We had a little neighborhood drama here the other day.
Late Monday morning, Kristi and I were standing in the kitchen trying to get Tuck to eat. This year has been real up and down with him; the latest cycle has been down. Since about the start of July he’s been losing weight again and we’ve had to encourage him to eat and drink. We think that maybe we’ve turned the corner on this cycle again – he’s had a couple progressively better days – so we still have hope for him.
Anyway, we’re standing in the kitchen talking and three loud bangs rip through the air. For a moment we just stand there looking at each other. “What was THAT?”, Kristi asks. And I’m thinking, I suppose someone could be firing off leftover firecrackers. “They were too far apart for firecrackers,” Kristi says. “That was gunfire.”
Turns out she was right. About two blocks away from our house, out along the main street that runs through our neighborhood, a man and his girlfriend were walking down the sidewalk with their baby in a stroller. Someone pulled up alongside them in a silver Honda, fired three rounds, hit the guy square in the chest, and then sped off. The girlfriend and baby were all right, though one of the rounds went through the stroller; media reports suggest that the bullet hole missed the baby by about six inches. The guy who was shot is still alive (at this writing) and in the hospital.
The good news is that the police found the guy, and it doesn’t seem to be either random violence or gang related. There have been several gang-related shootings in nearby neighborhoods since the 4th of July, mostly over in the high crime airport area. We have our share of weirdness over here, but La Loma is a pretty quiet, nice neighborhood – the idea of a gang shooting so close to home isn’t something many of us here want to contemplate. Seriously, around the corner and two streets down: that’s how close it was.
In other news, we used some of Kristi’s off time to make some big improvements to the bathroom. As soon as I get a chance I’ll take some pics and update here – we repainted, put up new shelves, new lights, new baseboards, lots of other things. It’s almost a whole new room. Stay tuned.