PennsyPlinker
Member
http://www.tcpalm.com/news/2008/jan/15/no-headline-15sgfcol/
I didn't see this posted anywhere else, so I hope to evade the duplicate police.
But it does make me at least a little angry. According to the journalist, owning a gun is pretty much a defining characteristic for being a criminal. See the bold section in the quote below.
I didn't see this posted anywhere else, so I hope to evade the duplicate police.
But it does make me at least a little angry. According to the journalist, owning a gun is pretty much a defining characteristic for being a criminal. See the bold section in the quote below.
For 15 minutes Friday, Christine McKenzie knew what it felt like to be Public Enemy No. 1.
"They had all their guns pointed at me and they were yelling 'put both your hands out the window.' I was surrounded," McKenzie recalls.
The events destined to put McKenzie at the business end of half a dozen Glocks began less than an hour earlier as she was getting ready for her lunch break at a local bank where she processes loan documents.
Half a mile east of her in front of a duplex on Dixie Highway Levi Dwight Starks, 19, lay dying in a pool of blood, an innocent bystander caught in the crossfire of a fight between two other men.
At about the same time, McKenzie was pulling away from the bank the call went out for police and deputies to look for the suspected shooter's car.
For McKenzie, oblivious to the violence a short distance away, it was just another day.
"I was headed south on U.S. 1 to the Winn Dixie store where I was going to pick up a few things," McKenzie said.
What she had no way of knowing was her car, a champagne-colored Lexus SUV, matched the description of the getaway car.
"When I saw the flashing lights the first thing that went through my mind was 'what did I do wrong?' I know I wasn't speeding,'"
She pulled over in the Regency Square parking lot on the southwest corner of U.S. 1 and Monterey.
And from her point of view, all hell broke loose.
"They were shouting 'let me see your hands. Get both hands up, get your hands out the window!'" McKenzie said.
"Everywhere I looked there was just guns, pointed at me, pointed at my head," McKenzie said.
"I thought, my God, what did I do?" she said.
McKenzie, 56, is the furthest thing from a criminal you could imagine. She's so soft spoken you have to lean toward her to hear what she's saying. She's never owned a gun in her life.
"I hate them. I wouldn't know what to do with one, and I have never had one. Certainly not!," McKenzie said.
"I thought I was going to die right there," McKenzie said.
She was ordered out of the car and told to back toward deputies. As she was being handcuffed the bewildered woman kept asking what she had done "and all they would tell me is it would all be sorted out," McKenzie said.
"I begged them not to put the handcuffs on me. I told them I had high blood pressure and asked them to please, please, just call my supervisor and she could tell them I'd just left my office," McKenzie said.
She stood like that while her car was searched and eventually, it could have been 15 minutes but McKenzie feels it was longer, someone said she wasn't their suspect.
"And the deputy took the handcuffs off. She apologized and asked if I wanted to go to the hospital, I was crying and shaking so bad," McKenzie said.
She asked them to call her supervisor to explain she wouldn't be in for a while.
"I just had to get away from there. I went somewhere and just sat and cried," McKenzie said.
"I know what they do is dangerous. I know they have to be careful," McKenzie said.
"But what happened, I don't know," McKenzie said.
"It changes your life."
Martin County columnist Geoff Oldfather can be reached at (772) 221-4217 or [email protected]. Catch Geoff Sunday mornings live (not pre-recorded) from 8 a.m. to 9 a.m. on The Coast, 101.3 FM, for the Coast Forum. The Coast Live Line is (772) 344-1999.