We were due a shooting

Apollo called me tonight at work around 9PM and told me, "A man was shot and the 805 is closed down." I checked Sigalert before leaving work and while it showed some slowing traffic, there was nothing to indicate closure so I decided to risk it.

Well, was I surprised when I drove around a bend a couple miles from my place and saw the mass of red tail lights in front of me! Five lanes of traffic were merging into two where we were rerouted onto the 8, which goes east or west. We had been going south. I took the long way home, picked up Apollo and went for a drive to see if we could see what's going on.

We saw a ton of marked and unmarked police cars on El Cajon Boulevard, at least two entire blocks were taped off. We then drove down a side street that looks over the 805 and stopped to see what had caused the entire freeway to be closed down in both directions. There were about 30 police and other assorted cars there too. Some of the cars apparently had civilians in them, we assumed they were witnesses. This is where we saw the body lying on the ground in front of one of the cars.

We learned from a stoned guy who had recently been released from the penitentiary but called himself "Mr. Mom pushing a stroller down the ghetto" that a couple bodies were lying in an alley near his apartment. Because he was bleeding profusely from one of his fingers and was very animated about police and kept waving his arms around, etc, we left that area and went down the street to talk to one of the policemen who was guarding a taped off area.

We learned from the officer that the guy laying on the 805 in front of us shot at least two people near 34th, was pursued by police and then when he shot at police, they shot back and killed him. The details were sketchy but for whatever reasons he ended up on foot down by the side of the busy interstate. An officer was also injured during the incident and was taken to a local hospital.

Some of the police cars were pointed in odd directions and one of them had a window shot out. There was also a rumor over the police scanner (on the policeman) that the man had been run over by a police car. We stayed and talked to the policeman for quite a while, during which some stupid gangster kids walked by and insulted him, making that stupid "sssst ssssssssssst" to intimidate him. They were upset because the man's body wasn't covered but he said there was nothing that could be done about it. Apparently once the body is covered, evidence is destroyed. He said that the interstate would probably be closed until Sunday morning.

The policeman was a nice guy. We talked to him for at least an hour about everything from football to kids-these-days. I truly don't understand why so many people are cop haters. Oh, did you know that Cop is actually C.O.P. and stands for Constable On Patrol? Me either.

I made the picture small but if you're gruesome like me, click to see it bigger. Believe me, there's no real detail in it, but still some people might not like it.

Anyway, it's almost 3am. I need to go to bed.