Close Call. Sort of.

Okay, I'll try not to make this too long. The picture above is the group of homeowners that I led (or is it lead?) on a landscaping job on Saturday. We worked all morning moving dirt, raking, and laying some sod. At 11:15 we went to the "Building on Faith" dedication, which is basically a party for all the homeowners who got houses that were sponsored by churches this fall. Most of my homeowners went over there with me because they were offering free lunch. I told everybody to meet back at the site at 12:45. Well the dedication of course ran long and I was ten minutes late. As I was turning left onto the street where our site was one of the homeowners was stopped at the stop sign heading away from the site. I figured she was cutting out early. So I turned onto the street and stopped to talk to her. She said that a bunch of gun shots were just fired on the other side of the block behind our site and a guy ran through our site and by her car with a big gun in his hand. Then two other dudes went running past as well. So she pulled away (she had her two teenage kids in the car too). As she was telling me this a white car with the back all smashed up drove past us at the intersection and stopped about 50 feet away. Then she said that it was the car the guys jumped into. I told her that we should get outta there and I took off down the street. I stopped in a parking lot near the main street and called the boss on the two-way. He didn't respond so I called the 24 year old girl that gives us our assignments to ask her what I should do with the volunteers. She said to wait for her to get there. Then I drove back to the site where all the volunteers were now waiting. The boss called me back and I told him the story. As I was telling him, the homeowner who saw the guys told me that she thought the guy walking down the street toward us was one of the dudes. I told this to my boss and he said to call 911. So I call 911 and tell the dispatcher the story. I forgot to say that the homeowner said she saw one of the guys holding his leg and limping as he ran from the white car. So a few minutes later a cop shows up and we tell him the story and he goes to see if the white car is still there. The girl shows up and reassigns us to another site in a better neighborhood. (I had never worked in the shooting area before Saturday.) As I was leaving my boss pulled up and I told him that we were going to a different site and that the cop was over by the white car. Today I found out that my boss spoke to the cop for awhile after I left. He asked the cop if he knew there was a shooting and the cop held up a bag of empty casings so he came to our site from the shooting site. He said that it did not appear that anyone was actually shot and that the shooting was gang related. So the rest of Saturday afternoon I had people from the office calling to make sure the homeowner and I were all right. My boss also said today that our episode was one of the closest calls they've ever had, which is reassuring because I didn't think ours was too bad. However, I might think differently if I had shown up on time and was laying sod in the yard when the dude ran by with the gun. Something bad could have happened if all 13 of us were working in the yard when that dude ran through. The only time I ever felt anxious was when the homeowner said that the guy walking by us was in the group, but he never looked at us. The good news is that I may have to go back to that site tomorrow with some other Americorps to finish the landscaping. I told Lee that I might need him to come down here this week with his gun to provide security.

In other news, it was cold at the Jags game yesterday and they lost. I worked an extra day today so I get an extra day off down the road. I also bought Nick some clothes for Christmas and his birthday because he works in the office and it is supposed to be business casual and he still wears his clothes from when he was doing construction work last year for Habitat. I hope everyone is having a nice Holiday season, it sounds like the yahoos at ACA are. Take care.