Our Avenue Makes The News

"Never send to know for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee." - John Donne

Yesterday around 10 in the morning a cop parks her car in the middle of our street outside our kitchen window. I went out and noticed there were more police cars up the street, and the cops were kneeling beside their vehicles with their guns drawn. I heard the policewoman tell a neighbor there was some incident going on in a house. I managed to get out to tutor a student at 10:30, but when I tried to get back home the police had blocked off my street completely, and wouldn't let me past the police tape! There were news helicopters buzzing around above us, and when I went to pick up my son from school the other parents were all in a tizzy about it. They figured it was a bank robbery (there are three banks where my street intersects a busy thoroughfare) but my wife was still holed up at home and had learned there had been a house invasion and there were hostages involved.

I took my son downtown to avoid the whole situation and waited until it was time to pick up my other son, around 12:30. By that time the "police activity" was over (according to a recorded message my wife got over the phone) and the gunman was dead. But before he went he shot a hostage, a 24-year old mother as she frantically passed her two kids out the window to the police. My wife heard the flurry of gunshots (10 or so) and she was still feeling nervous hours later.

When my boys heard about the incident they went into their art therapy mode, the younger one drawing pictures of himself using his superpowers to defeat the bad guy and the older one writing a letter to God (OK, Santa) expressing his disapproval of robbers.

It's unusual that our street makes the news. Now the story comes out that there was a link between the gunman and his victims: he was an unstable stalker. (Where are the stable stalkers?) I don't think that makes it any easier to process. Now I think about the kids who live in fear of this kind of brutality day in and day out, in Congo, Iraq and probably not far across the Bay Bridge.