I was just sitting on my couch in front of my 3 big bay windows watching SNL and I hear some distant popping noises. So, I say to my brother who is on the computer, “I hope that was firecrackers.” Then not even 10 seconds later I hear the unmistakeable (SP?) sound of gunshots a few houses down. Then I hear someone screaming and crying , running past my house. Then someone saying, “Was anybody hit?” I guess noone was because then 4 cars including one that was parked in front of my house take off.
I live across the street and about five houses down from a old theatre in which punk and sometimes rap shows are held. People told me that they had cut way down on the rap show they had there because of this very thing. I just pooh-poohed them because I believe what kind of music you like has nothing to do with how you behave. Well, last night was a rap show so that is challenging my beliefs.
I can’t find this in the news at all yet today so I hope everything is okay. My heart will take a while to slow down.
I’m glad you’re okay, too. I hate searching the news for something and it’s like it never happened. I guess that means it was good news, and noone was hurt.
On a goofier note, I once woke up to shots (not unusual in my neighborhood), and immediately rolled onto the floor. I woke my SO and told him what was happening. I crawled into the hallway then called the police. I heard my landlord and other neighbors outside (on the side away from the shots), and asked them if they had called the police as well. My landlord drunkenly explained someone had just jumped our fence and ran off toward a main thoroughfare, and that she had informed the police. My SO goes outside (after the shots ended) and cautiously peeks over the fence calling out to see if everyone is okay. He gets a flashlight in his face and is told to stay were he is. It was the police, and the culprit was already being questioned. It turned out to be fireworks, heh. Long night.
The thing that scared me the most and will probably stick with me is the person screaming/crying, etc because to my ears it sounded like they were saying, “Dad!” and just that voice I think will just stick with me for a while.
I heard sirens immediately afterwards so I knew that someone had. I was going towards the phone though. I was most worried about getting away from my windows.
I wouldn’t count on the news covering your shooting. A few years ago, somebody shot up the car of a guy who lived down the street from me. We never saw anything on the news about it. More recently, a party store near my parents house was robbed at gunpoint. Again, no news coverage.
It would seem that the news drones only care about crimes that involve injury or death.
Yeah, I guess it was a little naive for me to expect the news to cover it. I live like 2 blocks down from one of the worst streets ( or so I have heard ) in the city. So, it probably happens fairly often. It’s just the first time I experienced it in the year I have been living here.
So, it did end up on the news. One guy was critically injured. The people responsible were spotted way across town and led the police on a chase. They rammed their car into an abandoned house and then ran through the house. They kicked out a window and ran through the back yard. Then they pulled down an old fence.
The police finally got them after searching the car, in which they had left their IDs and jackets. The news said that these guys are well known to the police.
In my flat in L.A. I often heard gunshots in the middle of the night. It got to the point where I vowed that the next time it happened I was going to yell, “Do you mond? People are trying to sleep!”. It was at that point when the Crips and the Bloods entered their truce; and I only heard gunshots again once, years later. (The neighbourhood has gotten much better in the last ten years. New apartments have gone up, and so have rents. I paid $600/mo. when I moved in in 1987. I was paying $778/mo. when I moved out, and the new tenants will have to cough up $995/mo.)
Last year I got woken up by five loud bangs at 2am, didn’t think much of it until the police knocked on the door at 7. Turned out the UDA had put five holes in one of my neighbors doors, not surprising since he was the biggest supplier of ecstasy in the province.