chaim
Member
I am finally starting to catch my breath, the adrenaline is starting to subside, and I can think clearly enough to post here.
When I got home from visiting my parents tonight, I noticed some people near their car (I assume their car) in the road a couple houses down from my townhouse. My gut said something was wrong (or did it, it may be my brain playing with me now after the fact), and I quickly got in the house and locked up. Five to ten minutes later I thought I heard arguing, and seconds/moments later I heard 5-10 gunshots in quick succession. This was just over 3 hours ago.
I quickly grabbed my CCW (SIG P365), turned out the lights upstairs (I was in my bedroom) so I wouldn't be backlit, and then decided I wanted something else in case the shooters picked my house if they felt they needed shelter. So, I emptied a pocket, grabbed a pocket holster for my P365 (I recently tried it out for pocket carry and the holster was on the nightstand), dropped my P365 in my pocket, and grabbed my home defense pistol (a 1911) and phone. I went downstairs to turn off the downstairs lights, and just as I was about to dial the police, the police (about half a dozen) show up. A couple started walking towards my door, thinking they were coming to me to ask what I saw/heard I started to open my door, but thought the better of it when I noticed that they had guns and lights drawn and they were double timing it a couple houses over (they were approaching my townhouse so not to walk directly on a particular house).
I won't give a play by play, but as I occasionally checked out the windows (for seconds at a time, putting myself at an angle so not to silhouette myself in the window) I saw at one point dozens of cop cars and an ambulance, and I saw when the ambulance eventually drove off. My brother on the other hand (he is here) would open up the curtains to look outside from the first floor and started texting on his phone, which of course lit him up quite nicely. When I told him not to do that, he made fun of me for being paranoid. About 30min in, a couple neighborhood kids went outside and were recording the cops (still searching in a grid pattern it seemed), and the teacher in me kicked in and I went out to tell my neighbors (HS and MS aged) to go inside (and they did), and when I did so I saw that quite a few adults were outside trying to figure out what was going on. Texting neighbors, I learned from one of those who were outside talking that another neighbor across the street heard the neighbor that lives 3 townhouses from me yell "get out of my house" (apparently what sounded like arguing to me) and then the gunshots. No one really knows if it was the homeowner who did the shooting to defend herself and her home, the intruder doing the shooting, if they exchanged gunfire, or if it was something else. When I last texted one of the neighbors who were outside, the news was that the ambulance left with a victim (wounded or dead, I haven't heard) and the police were still searching for a shooter.
What have I learned:
When I got home from visiting my parents tonight, I noticed some people near their car (I assume their car) in the road a couple houses down from my townhouse. My gut said something was wrong (or did it, it may be my brain playing with me now after the fact), and I quickly got in the house and locked up. Five to ten minutes later I thought I heard arguing, and seconds/moments later I heard 5-10 gunshots in quick succession. This was just over 3 hours ago.
I quickly grabbed my CCW (SIG P365), turned out the lights upstairs (I was in my bedroom) so I wouldn't be backlit, and then decided I wanted something else in case the shooters picked my house if they felt they needed shelter. So, I emptied a pocket, grabbed a pocket holster for my P365 (I recently tried it out for pocket carry and the holster was on the nightstand), dropped my P365 in my pocket, and grabbed my home defense pistol (a 1911) and phone. I went downstairs to turn off the downstairs lights, and just as I was about to dial the police, the police (about half a dozen) show up. A couple started walking towards my door, thinking they were coming to me to ask what I saw/heard I started to open my door, but thought the better of it when I noticed that they had guns and lights drawn and they were double timing it a couple houses over (they were approaching my townhouse so not to walk directly on a particular house).
I won't give a play by play, but as I occasionally checked out the windows (for seconds at a time, putting myself at an angle so not to silhouette myself in the window) I saw at one point dozens of cop cars and an ambulance, and I saw when the ambulance eventually drove off. My brother on the other hand (he is here) would open up the curtains to look outside from the first floor and started texting on his phone, which of course lit him up quite nicely. When I told him not to do that, he made fun of me for being paranoid. About 30min in, a couple neighborhood kids went outside and were recording the cops (still searching in a grid pattern it seemed), and the teacher in me kicked in and I went out to tell my neighbors (HS and MS aged) to go inside (and they did), and when I did so I saw that quite a few adults were outside trying to figure out what was going on. Texting neighbors, I learned from one of those who were outside talking that another neighbor across the street heard the neighbor that lives 3 townhouses from me yell "get out of my house" (apparently what sounded like arguing to me) and then the gunshots. No one really knows if it was the homeowner who did the shooting to defend herself and her home, the intruder doing the shooting, if they exchanged gunfire, or if it was something else. When I last texted one of the neighbors who were outside, the news was that the ambulance left with a victim (wounded or dead, I haven't heard) and the police were still searching for a shooter.
What have I learned:
- Trust your gut. My gut told me something was wrong (unless my mind is now playing tricks on me, but I'm pretty sure I thought this at the time I saw people in front of the house where I now know the shooting occurred). I can't tell you how many people they were, what ethnicity they were, what gender they were, or how they were dressed. I was in "condition yellow" and thought to quickly get inside, but I should have also been more observant to be a better witness (though none of the cops have yet knocked on any doors to talk to the neighbors to see if we know/saw/heard anything).
- Always be armed (when legal). My parents are anti-gun, I was at their house, I know they wouldn't want me to bring a gun to their house (they've told me so), so I wasn't armed. Had I driven up 5-10min later, it would have been when the shooting was happening and if I was there at the time, things may have played out differently.
- I may rethink my home defense set up. I've always said I had my CCW and a home defense pistol to get me to my Mini-14 if I had time to get to it. I had time to get to it and never did. I felt pretty comfortable with 10+1 rounds of 9mm in my pocket backing up the 8+1 rounds of .45ACP I had in my hand, but a carbine or shotgun would have been better if someone had come charging in. I may put my Mini behind my bed (or under it). I'm also rethinking my opposition to shotguns (fewer rounds, stiffer recoil, but a much harder initial hit). On the other hand, I had my CCW on me after I got home, and I quickly got to my home defense pistol, so I did some things right. Had the shooter (assuming the only shooter wasn't the homeowner shooting in self defense) come to my house looking for shelter, I may not have had a lot of time and I was ready.
- People are stupid in a crisis. My neighbors gathering outside when the police were still looking for a shooter wasn't surprising, this is America in 2023. What was disheartening was my own brother lighting himself up in the kitchen window with his phone while the police were looking for a shooter, not just in the neighborhood, but on our block. Worse, he not only ignored me when I told him this was a bad idea, he thought I was "just being paranoid".
- There is a lot you don't/won't know. When the shots rang out, the neighbors I've talked to (by text) and myself all thought the shooter had to be a criminal, gunshots in a safe residential neighborhood, had to be the aggressor. Now it appears that there is a chance that the shooter or one of the shooters was a homeowner defending herself (though we don't know that for sure either). The police mostly left (there are only a few still out there), but no one told us that it is safe, it may be, it may not be. I can't even tell you for sure how many shots there were as it took a moment to process. Also, the human mind fills in blanks (I already knew this as a psychology major, but it is different when you experience it). Write things down as soon as you know you are safe to do so, before your brain starts trying to fill in the blanks to make sense of things.
- Those who say it can't happen here, well it can happen anywhere (well, I already knew that, but it is worth reminding ourselves of this). I live in a town that many publications rate as the safest city its size (just over 100K) in the country. It is a fairly affluent area, though not everyone who lives here has money (obviously).
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If capacity wasn't a priority in your subconscious mind, you would have put the 365 down, not in your pocket.
