- Joined
- September 16, 2010
- Messages
- 4,813
My latest personal story with gun violence. It's not exciting. It has no moral or mic-drop moment, but it's recent.
I got divorced recently and quit my former profession of 15+ years as a P.I., so I can be a single dad. I just got back from his mom's apartment now, and she doesn't live in a bad place, but this shit can happen anywhere.
My youngest is at his mom's this weekend. She called saying she heard shots and she was on hold with 911. She was scared, someone banged on her windows several times after the shots, she didn't know what was going on, she called 911, then called me.
I roll out of bed. Yes, I grab my handgun. Neither one of us knows what is happening, and I know the cops in my town. For all their stomping about like their the baddest jarheads there ever were, they rather suck. Back when I was a green "ghetto specialist" property manager, I called the cops about a woman being chased by a dude with a butcher knife through the complex. When I was bitching about the 45 min. it took them to respond, my people just laughed at me and told me you have to say it's a man with a gun, no matter what it is, if you want them to show up.
But this was a shooting. As I'm hitting the door, the ex calls back and says the cops are already there, so I lock the wheel gun back up in my place and head out unarmed.
On the way in on foot, I stopped to talk to a cop and some guy, who turned out to be a friend of the victim. Still don't really know what happened. The victim's friend said he heard the shots and ran out of the apartment he's staying in to see his friend, Carl, on the ground with a gunshot wound to the chest. I guess there was some sort of dispute between a few people standing outside in the complex before the shooting. When I asked the friend, who said he was an Iraq vet, how Carl was doing, he said the paramedics were doing chest compressions when they first arrived, but they weren't anymore when they left with him. He wanted to hope, the friend said, but he knew better.
Judging by the bloodstains and debris directly outside the ex's apt., it looked like Carl likely was moving when he dropped outside her door. Didn't look like he was the one banging on her windows. Probably someone with Carl or who discovered him, possibly the vet I talked to.
I went inside, and the kids were all just looking at me, silent. After a dramatic pause, I say, "That's some crazy shit, huh?" Everyone seemed to appreciate the tension breaker. The kids actually seemed to take it fairly well, including the youngest, my boy, though I'll know better later.
They saw him. One, at least, the oldest, saw his chest wound, the blood on Carl's face. They had a couple friends of the family spending the night. The girl was still scared, her eyes stuck on me, big as day. After my opening one liner, I'm talking to all of them but looking directly into her eyes. I'm explaining how they're probably in the safest place in the world right now with all the cops around. I tell her a little white lie about how I tried to sneak in through the police tape but still got caught by a cop. In reality, I veered toward a cop because I wanted to talk to him and likely could've sneaked in, if i had tried. The girl has seen enough TV, and she asks about the shooter returning to the scene of the crime. I explain why, based upon the things the cop did and didn't say to me, this was likely not that kind of crime and likely happened between people, criminally engaged or not, who knew each other. I explained how, statistically speaking, with a bit of bullshit and a lot of good intention, they were good to go for years in regard to violent crime. The girl appeared to take real comfort in the numbers, asking a couple questions, including genuine relief when I told her how there was no violent crime at all in her neighborhood, which we recently moved from, according to the interactive crime map compiled by my local newspaper I had recently been looking at, and there was really little around my ex's apt., too. She clutched my vague numbers like a blanket and seemed genuinely comforted. I went home.
That turned into a long story for not knowing much. Sorry about that.
I got divorced recently and quit my former profession of 15+ years as a P.I., so I can be a single dad. I just got back from his mom's apartment now, and she doesn't live in a bad place, but this shit can happen anywhere.
My youngest is at his mom's this weekend. She called saying she heard shots and she was on hold with 911. She was scared, someone banged on her windows several times after the shots, she didn't know what was going on, she called 911, then called me.
I roll out of bed. Yes, I grab my handgun. Neither one of us knows what is happening, and I know the cops in my town. For all their stomping about like their the baddest jarheads there ever were, they rather suck. Back when I was a green "ghetto specialist" property manager, I called the cops about a woman being chased by a dude with a butcher knife through the complex. When I was bitching about the 45 min. it took them to respond, my people just laughed at me and told me you have to say it's a man with a gun, no matter what it is, if you want them to show up.
But this was a shooting. As I'm hitting the door, the ex calls back and says the cops are already there, so I lock the wheel gun back up in my place and head out unarmed.
On the way in on foot, I stopped to talk to a cop and some guy, who turned out to be a friend of the victim. Still don't really know what happened. The victim's friend said he heard the shots and ran out of the apartment he's staying in to see his friend, Carl, on the ground with a gunshot wound to the chest. I guess there was some sort of dispute between a few people standing outside in the complex before the shooting. When I asked the friend, who said he was an Iraq vet, how Carl was doing, he said the paramedics were doing chest compressions when they first arrived, but they weren't anymore when they left with him. He wanted to hope, the friend said, but he knew better.
Judging by the bloodstains and debris directly outside the ex's apt., it looked like Carl likely was moving when he dropped outside her door. Didn't look like he was the one banging on her windows. Probably someone with Carl or who discovered him, possibly the vet I talked to.
I went inside, and the kids were all just looking at me, silent. After a dramatic pause, I say, "That's some crazy shit, huh?" Everyone seemed to appreciate the tension breaker. The kids actually seemed to take it fairly well, including the youngest, my boy, though I'll know better later.
They saw him. One, at least, the oldest, saw his chest wound, the blood on Carl's face. They had a couple friends of the family spending the night. The girl was still scared, her eyes stuck on me, big as day. After my opening one liner, I'm talking to all of them but looking directly into her eyes. I'm explaining how they're probably in the safest place in the world right now with all the cops around. I tell her a little white lie about how I tried to sneak in through the police tape but still got caught by a cop. In reality, I veered toward a cop because I wanted to talk to him and likely could've sneaked in, if i had tried. The girl has seen enough TV, and she asks about the shooter returning to the scene of the crime. I explain why, based upon the things the cop did and didn't say to me, this was likely not that kind of crime and likely happened between people, criminally engaged or not, who knew each other. I explained how, statistically speaking, with a bit of bullshit and a lot of good intention, they were good to go for years in regard to violent crime. The girl appeared to take real comfort in the numbers, asking a couple questions, including genuine relief when I told her how there was no violent crime at all in her neighborhood, which we recently moved from, according to the interactive crime map compiled by my local newspaper I had recently been looking at, and there was really little around my ex's apt., too. She clutched my vague numbers like a blanket and seemed genuinely comforted. I went home.
That turned into a long story for not knowing much. Sorry about that.
- Joined
- Sep 16, 2010
- Messages
- 4,813