Friday, September 25th, 2020
I wrote last nights blog after a colleague and his wife had left; we are almost neighbors and had met for a glass of wine. Initially scheduled for 18:00 we met only at 19:00 as my 30 minute call turned into 90 minutes. Wednesday had been beautiful and warm with temperatures reaching almost summer highs of 28C making for a warm and pleasant evening. Hence, we could sit outside with the book club and meet socially distanced. Not so much luck yesterday, it was far colder, and the sun could not be sighted all day. As a result, we huddled around the firepit and chatted for two hours. It made for an early night for me.
EM was out with a friend, they go for a spin in our Fiat, roof down, windows open, masks on for some in person fun. Just as I was about to turn in EM called me to say she might be sleeping at her friend’s as she was unsure if she could make it home. Of course, I was like "what?" Turns out there was an active shooting event on the road she typically takes home; just five blocks from where we live. Here is the story as told on the fabulous Listserv:
"Last night about 740pm, a man showed up at the door of a house on the Maryland side of Harrison Street and said he had been shot and asked the residents to call 911, which they did. Their dogs came to the door and the man disappeared down the driveway. Within two minutes of calling 911 16 police cars, both Montgomery County police & DC police arrived and shut down the street. They found the man two doors down and took him to an ambulance - he was still upright. Police / EMS scanners said he had apparently been shot in the abdomen, through the back.
Turns out there was a gunfight about three blocks away at 730pm, on the DC side of River Road by the soon to be closing Lord & Taylor. Police say 10 to 12 shots were fired and involved two people being shot - one critical, one not. The other victim passed away. Last night police were still searching for a shooter. Harrison on the MD side has been closed all night, and DC police have now formally taken over the homicide investigation and a DC forensics team along with detectives are here this morning recanvassing and collecting evidence. Someone heard the shooting was related to a marijuana "pop up", which is a sale advertised on social media that "pops up" in a new location each time. In google searching shootings seem to have happened at these in the past."
Through her friend EM found out about this and because the shooter had not been found was scared to drive anywhere near the scene. I advised her to come home via back roads, taking East-West Highway and to please look in on me when she got home. I was so worried. Thankfully she was very cautious and decided to even by-pass Bethesda, taking the Beltway from Connecticut Ave to River Road and then making her way home via Goldsboro Road and Massachusetts Ave basically circumventing the scene of the crime with a 5km radius.
While she probably never was in any real danger as she heard about this early and could take precautionary measures, this incident is still scary. We travel along Western Avenue all the time. She could have gone by at just the wrong time and been hit by a stray bullet. To close to home for comfort.
Which brings me to one of my pet peeves about this country: the inability to control who owns and uses guns. I could go to any Wallmart and purchase an automatic rifle, no questions asked. Every idiot can and seemingly does. So police are shit scared when stopping a car or a person or entering a building which is one reason of the many deaths at the hands of the police. And yes, typically non-white people are far more likely to be suspected; as in this case. No one had really seen the shooter, but immediately the description was of a black man wearing black clothes and a hoodie. Now how, if it is pitch dark outside and you are at a distance can anyone tell the color of the skin of a person dressed in black with the face covered, I wonder.
And I ask you: In how many countries do schools exectue active shooter drills on a regular basis?
The news is dominated by elections and the virus. On the election discussion the moron in chief is dominating media through one outrageous comment following the next. The past two days have been dominated by discussions over whether or not he would leave the WH peacefully he lost the election. This of course takes the focus of attention of all the other controversial issues he would rather not like to see in the media: increasing unemployment, supreme court justice appointments and of course the yet again increasing spread of the virus and the poor track record of the administration in stopping the spread.
Globally 32.4 cases have been reported. The USA today has 7.2 million, which is exactly 1million new infections within just one month and daily new infections are on the rise again with 42k new infections reported today, which is 1k more than yesterday; mainly in the Midwest, but also in select communities, like orthodox Jewish communities in New York City.
Surely after all the City has been through one should think they would have learned enough, but no.