Friday, March 27, 2009

Shooting in my neighborhood


This morning Sean called me after taking Nick to school. "The house across from Rosie's school has police tape all around it, and there are police everywhere. Be sure the alarm is on and the dog is in; something's going on." I later learned that the man who lives in that house, a parent at my kids' school, had been shot minutes after he walked his kids to school across the street and was coming home to get in his truck and go to work. He later died at the hospital. The whole story is here

Needless to say I've been freaked out all day. They locked down the school, but no one gave us any news or details about the crime. Everything I know I've gotten off the internet or from the news. Apparently there were two guys who shot this man, and they were seen running down LaVista Road afterwards. But even though the school was taken off lockdown after a couple of hours, the news reported tonight (and it says in the above article) that one of the killers was thought to still be in the area bordered by LaVista, Frazier, Lawrenceville Highway, and Montreal....the exact area where we live!

But tonight it seemed to have calmed down. I even took the kids and their sleepover friends out for ice cream, coming back into the house in the dark. Then about an hour ago the police helicopters started up, hovering over our street, shining the lights in our backyard. It's scary as hell.

I am upset for so many different reasons. I keep thinking about that poor dad, saying goodbye to his kids, maybe talking about the weekend or what they were going to do that night, kissing them, telling them to have a great day, and walking away. Those poor kids (aged five and 10) had no idea they were saying goodbye forever.

Then I think about my own kids, and how scared Nicholas was when he got off the bus. He had heard it through the middle school grapevine, and didn't know what was really happening. I had become more and more relaxed about letting him walk places alone, and walking the dog with a friend and the like. Now I'm going back to being lockdown Mom. I hate that.

And I'm just afraid tonight. We have the alarm on, the dog is in, logically I know we're safe, but I know that guy is out there somewhere, and more like him. We aren't ever really safe.

1 comment:

Kenzie Ryan said...

That's the saddest thing ever, I feel terrible for that family. I don't understand some people, "Hey lets go shoot and kill an innocent person today!" I mean, what goes in their mind when they decide something like that?

Remember about a month ago, I had that shooting across the street from my apartment? I still don't think they ever caught the guy, but it was unbelievable that it happened so close. I woke Kyle up and told him, he went and handed me his gun and a couple of bullets and then went back to bed. He wasn't scared, but I locked the doors and closed all the blinds.

So I understand your Lock-down Mom feeling, lol. And you said that it happened in front of Rosie's school, do you know if the children were in her class or if she knows them? I still can't believe it though, it's just horrible.