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Let me preface this little story by saying that all my adult life, I have had things happen in front of me. Car accidents, robberies, medical emergencies and some very strange events that left me scratching my head. It appears to be genetic as all my brothers are afflicted by the same “curse” for lack of a better word.
We have an uncle who has half the alphabet tacked on to his surname. He postulates that it’s genetic but not in the way we might think. He calls it hyper vigilance and goes on to say that for generations our predecessors were in some way involved in maintaining public order. Our genealogy bears him out. He believes that is the reason that such a high percentage of our particular line have gone into law enforcement in one way or another. That does not explain however why we run across incidents, at least to my satisfaction.
This past Saturday I was returning home from the bank and a few houses down from my own driveway a man slammed on his brakes right in front of me. I was right on top of him when I stopped and he was partially out of his car pointing up a drive way. There behind an older Chevy Blazer lay a woman of about seventy. What alarmed the man ahead of me was the river of red liquid flowing down the driveway towards us. I had noticed that the man had three little kids in his car so I ordered him to clear out.
I turned my truck sideways in the street while calling the Sheriffs dispatch. Then I called a neighbor who works for LAPD and got him involved. I went into full cop mode scanning the area for evidence of a shooter. My neighbor joined me and very cautiously we approached the victim. I was sure that she would have bled out by then but I heard her moan so I safetied my weapon and checked her vitals. The next thing that happened was that she let out a yelp that made us both jump. Now that I was right there beside her I could see what had happened. I yelled to my neighbor to holster his weapon and dig out his badge because I could hear half the local constabulary bearing down on the scene. He stood there holding up his badge and four fingers while the sheriff’s dept. rolled up expecting gunplay or some sort of excitement.
So here’s what happened; the lady had planned a party for her grand kids and had been out shopping for same. Everyone out our way uses canvas shopping bags that routinely get overloaded by idiot bagboys. And this was the case with our victim, she swung one overloaded bag out of the tailgate and it spun her around causing her to fall and smack her head on the pavement and in the process her hearing aid fell out. In addition to this the contents of the bag ruptured and spilled their contents. They were three gallon jugs of red fruit punch and a gallon of tomato drink. Since her hearing aids were inoperative she didn’t hear me speak to her as I approached.
She had been laying there because she was furious and just needed to calm down. Later when she saw the trail of red liquid staining her driveway she was able to understand our concern. Up to that point she had been a trifle ornery.
The Sheriff’s watch deputy eventually understood and dismissed all the cars to go about their day. My neighbor and I and the sergeant spent an hour filling out reports and I was expecting a lecture about retirees etc. But it never came; the sergeant said simply, that under the same circumstances he would have done the same thing. He also said it took about an hour for one of his deputies to calm down the guy with the kids. He had apparently called 911 reporting a sniper or a gunman. To be fair we’ve had a couple of those lately here in So Cal so everybody thinks the worst when they see something iffy.
I’m now waiting for it to pop up on you tube, fortunately most of our neighbors are seniors and couldn’t operate their phone camera with a team of them working at it.
We have an uncle who has half the alphabet tacked on to his surname. He postulates that it’s genetic but not in the way we might think. He calls it hyper vigilance and goes on to say that for generations our predecessors were in some way involved in maintaining public order. Our genealogy bears him out. He believes that is the reason that such a high percentage of our particular line have gone into law enforcement in one way or another. That does not explain however why we run across incidents, at least to my satisfaction.
This past Saturday I was returning home from the bank and a few houses down from my own driveway a man slammed on his brakes right in front of me. I was right on top of him when I stopped and he was partially out of his car pointing up a drive way. There behind an older Chevy Blazer lay a woman of about seventy. What alarmed the man ahead of me was the river of red liquid flowing down the driveway towards us. I had noticed that the man had three little kids in his car so I ordered him to clear out.
I turned my truck sideways in the street while calling the Sheriffs dispatch. Then I called a neighbor who works for LAPD and got him involved. I went into full cop mode scanning the area for evidence of a shooter. My neighbor joined me and very cautiously we approached the victim. I was sure that she would have bled out by then but I heard her moan so I safetied my weapon and checked her vitals. The next thing that happened was that she let out a yelp that made us both jump. Now that I was right there beside her I could see what had happened. I yelled to my neighbor to holster his weapon and dig out his badge because I could hear half the local constabulary bearing down on the scene. He stood there holding up his badge and four fingers while the sheriff’s dept. rolled up expecting gunplay or some sort of excitement.
So here’s what happened; the lady had planned a party for her grand kids and had been out shopping for same. Everyone out our way uses canvas shopping bags that routinely get overloaded by idiot bagboys. And this was the case with our victim, she swung one overloaded bag out of the tailgate and it spun her around causing her to fall and smack her head on the pavement and in the process her hearing aid fell out. In addition to this the contents of the bag ruptured and spilled their contents. They were three gallon jugs of red fruit punch and a gallon of tomato drink. Since her hearing aids were inoperative she didn’t hear me speak to her as I approached.
She had been laying there because she was furious and just needed to calm down. Later when she saw the trail of red liquid staining her driveway she was able to understand our concern. Up to that point she had been a trifle ornery.
The Sheriff’s watch deputy eventually understood and dismissed all the cars to go about their day. My neighbor and I and the sergeant spent an hour filling out reports and I was expecting a lecture about retirees etc. But it never came; the sergeant said simply, that under the same circumstances he would have done the same thing. He also said it took about an hour for one of his deputies to calm down the guy with the kids. He had apparently called 911 reporting a sniper or a gunman. To be fair we’ve had a couple of those lately here in So Cal so everybody thinks the worst when they see something iffy.
I’m now waiting for it to pop up on you tube, fortunately most of our neighbors are seniors and couldn’t operate their phone camera with a team of them working at it.
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