Meanwhile in Homicide Central...

There was a candlelight vigil last night followed by a community meeting. I participated in the vigil and the missus attended the meeting; she walked out partway through when it seemed as if it was just going to be a bunch of people throwing their hands up in the air and saying, "Oh, isn't this awful!"

And it turns out that the initial rumors that this was two dudes shooting each other over a dice game are false. They were involved in the drug trade and were executed by a party or parties unknown.

So we've got some killers on the loose.

Oh, and I was interviewed briefly yesterday afternoon and some of it made the news, or so I'm told. Now I'm curious...

And the missus tracked it down. I still don't know how to do links but if you're curious you can cut and paste.

http://www.ktvu.com/video/17503617/index.html

The clip is Ken Wayne Reports On Growing Concerns Over Recent Spate Of Street Violence. I've got a sound bite at one minute and fifty-five seconds...

Hopefully the last on the shootings.

Hey, all.

Hopefully this is the end of the posts about the shootings. That isn't what this blog is about, after all. But that being said...

My neighbor escaped serious injury. If the bullet had gone one way, spleen, the other way spine. But she's gonna be okay.

My wife is organizing the neighborhood. A news team found out about it and put her on the air last night. She screamed for a police presence on the block, which was immediately followed by a shot of the chief of police explaining why they weren't going to put anyone in our neighborhood.

We had two officers on the block last night. If Karen says a pissant's going to move a bale of hay you may as well clear a space for it.

My reaction to the whole thing? I believe the technical term is paradoxical. I'm pretty much nuts and have been going through a rough patch of the crazies lately. But put me into an actual crisis situation and I calm right down. I've been eating and sleeping. While I worry it is much less of an issue for me than the free-floating anxiety I've been dealing with. No fear; just concern.

I guess I need to live under circumstances where my overdeveloped fight-or-flight instincts aren't overdeveloped. I am just not fit for decent living.

Oh, well.

She was coming home to her kids.

Tonight after band practice, around ten-thirty, I was in the bathroom when I heard three shots. When my wife and I left the house to find out what was going on we found that our neighbor across the street had been shot. I understand that her chances of survival are good. My best wishes go out to her and her family.

To the best of my knowledge she had absolutely nothing to do with the situation last night.

The details are none of my business and none of yours but she's someone who had at one point hit the kind of place in life that you don't come back from.

She came back. I always had the impression that she did it because she had a kid. And tonight she was coming home from work to her family and someone shot her.

The information I received was random; one person said it was a drive-by, someone else said it was someone at the memorial that's been put up for one of the shooters from last night.

Everything I know tells me that it happened for the sake of shooting; that someone was overcome with grief or rage or stupidity or self-importance or some ungodly emotional cocktail and decided that shooting someone at random was the thing to do. I wouldn't mind being wrong about this.

And now my wife, bless her heart, asked me to put a futon over the window by our bed. Because I sleep next to the window and, again, bless her heart, she cares whether I live or die. It's good to have someone who cares about that.

Right now I care about my neighbor from across the street, with whom I've had a bit of friction and a few friendly hellos. Someone I hardly know. Someone I just saw lying on the sidewalk between her car and her front door. And I care about her kids; when I asked if there was any way I could help with them the police were very kind. The officer I spoke to clearly understood how it felt to want to do the right thing and how sometimes standing back is the right thing. And he understood how that hurts.

A couple of reporters were talking to me this afternoon and they were clearly angling for something bad to say about the police. I can understand this; I grew up in a community with a notoriously racist and corrupt police force and I can clearly see the racist side of law enforcement in America.

But here and now the police have been responsible. Prompt. Courteous. And compassionate.

You know what's kind of fun? Thanking a cop and meaning it. It seems to take them by surprise. And when someone you've never met in your life is obviously despondent and they cling to you and you hold them and they calm down? That's good too. Introducing yourself to neighbors for the first time and speaking in true camaraderie. That's good too.

I need more of these things in my life. But I don't need to have someone shot in order to get them.

Welcome to Homicide Central.

Last night I was awakened by a burst of gunfire outside my bedroom window at midnight; it was quickly followed by a second and then the sound of a car driving off. My wife rolled over and touched my arm -- "Was that gunfire?"

It's like the sound of a car crash. Once you've really heard it you can't mistake it for much else. I've heard gunfire in my life, once had the chance to spend an afternoon at a gun range. And this would make the third time I've heard someone shot to death.

Karen calls nine-one-one; the line is busy. She tries again. "Is this about the shooting on Derby?" She wasn't the first to phone it in. People in our neighborhood have gotten a lot more interested in calling the cops about this kind of thing since the last murder on our block.

We had emergency vehicles there within minutes. I stayed in bed; if I had nothing to contribute I didn't want to get in the way. Karen went to find out what was going on; she lives here and she needs to know. We've got different ideas as to what constitutes our business -- in this case I think both positions were legitimate.

The details she returned with? There's a body on the street in front of the house next door. There's a bullet hole in the front window of that house; the glass was double-glazed and the shot failed to penetrate the second pane. That surprised me.

Well, it turns out that there were three bullet holes in that house and the young man on the street was not the only one killed in the incident. It had been an exchange of gunfire and the driver of the car died just a while after he'd left the scene. Word is that there was a dice-related dispute but at this point all I've got is gossip.

When this first happened my immediate sympathies were with the victim and his friends and family; now I have little but contempt for both parties. If you get in a gunfight and shoot up a house with kids in it and then die? Very little sympathy -- and if a bullet had gone through our porch window it likely would have hit me while I slept.

Another bit of gossip -- that the Channel Two news is going to give our neighborhood a new nickname.

Homicide Central.