I was out
walking my dog tonight, in an open field adjourning my apartment
complex (the field belongs to the complex owners). As the mongrel and I were headed back toward
the apartments, I heard what I thought was a gunshot, almost assuredly
from a 22 caliber handgun or so I had thought. Then I thought, 'eh,
maybe it was a firecracker', then almost as soon as that thought went
through my mind there were 5 to 6 rapid fire return shots of what I am
guessing was a 9mm or similar sized caliber. They all came from the same
direction, the apartment complex on the end adjourning the field.
I called 911. I told them where the emergency was - the operator did not
ask - she just said 911 operator or something like that. I told her
"shots fired" and gave her the location. I then explained that I definitely had
heard gunshots at the apartment complex. I also told her I had been
walking my dog when I heard them, I said I was sure they were gun shots
and I was sure because I was a retired federal law enforcement officer with 32
years on the job and because I had been a federal firearms instructor
for 16 years. She sent the cavalry.
I walked back to my apartment on the other end of the complex. As I
approached I saw a flashlight going over the front of my apartment. Then
I saw the police SUV across from it and saw the office exiting his
vehicle. I said, I think you may be looking for me, I made the 911 call.
He politely asked me what was up and I explained who I was and what I
had heard; I also let him know I was armed. I also told him that on the way
back to my apartment, I had met two other tenants who were outside their
apartment who asked me if I also had heard the shots and that they both
indicated the shots came from where I thought they had come from inside
the apartment complex. I told the officer I would show him where I
thought the shots came from. I walked back that way and he followed in
his SUV and another responding officer also followed.
When we got to the corner where the other two residents had been, more
shots were fired. They did not sound at all the same and came from an
area definitely outside of the complex and from a different direction
than the shots we had heard. I have often heard shots from that area
before, they are pretty commonplace but the shots I called in to 911
were most assuredly not from that area but were from my apartment complex.
The officers just took off that
way. A few minutes later they came back. A different officer drove up to
me and said to me essentially that 'The shots were from such and such a
place, not in our jurisdiction.' I politely replied that those were not
the same type of shots, that the ones we heard came from within the
complex. He immediately snapped at me in an angry and nasty loud mouthed
tone that 'Don't tell me, I just heard them'. I replied, 'You did not
hear the shots we heard, they came from...' at which point a female
resident of the complex a few feet behind me said something to the
effect, in agreement with me, that the initial shots came from the
apartment complex over there (pointing in a different direction than the shots
heard by the officers). I tried to continue to say that the initial
shots had not come from the direction in which the officers heard the
other shots and the cop flipped out screaming at me something very much
like 'Hey buddy shut up, I cannot hear two of you talking at once and I
am talking to someone else' yet; he had started talking to me not to her
and she had been the one to interrupt.
Regardless, the cop was an out wrong. The shots he and the other officer
heard after they responded, in fact that me and the other two residents
also heard SUBSEQUENT TO THE INITIAL SHOTS, were shots that are made on
a regular basis from some guy(S) who shoot(s) outside of the village
limits. There is no way that the shots I heard and called in to 911 came
from even that general direction nor were they that far off. The shots
the officers heard after they arrived were coincidental to the shots we
heard at the complex but the officer knew better and I wonder on exactly
what did he base that. My guess is that he based it on the fact I
disagreed with him and he was a cop and me just an old bearded man with a mutt and
he could not fathom how it could be otherwise than him, the cop, being right.
Well, after being nastily reprimanded, I said "Okay officer" turned away
and walked back to my apartment. He did not say a thing (maybe you can
imagine an officer worth his pay letting a witness who called 911 just
walk away like that without checking more facts - I cannot). On my way
back to my apartment, two additional residents of the complex stopped me
and asked me if I had heard gunshots, both pointing to the area where I
thought the original shots originated. That was at a 45 degree angle or
more, at that point, from where the shots the officers had heard had
come from. But the officer had known better.
I went back outside about 5 minutes after I put my dog away. There were
no officers around any longer. It seems they were convinced that the
shots were not from the apartment complex or at least the one officer
convinced the other would be my guess. As it turns out, unless my life
is in imminent danger - I see almost no reason to ever call 911 again -
at least not here where I live.
All the best,
Glenn B
