I couldn’t get home from work today for more than 5 hours, because the police had roadblocked my neighborhoodsearching for a murder suspect. A couple of hours ago, they found his body (suicide, they think) so I’m finally home. There were US Marshalls and ATF agents running around in cammo gear, sniper and SWAT teams, helicopters and dog units, the whole nine yards. Witnesses had come forward to say the he had threatened to go out in a massive shooting spree.
Anyway, it was fun. I stopped at a bookstore at the perimeter of the search area called Booked for Murder. I walked in and said to the owner, “You know why I’m here, don’t you?” She said no, and I said, “Murder! Murder most foul!” And then I bought a couple of books and I sat around reading for an hour or so. When I left she said, “Be nice to the snipers.”
Then I ended up having dinner and hanging out at my sister’s place on the west side until the TV said it was safe to come home.
Awesome! We had an armed bank robber or somesuch in the 'hood once, and a co-worker of mine was locked down at our mutal doctor’s office while the SWAT team swatted around. Highly dramatic!
Twice we’ve had a low-flying police helicopter sweep repeatedly over our development. I called the police non-emergency number to ask what/who they were looking for.
The dispatcher said nothing is going on, don’t worry. I asked, if that’s the case, why is the chopper so low, running its searchlight over everything?
The dispatcher assured me that it wasn’t a police helicopter and there was no police activity.
Okay, I said (because I’m annoyed when lied to), I’d like to report a strange helicopter buzzing our development – will the police come do something about it?
Of course it was police after all, according to the news the next day, and they were looking for a rapist in the area, and knowing that would have helped public safety, but why should they tell anyone that?
And yes, I said “twice” at the start of this post, we’ve had approximately the same phone conversation each time.
At least here the cops were open about it – the one who wouldn’t let me through told me exactly what was happening. Later in the evening I called the cops to ask when I might be able to get back home, and though they couldn’t give me a time, they didn’t give me any bullshit either.
U.S. Special Operations Command was running some training exercises in the town adjacent to mine. I wanted to see some helicopters, didn’t actually get to see a thing.