breeze generated by the bullet’s passage tugged at my hair as it passed. I lived, but most of a carton of cigarettes lost their lives.

On preview, I see El_Kabong has been shot at, but the point of the nitpick still stands.

38

Never involved in a shootout, but saw them starting early. First one I had to have been no more than six or seven. Witnessed a blue beat up Olds careen around a corner, a guy in a hat/trenchcoat whip out a working Tommy gun, and kill a kid standing in the doorway of our apartment building three floors below. I thought this was a dream but my mother verifies the story.
In my teens I saw a kid get his life’s knowledge plastered all over the curb and sidewalk on Division and Pulaski. The shooter walked past all of us while putting on a hood like he had no cares in the world.
My oldest brother had a stalker follow him back from Atlanta. This guy sent black roses to my mother’s job, harassed my grandmother, and generally made a pest of himself. One day I stayed home sick from school, and woke up about ten in the morning to someone working on getting the back door to the apartment open. I called my brother (second oldest, decidedly less than savory), who rushed over. By the time he got there, Stalker Boy had moved to the front door. I let my brother in the back way, and he yanked open the front door. I ran into my mother’s bedroom and heard him empty a full clip from a .32 over the course of the next five minutes. He chased Stalker Boy down two flights of stairs and out into the courtyard, firing when he had a shot. The building was U-shaped, so the shots fired outside had an echo to them. He then trotted back upstairs, explained to my bug-eyed face that he wasn’t really trying to hit the guy, took a box of cereal from the kitchen, and left.
Stalker Boy never bother us again.

39

[Nit-pick]

That wasn’t my nit-pick…

[/nit-pick]

40

Sticking with non-military stuff, I got shot in a crappy part of Detroit (I know it sounds like an ox-moron, but there really IS a crappy part of that town) by some POS cuz he wanted my three dollars and I was enough of an ass to argue with him. (Typical Irishman… bring a mouth to a gunfight).

After that, I lived in a less than respectable part of both Santa Ana and Anaheim, CA (two ox-morons for the price of one there) where shots outside the window were common enough that it didn’t bother anyone. Anaheim really wasn’t so bad, but I hated living in Santa Ana. I never felt comfortable there.

And a whole lot of BB gun wars as a kid.