Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2000/10/30
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]i had a real eye opening experience this weekend ... you like to think you'd behave a certain, gallant, way under duress -- you even have all these visions of it from time to time and the great shots you'd bring home. you think "given the opportunity, i'd do the right thing." but how often do we get to find out? ... so emily and i are out at a halloween party on saturday and a fight breaks out when an attempt is made to evict a drunken neighbor who's crashed the party. a dozen or twenty people pour into the street and arms and legs are flying, friends of the drunk begin flying off of nearby porches and into the fight like pidgeons onto a bagle, people are screaming, suddenly twenty people are beating on one another, the evicted neighbor pulls out a knife and starts stabbing this kid lying on the ground -- everybody jumps away -- people are screaming "call 911! call 911!" and a bunch of cell phones come out with people screaming into them in a sort of "oh the humanity!" way, but nobody's sure of the address and everybody's giving a slightly different one. someone behind me shouts "he's got a gun!" and the crowd slams me to one side. the only thing that runs through my head is "i'm seeing people die." after the guy on the ground's been stabbed about three or four times in the chest and upper arms, emily jumps in and kicks the attacker in the face, he rolls back, leaps up, grabs her by the arm, stabbs her three times and runs away. on the way he pauses very briefly to stab a 19 year old girl, who was just standing there, just under the collar bone. the whole thing took maybe 20 seconds. about a minute later, five police cars pull up. where am i? not taking pictures. the thought didn't even cross my mind that i should have until i was home. i didn't photograph the fight, the bloody knife lying on the ground, the cops, emily with a furious blood splattered look on her face, nothing (okay, i did take a photo of the police cars lined up in the street as i was leaving but where's the honor in that?) ... the cops took em to the hospital, left her and her boyfriend waiting in the emergency room for three hours (they were the only people there too), after which time she got impatient and left, went to the police station, where she was told that although she knew who her attacker was and where he lived they couldn't arrest him unless she could give them his first and last name. while it was going on i was in complete shock, well, not clinical shock, but i wasn't acting the way i thought i'd act. i was kind of consumed by this overwhelming thought that i was probably going to get murdered right there and then. "paralized with indecision" might be a better way of putting it. in the aftermath nothing's as serious as it seemed at the moment. nobody dies, everybody's sitting on the porch for half an hour showing off their wounds to the cops who don't think anybody's about to bleed to death any time soon. emily sustained a huge bruise on her left arm where the guy was holding on while stabbing her; a puncture wound on her upper left arm, one in her shoulder and one in her back but they're all superficial, oweing, i think to the fact that she was wearing two heavy shirts. she's okay but really pissed off at the police for not doing _anything_ to this guy who a dozen people can identify. the appance (or not) of a gun is still a hotly contested issue among those present. i didn't see one. kc