Scary Story

I have a scary story to tell.

Early one morning a few days ago, at about 1:45 AM, Jaden and I were awakened by the sound of gunshots—BOOM BOOM BOOM. In shock we jumped out of bed and ran out of our room to look outside. What we saw then and for most of the rest of the night seemed like something from an episode of COPS or a movie! This thing does NOT happen in our quiet, safe neighborhood.

We looked out the window and watched as a bunch of people were out in the driveway of the house across the street and in the road, yelling and screaming at each other. Then we saw one person SHOOT A GUN again, in the direction towards our house. That’s when I started freaking out. I’ve never seen that before and I can’t get that image out of my head. We couldn’t quite tell if anyone had been shot, but that’s when Jaden called 911 and described what was happening. The yelling and swearing was so loud, it was really frightening. I was freaking out, that they would start shooting again and possibly hit our house or something. But no more shots were fired, thank goodness.

A group of people piled into an SUV that was parked right in front of our mailbox and sped away before we could get the license plate number, spilling all sorts of alcohol and drug paraphernalia onto the street. The rest of the people, including the man we witnessed shooting the gun, ran back into the house and turned off all the lights. Within minutes several police cars were speeding down our street.

They blocked off our street and actually caught one person down the street, lights flashing. As far as we know they didn’t catch the SUV full of people that we saw. At that point Jaden went out and gave a statement to the police, along with another neighbor of ours. I was shaking and crying–I don’t think I had ever been scared like that in my life. Luckily our kids were still asleep. He came back into the house and we sat in front of the window and watched everything.

The police searched the yard across the street and marked evidence there and in the street. After what seemed like FOREVER (probably at least 2 hours) they turned their focus to the people who were hiding in the house. They banged on the door many times but nobody ever answered. After quite some time later (I went back to sleep for about 30 minutes or so then Jaden came and got me when the rest of the stuff happened) they had surrounded the house and had spotlights on it so it was bright as day. They had their megaphones and were calling out “Come out with your hands over your heads.” It was so loud. So surreal! Finally 4 large men came out with their hands up. They were handcuffed and lined up on their knees in the middle of the street. The police called out more. “Come out with your hands over your head. We know you’re in there. Come out or we’ll send in the dogs.” Finally 4 more people came out, 2 girls and 2 guys. Then one more girl came out looking sort of messed up and mouthing off. We watched somewhat in shock, that this was not some sort of nightmare happening right in our own front yard practically. People in handcuffs, SWAT team, at least 8 police cars and officers with huge rifles, dogs barking….it was a lot to take in. Finally several cops went inside the house, just like you see on those crime shows. After a time they took all of the handcuffed people back into the house and closed the door. At this point it was after 6 am so we tried to sleep for a little bit longer, as we’d been up most of the night.

Apparently it was a party, drugs and alchohol present, that turned into a fight when some uninvited people showed up. Don’t know many details but shots were fired, we heard later that someone did get shot but supposedly nobody was killed. I’m not really certain of the whole story. But it was scary.

Luckily our kids did not wake up during any of this. It would’ve traumatized them. I’m still sort of reeling from what we saw and have been having a hard time falling asleep at night. I can’t get it out of my head, every noise I hear makes me jumpy. I’m having a hard time feeling safe right now. Jaden and I look at each other and say “did that REALLY just happen?” It was insane. We are definitely on edge.

I hope nothing like this ever happens again. We don’t like episodes of COPS happening out our front window. That’s my scary story.