I don’t even know how to talk about this. I saw this happen on my way home Wednesday.
Wednesday night at about 6:45, I was on my way home from Kieran’s gymnastics recital. My whole family had gone, and Brad and I had both come straight from work, so we were in two cars. Brad was right in front of me until we got a mile or so from home. A really slow vehicle (blue truck?) got in front of me, and I passed it. Then, about three blocks away from our street, I saw these two cars coming over the hill next to our street. One was in the oncoming lane of traffic, and they were both going about 70 mph (this is a semi-residential street with two lanes going each direction). As they passed me, the one car pulled in front of the other. I looked in my rearview mirror and saw one fishtail.
I *knew* it was bad… It was obviously very hostile, but I didn’t know exactly what had happened until later. As soon as I got home, Brad and I were supposed to go to his mom’s to pick up the kids. He had been just 30 seconds or so ahead of me and was standing on the sidewalk in front of our house waiting for me to pick him up. I asked if he’d seen or heard anything (car crash/gunshots), and he hadn’t. I told him about the whole thing and said I’d almost like to go back and see what happened. He said we should, but I was like, “No way. I don’t know exactly what that was, but it was *bad*, and I can see guns being involved now.” Two and a half hours later, we went home, and we saw 5-6 police cars down there — IN FRONT OF THE ELEMENTARY SCHOOL KIERAN SHOULD BE GOING TO (he doesn’t) — and I knew it had to be really bad. We tried to see what had happened because I wanted to know if the police would want to talk to me, and I saw one of the cars involved sitting there with all its doors open. The other car was gone. Not a good sign. We couldn’t get to any part of it because the whole street was blocked off in three different directions.
I found out the next morning that what I saw (probably when the cars were side by side, although I never saw the guns or gunfire) was a shooting. A 15-year-old boy riding in the back seat was shot in the head and killed. I’ve read that supposedly, it was over a fight that happened FOUR YEARS AGO between the BOY’S BROTHER’S FRIEND and the shooter. They’re still looking for the car and the three people that were in it, and there haven’t been any arrests yet. A blue truck (the one I’d passed a few blocks before?) had been hit when the victim’s car swung around onto the other side of the street. Nobody in the truck was hurt badly.
It makes me absolutely sick, and I don’t know what to say. The whole thing is just so ridiculous — that this 15-year-old’s parents have to bury him for something so insanely stupid.
I have an appointment to talk with the detective assigned to the case this afternoon. I feel this huge responsibility to be “right” about everything I saw… I’ve been thinking about it nonstop for the past three days, but like I told Brad, it’s so hard when you’re trying to break something down that was just 15-20 seconds long into such minute detail… I just want to help them and not confuse things, but it’s so difficult because I didn’t *know* I’d have to try to remember every detail and split-second of the whole thing… Like, I could have gotten the license plate, but I didn’t even think about it because it happened so fast. I don’t want to confuse the investigation… I have to try to be so sure of everything I saw, and that feels like such a huge responsibility. I’ve been thinking about it so intensely that I actually am still remembering and putting things together, though, which is good.
If you look at the news story posted above, it has two videos, and at least one has pictures of the kid with his family… Not that this matters, but he looked so sweet and good and quiet. His family says he never got into trouble.
Thursday — my 31st birthday, whoopee, like I wasn’t crying all day — we drove by a funeral home near our house on our way to get dinner. There were tons of people outside waiting to get in. Lots of them were kids. I’m sure it was the boy.
I went to work Thursday and Friday, and it was just so weird to me that everything was still normal. People excited about the end of school, modifying semester exams, etc. Meanwhile… there’s this horrible, unbelievable thing that’s happened… and things like it happen every day.
It just makes me ill. I don’t understand the world.
And geez louise, why do I have ALL THESE STORIES?!?! Someone once told me that I had more morbid stories than anyone she’d ever met. I didn’t really realize it until she said it, but seriously, what the hell?! How can I be so close to death so many times and not have died myself?
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In other news, more morbidity… My grandma was diagnosed with breast cancer, and I’m still pregnant. I AM scheduled for *something* to happen Tuesday afternoon. It’s technically not an “induction” because the hospital was full, but my OB is having me come to the hospital for something she hopes will start labor, so she can admit me. We’ll see.
