郭宝胜 Baosheng Guo
郭宝胜 Baosheng Guo

A Shooting Happened in My Neighborhood


“Bang!”  

   A gunshot was fired, shooting down an old man, breaking the tranquility of the community, and conducting an adverse chain reaction. 

On September 25th, Sunday, at 9:30 pm, when I was driving home and thinking about going to my comfortable bed soon, my wife suddenly called me. 

“Hi, Paul, our community had been locked down, and I could not pick up our older daughter from the restaurant. I hope you pick up her at once.” 

“What happened?” I was confused. 

“The shooting emergency happened in our neighborhood, and many policemen are in here,” My wife said. 

Thus, I had to turn around and return to the restaurant to pick up my daughter who always does a part-time job on weekends.    

At 10 pm, after I picked up my daughter and drove into our community, we saw many cars parked on the side of the road and many people were walking on the sidewalk. When I saw a crowd of people block the middle of the road, a policeman abruptly came to me and told me I should park the car and walk home. 

 "But there's no place to park!” I replied.  

 “I am sorry, but you should U-turn and park far away. Please.”  

Then, we had to make a U-turn and look for an appropriate parking place. I drove the car very far away from my house, and after some searching, we finally found a parking spot. After I got out of the car, I walked into the darkness at nearly midnight. The darkness was like a bottomless pit, it devoured everything, so I could not see anything. I felt angry because the long, gloomy walk felt terribly tiresome to my body. I couldn’t stand it. I was already feeling so tired and uncomfortable. 

 Who was messing up? Who was shooting? 

At 10:30 pm, in the flickering and blurred light, we saw a crowd and heard many loud noises near the surroundings of my house. A dozen policemen were standing in the center of the road. Some policemen were guarded with a cordon blocking the road, some were phoning their colleagues, and others were talking with the people inside the community. Their expressions were serious and tense, and they seemed unwilling to talk to too many people. Besides the policemen scattered throughout the scene, there was also a crowd of neighbors huddled together. Some were trying to discuss and question the police and ask about the fact of the shooting, and some people were slowly moving into the darkness. There was a tense fog of fear and anxiety that I felt from the mass of people that surrounded the roads. Anxious for an answer, I wanted to listen to their talking to discover the facts of the shooting, but I could not get a result because of the choppy dialogue and loud noises of chatter.   

Suddenly, I realized that I had lost my daughter who had disappeared into the darkness. I felt nervous and cried her name. 

 “Christina, Christina, where are you?” But no response.  

After three minutes, she responded, “I am here.” 

I heard the voice from the thick forest outside of the road. I felt furious, and cried loudly multiple times, “Why did leave the road? Why did you go into the forest?” 

Because my voice was so loud and full of fury, a policeman rushed over to me and asked me what trouble happened. When I told him that my daughter had gone out of the road and went into the thicket, the policeman calmly said to me,  

“Your daughter is right; you must get out of the road and go through the forest because we are blocking all foot traffic as well as vehicular traffic.”  

I understood I must walk a detour home because all access to the road was prohibited.  

At 11:00 pm, I walked out of the road, searching for the way home, while looking for my daughter. Fortunately, I found my daughter and apologized to her. Then, I followed my daughter with her cell phone light. We tramped through the thick grass and dark forest in the murky darkness, and with each step, my wrath grew. The flames of rage seemed to consume me. 

Who was messing up? Who was shooting? 

At 11:30 pm, when we went back home, my wife was still waiting for us, and she did not know the reasons for the shooting and the policemen’s activities, although the policeman had knocked on the door and asked her many questions. Before I went to sleep, I was still worried if I could still attend my college classes tomorrow morning.  

On the second day, at 7:00 am, when I woke up and walked outside, I found our community had been unblocked. However, nobody could tell me the truth about the shooting. Who was messing up? Who was shooting? I was still flummoxed.  

At 4:00 pm in the afternoon, my second daughter’s friend came to my home telling us what she knew. 

 “Peter, an old man as our neighbor for twenty years, was walking along the road and pointing a gun at passing people and cars last night. Peter also shot into the air many times. One of our neighbors is an off-duty officer with the Department of Homeland Security. He immediately reported it to the police, and finally he had to shoot Peter. Then, the police came to investigate the shooting.”  

I felt surprised because I thought that the police fired the shot. 

 “Did the off-duty officer shoot Peter, not the policeman?” I asked her.  

"Yes,” she said, “At first, the off-duty officer shouted at Peter and warned him to put down his gun immediately, but Peter had no response. Then, the officer pointed his gun at Peter and told Peter he was an officer of law enforcement, and he had the authority to shoot Peter if he refused to disarm. Finally, because Peter continued to brandish his weapon, the off-duty officer shot him decisively, and Peter fell to the ground instantly. Luckily, Peter did not die, and he is in the hospital.” 

I also asked her why Peter took a gun, pointed it at people, and shot at the sky, but she said nobody knew the reason.  

“Do you think the off-duty officer with the Department of Homeland Security is a brave and calm man?” I asked my older daughter. 

“I think so,” she said. 

Compared to this valiant and dispassionate officer, my chain reaction to the shooting was not cool-headed and appropriate. Definitely, the shooting was a lesson for me that I should remain composed and gentle while in the tension of unforeseen circumstances in the future. 

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