 |
| Louder, kid, I can't hear you. |
Around 12:30 on Saturday afternoon, my wife and I were walking home from the Metropolitan Museum of Art. We parted ways on 84th Street and 3rd Avenue -- she to go home, me to make two stops on 86th. I had crossed to the east side of 3rd, when the sound of a police siren approached from 86th and Lexington, one block west.
Initially, I didn't pay much attention to it. What caught me off-guard was the speed at which the police car took the turn onto 3rd and headed north. This thing was going fast, like the driver was in a hurry for a really, really good reason before slamming on the brakes at the intersection of 87th and 3rd. "Burning rubber" it's called, like you see in cartoons, where smoke appears from under the tires.
The cops had just gotten out of the car when a young man -- 15? 26? Hard to say -- ran east from 87th and crossed 3rd Avenue. One of the cops yelled at him to stop, which didn't do the job. So, he removed the gun from his holster, took aim at the guy's leg, and fired.
Down went the runner.
My first time witnessing someone getting shot by a cop. Getting shot by anybody.
Everyone froze in their tracks. Someone exclaimed "Whoa!" As the cops ran over to the guy, the cross light turned to green. I walked to the north side of 86th, when I had to make a decision. Do I get closer to the action, with my phone in hand to video what was going on? Or do I walk east and continue on my errands?
I walked east. It seemed too voyeuristic to stick around. Yet as I ducked into the restaurant to pick up lunch, I was in a daze, feeling like saying to the guy behind the corner, "I just saw someone get shot" before settling on, "I'd like a felafel sandwich on pita with hummus, baba ghanoush and a Jerusalem salad". As I left with lunch, more sirens approached the scene of the shooting. And as I went further east, still more arrived.
Still shaken when arriving home, I relayed my story to my wife, who was understandably shocked. But not so shocked as me when, hours later, I watched the local news and searched the internet to learn the details.
Nothing. Nothing at 2:00, 4:00, 6:00, 9:30. Ditto for Sunday.
A cop shot an alleged perp on the Upper East Side on a bright, sunny day -- and it was as if it never happened. It was like those "parallel universe" incidents where people claim to have seen things right in front of them that didn't really happen.
There were no movie or TV cameras in sight, and anyway the police department would have shut down the street where it happened. The cop in question didn't use a taser because those little electric prongs didn't come out of the barrel.
The question for the reader: If a suspect falls from a gunshot in the middle of 3rd Avenue in front of dozens of pedestrians but it isn't reported on the news...did it really happen?
************************
3 comments:
Kevin, I haven’t seen anyone shot in NYC, but I can tell you my little story about how you get used to your environment. When I moved to Manhattan from Chapel Hill NC in 1981 I went to visit a friend who lived in the West 80s between Columbus and Amsterdam. After leaving his apartment, I waited on a corner on Columbus to catch a bus, in front of a Western themed bar. A taxi pulled up and the driver went inside. He came back out with someone; they got in the cab and the taxi driver pulled out a set of scales and set them on the dashboard. He proceeded to weigh out drugs and sell them to the other guy, who then went back inside. This alongside a busy sidewalk with a hundred people or more walking by or standing around. Or the time I met a date down at her apartment building just above Wall Street, one of the very few such buildings down there in 1981. When I walked he back to her building, we passed a drug store nearby. In the short time before I returned past the drug store,someone had taken one of those big wire trash bins and thrown it through the window and was inside looting the place. I figured I would say something to a cop as I walked back up to the subway station at City Hall. As I approached it in the distance I could see the flashing lights of a stopped police car. As I drew near, I saw the cops had a guy over the hood and were going after him with nightsticks. I figured I shouldn’t bother them and went on home.
Now, here’s the point: after that first Summer, I never noticed anything like those types of events ever again in the 22 years I lived in Manhattan or the the follwing nine years I continued working there. I think you become acclimated to your surroundings and do not notice things the same way as before. Either that, or the city changed pretty damn fast…..
84th and 3rd is my corner. I never hears a word about this either.
I feel like putting up flyers on nearby light poles with my alternate Email address for witnesses to get in touch with me to see if they saw any mention on the news. It's all very odd.
Post a Comment