SemiConscious Dot Org

No sense playing coy with the title, eh?

Yesterday, roughly an hour before school ended, there was a drive-by shooting right across the street from the building. I was sitting at my desk in a library full of kids, when I heard a very distinct “pop-pop-pop-pop-pop!” in the distance. Being from Maine, my first thought was, naturally, “Hmm, sounds like someone just got back from a trip to New Hampshire to buy fireworks!” Needless to say, I was a bit taken aback when the teacher’s aide started shrieking “GET DOWN!” at all the kindergarteners who had immediately run to the window to see what was going on outside. (We were on the second floor, at the opposite end of the building from the street on which the shooting occurred, and thus in little danger of actually being shot at. But still, that’s a bad trait for kids to have.)

Within minutes, there were multiple Seattle PD cruisers on the scene, blocking off the streets while they sorted out what had happened. Apparently, a carful of guys had driven past and shot some dude (luckily, only in the leg) in front of his house. One of our staff members had been walking out the front door of the school at the time, and had seen the incident, but the car had been too far away to read the plate. After a forty minute delay while the cops searched the surrounding blocks, the schoolbuses pulled up, and the cops stood guard as the kids boarded the buses. One kindergartener, mightily impressed by the flashing lights and guns, was heard to exclaim, “Man, this is tight!”

Reading this might give one the idea that I work in the middle of a violent slum, but that’s really not the case. The Central District is definitely one of the poorer sections of Seattle, but it’s not even remotely on the level with “bad” neighborhoods in most other cities its size. I suppose I should be thankful that I live in a city where a drive-by is still such a rare occurence that it makes the news. Murders are still rare enough around here to be the lead story on the local newscasts for days afterwards.

Still, I grew up in the state with the lowest population density east of the Mississippi. The idea that someone would be firing anything other than a shotgun, at anything other than a deer (or possibly a moose) is bizarre to me.