So, about 2:30 a.m. this morning, I came out of a dead sleep to the sound of rapid gunfire.
Sometimes, it's hard to tell if it's firecrackers or shots, but I was pretty sure it was somebody cooking off rounds from a semi-automatic. Had that ... crispness to it, and even cadence you hear with trigger pulls but not a string of firecrackers.
I dunno how many got fired before I awoke, but I heard at least eight or nine, in two groupings, and the pop-pop-pop sounded as if it came from the main street just outside our neighborhood, though it was hard to tell. If pressed, I'd guess it was a .22 semiauto, not far off. Though it could have been a bigger caliber farther away.
Woke my wife up, too. "Firecrackers," she said.
"I don't think so. Sounded like a gun."
I got up, went to the back door.
"Are you going out there?"
"Nope. Not if somebody's shooting."
I peered out. Didn't see anybody.
Went to another door, other end of the house. And a window there. Nothing.
I listened for a while, no sirens. Dogs didn't hear anything in the yard. I went back to bed and listened. Thought about calling 911, but fell back asleep.
This afternoon, when I went to collect my mail, my next door neighbor stopped me. "You hear gunshots early this morning?"
He had also gotten up, thought about calling 911, then didn't. Stood at his window looking and listening for a while, too.
Nothing on the local news about it this morning, and it could have been somebody driving down the road putting a magazine full of rounds into the air for whatever insane reason possessed them.
We live in a quiet suburban neighborhood, guns don't go off very often. Wakes you right up when you hear it.
8 comments:
If you are thinking about calling the cops for something like that -- please do it! The worst you'll ever do is pull a cop off of writing a ticket.
Sure, this was probably some idjit shooting squirrels or the like. But tragedies happen when everyone assumes it's someone else's job to call it in.
I was grainy -- had only been asleep an hour or so -- and wasn't thinking well.
At the time, I thought, Well, nobody's shooting any more, so they are done. And if somebody ate all those rounds, either they are dead, in which case calling won't help them; or they are alive and probably somebody can get to a phone ...
Kind of like dream-logic, it seemed to make sense at the time.
I should have called, though.
Only good news is that there wasn't any news about it anywhere today, i looked. Nobody got shot, so that was good.
I'm a definite cop-caller. Idiot Rottweilers barking for an hour next door? Call cops. People fighting in the KFC parking lot down the street? Drop a dime. See a car accident in front of our apartment? Holla at the po-po. Dudes loitering suspiciously in the back alley? They're fittin' to be tattled on.
I figure with the taxes I pay in Los Angeles (9.75% sales tax!), it's justified to see what our city's finest can do to serve. I know it's prevented some break-in attempts and other bad things over the years. And honestly, every interaction I've had with LAPD has been a positive one. ::knocks on wood::
Sounds like you heard the same thing I did. I thought it was a dream. Then I left the house at 5:30 to go to work and there was a road block in all directions. Got questioned by the cops for 45 minutes. It was right in front of my apartment.
Benedict: "Hello? I've just shot somebody, I did it on purpose."
...
Benedict: "I said, I have just murdered a man, and I wish to confess!"
Unseen NYC Resident: "Hey, shut up, down there!"
Too easy -- Last Action Hero ...
My guess would've been American Psycho.
Last Action Hero caught a lot of flak at the box office because Ahnahl's fans did not like him making fun of his image, but it was a fun movie, I loved it. The scene mentioned is wonderfu because the villain comes from movie-reality and when confronted with the "real" New York City, is stunned by how awful it is ...
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