Shots Fired! They Tell Me!

Living here in Long Beach you hear firecrackers, and other pops that are usually written off as other kinds of tiny toy explosives. Other times...well, you never know. I've never felt in danger, and never even felt like I've had to be paying attention to everybody like was the case in Bed-Stuy.

But the other day, I heard some strange voice over a digital loudspeaker outside. I couldn't make it out, but the tone was very insistent. I looked out the window, and then got as fast as I could over to my camera and back to the window:

Pardon the blinds reflection, but, if you look close there are a number of things you can notice. The first, is that there are two cops with guns drawn on that black gentleman. The second is that nearly centered near the top of the screen are cops hiding behind a champagne colored civilian car. The third is that there are cops huddled behind a cop car in the upper right hand side of the picture.

I watched the scene long enough to tell you that the guy who they had guns on, the black guy in the white tank-top, looked drunk to me. He wobbled and swayed and generally looked harmless. If he had still been armed, I'll bet you anything he would've been shot dead.

I went out to take out the trash, no small feat for a guy in my condition, and asked the crowds that had been watching from all angles what was going on. Somebody told me that there were shots fired.

Here's some of the crowd across the street:

The cops hung out in a variety of forms on the street for maybe a pair of hours afterward. You could hear people heckling them from the safety of their darkened windows for the entire time. But that's not really the whole story; folks spent almost the whole evening out on their stoops and front areas, laughing and talking and blaring music and mostly ignoring the hecklers.