I May Never Call 911 Again

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