A Bit of Excitement

Headlines read: Man Shot 'Gangland Style' in Broad Daylight

One would think drive-by shootings only occur in the larger cities such as Chicago, LA, or New York. Not in a quiet midwestern city. Shortly after 2pm, word got around there was a shooting downtown. Just two blocks east and one block south of where I work,... in the bustling downtown area where people were doing their banking, having meetings at the local high-rise hotel, paying their cable bills, or just shopping for Christmas... four young men took matters in their hands and shot a known drug dealer, drive-by style. 12 shots were fired, 2 hit the mark. The victim survived and was taken to the hospital. Side note: He was out on bail awaiting trial for shooting a man back in July.

Immediately, I called my sister (who works across the street from me) and asked where my 15yr old niece was. My niece came into town with my sister for the day. She'd spent my lunch hour with me and had told me she was going downtown shopping. As you can imagine, I was worried. As it turned out, my niece was with my sister *whew* and had a story of her own. Right after the shooting occurred, a lady had come into the store was my niece was at. She was showing a cell phone photo of the shot man laying on the sidewalk bleeding. Nice. Replay: "We've got tourists taking pictures of the body, Al" - From the movie "Pretty Woman".

Local schools were placed on soft lockdown for about 1/2 hour because the police didn't want the shooters to blend in with students. Two of the four men have been arrested and charged with Class X felonies. Two are still at large.

Talk about scary!!