Just another day in the neighborhood

Since I've been listening to the scanner traffic tonight and it is directed at my street, I thought I would reprint this note I wrote on Facebook. This note is from the first week of February but it accurately describes the street where I live. 

Mark and I were very excited to pick out our first place to live two years ago. We picked a place in the same neighborhood our families live in and thought nothing of it. We live on a nice sounding street by the name of Spring Garden, which evokes such thoughts of flowers and sunshine. Well our street is anything but. While sitting at my desk in the newsroom, I hear a call over the scanner to our lovely road about once a week. It turns out we live on the crime-ridden street of our 'nice' neighborhood. 

Last night I was the one making the call for help over the police scanner.

Mark and I settled down to go to sleep around 12:30 am. Mark had just dozed off and I was snuggling in when what did we hear but a loud bang. This isn't that unusual on our street, but our dog took off bounding out of the room to defend our little place from harm. So I got up to investigate. 

Upon looking out the window I saw headlights shining in our direction and while I was trying to figure out why the car was parked with lights on perpendicular to our apartment, my husband yells....'Oh my gosh they are fighting!' On further inspection I noticed that our neighbors are screaming profanities at each other (Yes we could hear word-for-word what was being screamed outside). Then right in plain view in front of the stage lights (headlights) was a woman kicking at a man. Not just light little brushes with her foot, we are talking straight out Tae Bo. Then the man proceeds to push her off of him and THEN as I'm dashing for the phone to call the police about the street brawl breaking out in front of my eyes....Mark yells 'She's trying to kick out his headlights!' And sure enough that's what I see when I rush back to the window.

So now I'm dialing 911 and the little man picks up and asks my emergency .... so I tell him about the street brawl happening in front of my eyes. But then I'm like 'Wait Wait I think they are breaking it up. They're getting back in their cars!' 'WAIT NO she's speeding off!' 

Now right across the street from by four-plex is my brother's duplex. Parked in front of his duplex is his big, red Ford F-150. This woman floors it almost crashing head on into his big, stationary wall. But nope she sees it just in time and swerves out of the way. And now I think she's going into the four-plex next door's front yard. (I'm giving the 911 operator a play-by-play to this effect) But nope she over-corrects going in the opposite direction.....now WAIT she's overcorrecting again and she's on two wheels!!! To which I yell into the phone "I THINK SHE'S CRASHING!!!!!" Now I'm for sure she's flipped her car next door.....she's gone out of my viewing area. But then after what feels like forever. I see her floor it again and take off down Spring Garden! To which I relay to the operator 'Nope nope there she goes again!' (I'm sure at this point he's utterly confused) Not only is she flying down the street but her 'boyfriend' proceeds to fly after her.

At this point in the story I turn it over to the local law enforcement. The operator says he has people on the way. Mark and I debated getting in our car and following them because that's the kind of people we are. We decided not to and instead I called and woke up my brother to tell him what just occurred outside our window and then I debated calling everyone in my cell's phone book to tell them also. ( I didn't) It took us until 2 a.m. to calm down and go back to sleep.

(UPDATE: Both vehicles survived the night. I've seen them across the street today. I'm guessing the law enforcement never caught up with them.)

Just another day in the neighborhood.