Thursday, March 23, 2006

Monday Morning 3:03a.m.

   A little after 3:00am I let Wiley out and just after going back to bed started hearing sirens.  It sounded like a police chase but I kept hearing short bursts of a siren, like a car alarm.  But it kept moving around so I knew that wasn't what I was hearing.  I got out of bed to observe a Lansing Police car at Barton and Willow and 2 Eaton Co. cars cruising up and down Willow and Thomas L Parkway. This continued for an hour with the police cars communicating with their quick bursts of their sirens and then the sound of helicopters above.  When we woke at 6:30 the car was still at the corner and the news said the area from Saginaw, Waverly, Willow and Maycroft was about to be searched for a fugitive who had shot an Eaton Co. officer behind the West Town  Plaza around 3:00.   I went out to get the paper and saw cars blocking the road at the light and up the hill, so I knew to take the boys to school I would have to take Waverly road and not be able to get back to the house.  When we got near the intersection of Saginaw and Waverly we saw the SWAT teams with guns drawn going from building to building down Waverly and eventually they went past our house and through our back yard.  I was teaching at Windemere View and they were also in a code red lockdown.  They never found the shooter and ended up calling off the search at 10:30pm.  But the trauma of living in a South Central surreal world makes me more insightful of the fear some live their everyday lives under.  The SWAT team left our gate open and after Wiley twice was outside in the front did we find this.  Spring did arrive despite the reality that it is still below 40 degrees this week.    Jane went to Curves and found she had to go through Mar Mor to get back home during the lockdown.