Death doesn't take the weekend off...in fact it visited Waverly twice

It's been a particularly shitty weekend for me in Waverly. First late Thursday evening at the area Blockbuster on Homestead an irrate, would be, robber and his assistant gunned down the manager clerk because he didn't have any money for them (it says so on the door your IDIOTS).

This was a first in my life. I've never known anyone who was subsequently "murdered". That might seem like a stupid comment, since here (in the U.S.) it's such a common place occurence. But it's more telling that my grappling with this event has heard comments back like "This is the city", "This happens all the time" etc. as I try to come to grips with it. Don't get me wrong, people are supportive - but they've already acquiesed at some level to this as "business as usual".

And so it was that I was lying in bed, trying to sleep late Sat. into Sunday morning and I heard a "shot"(and I've learned to distinguish between "shot" and fireworks since i moved to the U.S. - who knew I would be such an aural connoisseur...). I jolted awake from that nether land of neither sleep now wake and cussed "Jezzuh fucking christ..." heard nothing, so lay back down. RAT...RAT! TAT! TAT! TAT! TAT! TAT! - I shot upright in bed, shaking my partner - "THEY"RE SHOOTING GUNS!" I said... he hadn't heard it (like I said above).

I ran down and dialed 911 and called in "shots fired in 3000 block of Frisby". That was it. The operator asked me nothing more - not from where, how many nothing. Blase and chilled - bored even with the constancy of death at her console.

I thought I was imagining it but about 15 minutes later, at 5:44am, the ambulance taking victims of what I would learn late Sunday night was a double shooting to the hospital (morgue?). This is the actual ambulance going to where ever they were being taken ...



This was another first - the first time I've called in something that turned out to be so bloody violent on my doorstep. Sure there've been domestic fights and craziness in my life that have required police being called to neighbors, even close to home. But none like these events. Brutal. Cold. Calculated death. Death on your doorstop.

Oh, and where are the Baltimore police in all of this? Good question. No one has canvassed our neighborhood about suspects in the Blockbuster murder - even though the suspects supposedly fled into our neighborhood. No one from BPD has called me about my emergency call to 911 to ask about when I heard what I heard, how many shots, where I was etc. It's all like - and I think it's true after being here a year - that they can't won't or don't give a shit about crime, death and decay in Baltimore. Witness instead the reaction to the "horrific" murders in Baltimore County over the weekend. Detectives shown in the news going door to door, asking people for help. Here? Not a fucking chance. And what about Frisby? Me and another neighbordhood friend had been asking for more help and presence after a highspeed chase ended up in a person shot and killed at the corner of Montpelier and Frisby - a half a block from 3033 Frisby where the double shooting happened Sunday morning (and you won't find any news about that in the press either - just another shooting, ho hum, la dee da... back to Fells Point and Whole Foods for my nutrigrain bagel....)

So I basically feel like I want to puke. Can't sleep. Can't eat. Sullen and confused with not dread, but some other feeling, like I've had the soul ripped out of me - and not by the shooters - but more by the lack of reaction by those around it (many do have a reaction but most don't. This has got to end....