Gun shots in my neighborhood today!

I was sitting in my favorite chair reading the morning newspaper, when I heard a shot gun blast. It sounded like it was just a few doors down. Then blam, blam, blam.. It wouldn't stop. In total my wife and I counted twelve to fourteen shots.

This is very unusual for our neighborhood, so I picked up the phone and dialed the local police. I explained that it sounded as if the shots were coming from just a few doors down the street.

A few minutes latter I looked out the window and saw three police officers coming down the street with bullet proof vets each carrying a shot gun locked and loaded. They were taking cover behind parked cars and trees as they made their way down the street toward our house. It looked like something out of the movies.

I slipped outside into the car port, and noticed that they had blocked the street off a few houses to my east and from the corner to our west. There were several officers moving in from the west as well. As they approached they asked me where the shots had came from. I pointed down the street to the south and told them it sounded like it was just a few houses down.

They all disappeared between some house down the street and then in just a few minutes they all came running out making a mad dash for their police cruisers. They told me that they had just got another report of shots fired about a mile to our north. They think it was someone firing a shot gun from a moving vehicle.

What is the world coming to?
It's getting pretty bad when you don't feel safe in your own neighborhood any more.

that's how the other half lives EVERY DAY.

I assume you are speaking of people living in our public housing projects and inner city slums? There is no way that it is acceptable for people to have to endure this regardless of their economic status.
We had a recent case of a beautiful 15 year old girl visiting a friend at a Nashville public housing project. They were in a SECOND floor bedroom when a bullet hit her in the head. The suspect was an 18 year old "gang banger wannabe" who was trying to hit a rival walking on the street. He was "so sorry" when the TV reporter talked to him.
Life shouldn't be so cheap that people think they can take it on a whim.

in the nineties... hearing gunshots was not unusual. This was not public housing - but it was a high poverty area nestled in a very rich area (between Palo Alto and Menlo Park). Had the dubious distinction of murder per capitol of the country in 1993; I didn't think it was so bad - 23 murders (out of 23,000) after working in Detroit for several years (with 500+ murders a year). Had to learn to distinguish between three common and fairly similar sounds: firecrackers, backfiring cars, and gun shots.

Raise this because this is more common than just in "public housing." I was in grad school and this was the only "affordable" housing in the area - ironic, in the lap of obscene wealth in the tech boom, attending a very unaffordable U (on scholarship and working at the U - but for a very low wage), learning first hand about the realities that many Americans face daily in their homes and neighborhoods.

There was the time I dove in the tub due to very close gunfire. Don't know why, don't know that ceramic of a tub would lesson the impact of a bullet - but it was instinctive. Then there was the murder across the street from my building - there was a makeshift memorial for several months commemorating the event.

As hard as that was it was nothing like the lives of many of the families I worked with in Detroit - in the two weeks on the job a teen I worked with father was murdered, by the brother of his new girlfriend. That was just the beginning of my introduction to the violence that many people in this country live with in their neighborhoods. Almost every teen I worked with in Detroit in the early nineties had known a murder victim - a family member, friend or neighbor; too many had witnessed said acts of extreme and permanent violence.

I used to live in Maryland (Silver Springs) during the late 80's. I could count on hearing gunshots from my apartment window on a regular basis. I have also lived in less than desirable neighborhoods off and on during my lifetime. The majority of the people living there were good honest people. The few that weren't seemed to enjoy sharing their pain with everyone else.
I don't know how we could go about changing the situation but it sure sucks to have to live with it.

That sounds really scary.

hope everything is ok...:hug:

I will probably never know what happened. There maybe something in the local news paper latter in the week, I guess I'll have to wait and see.

This never happens in my neighborhood, except on new years eve. If it would have just been one shot I probably would have ignored it. I thought the maximum umber of rounds for a pump shotgun was ten. But there was at least twelve or fourteen consecutive shots spaced evenly like they were from the same gun.

We live in a small suburb of Columbus, and at least we have a good police force here. Their response time is remarkable but it doesn't necessarily make me feel any safer.