So i come home from work....
 

And the front of my house is a crime scene in progress.

There's a crashed Bonneville that has taken out about 4 parked cars. I walk up and the first thing i notice is no skid marks. My neighbors car is totalled (actually several neighbors cars are totalled). I look in the Bonneville and the guy is big time gargling from fluid in his lungs. I knew he'd had it. I didn't even bother trying to administer first aid. (he stopped gargling seconds later, there was nothing to be done) Air bags are deployed and the guys face is unscathed and the passenger compartment is fully intact, so i'm wondering how he got a punctured lung.

Guy is dead before the paramedics arrive several minutes later, and the cops don't show up for another 10 minutes after. So the paramedics do their thing and pull him from the car. After they've got him out i approach one of them.

"Drunk?" I ask.

"Dead," the paramedic responds. "Shot in the gut."

Sure enough i look in to the car(without touching anything) and there is a single 9mm shell casing on the drivers seat. That explains why there's no skid marks either- the brotha(he was a young black guy- very hip hop in appearance) had apparently blacked out from blood loss. Cops next explain that there'd been a shooting 3 city blocks away at a local tavern just before the crash.

So in the amount of time it took this guy to drive 3 blocks at an apparently high rate of speed he drowned on his own fluids from a single 9mm shot to the belly. What an unlucky bastard.

As i type this there are swarms of cops outside my front window taping off the block.

That's the third man made corpse i've seen on my street since i moved in 3 years ago. Just another day in the big city, and i'm glad it wasn't me.

Well now the mother and GF are outside carrying on hysterically, apparently the kid lived just 2 blocks down further down the street and was trying to get home.

That sucks if he was a nice guy, not so much if he was a murderer himself. I've come across similar deals when I drove cab in Mpls. in the '90s, back then the out-of-town gang-bangers called it "Money-apolis" and the newspaper called it "Murder-apolis"...

The third? Wow. Do you think maybe you should move? Sounds too dicey for me.

The worst that's ever happened in front of my house was an old Chinese man who lost control of his car and drove through our fence and into our yard. He was eating while driving.

A year earlier, a little H'wood wannabe sexpot drove her Honda in much the same way - through our fence, into our front yard. She was drunk and stoned.

But no shootings or shooting victims, though I'm not holding my breath...

Good that it was not you. Did the guy shoot himself or was he shooting out the window and got shot in return?

My guess was that someone on the outside of the car, stuck the gun in and shot him point blank (or really close to it).

Ugh. Now I remember why I moved from Philly. That's terrible, for everyone involved.

I grew up in Philly, (Island ave area) I left there 30 years ago, and now that the only family I had there (that I cared about) has gone on, I can safely say, "I didn't leave anything there".
I like mt little slice of MayBerry just fine.

Wow that sucks. I think I would be trying to find a new place to live.

When I was 20 my wife, infant daughter and I moved into this area which was lower rent. It seemed OK at the time we looked at it but after a couple months I was sitting in bed reading a book when I heard firecrackers and a reving engine. I thought to myself "those darn gangsters at the park ****** around".

What happened was a 19 year old kid in his Caprice was turning the corner and got shot a couple times, once in the head, while driving. His foot just mashed the accelerator and he accelerated until he hit a bus shelter and stopped. The car continued to just rev until someone shut it off.

It was shocking because Madison only saw maybe 2 murders a year at the time.

When lease renewal came up the management really wanted us to stay and even offered 50% off of rent. No dice baby! We moved and don't look back. The property crime I had done to me exceeded $2000 over the 12 months I was in that crap hole and on numerous occasions. It was like adding $200 a month to the rent.

I would assume you pack heat? I know I would.

Speedy:)

That is my operating theory as well. Cops will only tell you so much before you get the "Step back sir, this is a crime scene" blow-off.

Yes.

Sun is up now and there are still cops outside with their lights on, and the car is still unmoved, and the street is still taped off. I hate this city. I'm going to bed.

Sounds like a delightful neighborhood. I guess that qualifies you to live in Long Beach. We don't get too much of that kind of thing in my immediate neighborhood (thankfully) but we sure as hell get our hands full of it overall as a city - there are some uber-trashy/ghetto areas around, some within just a few miles of here. Last similar incident was when a guy a few doors down I guess went nuts and was either coked up or cranked up on meth and barricaded himself in the place with his estranged girlfriend. Neighbors called the cops (hostage situation), cops barricaded the street off all day and eventually tried "communicating" with him via a cell phone tossed through a window. When the guy went for it, a sniper nailed him with a .50 cal. Boom. Over just like that. It was interesting to watch. Most of the riff-raff stays out of here. Usually. Although we do get it from time-to-time.

Glad you and your family/neighbors are okay; hopefully they get their property issues sorted out with insurance or whomever without too much difficulty. Sounds like an exciting day for you.

Not much to say other than wow. . . Another preventable urban tragedy centered around gangs and similar ghetto stupidity. Any idea yet what prompted this or whether it was random and he really was an otherwise good kid just "in the wrong place at the wrong time"? From the sound of it "hip hop in appearance" he might've been looking for it to some extent.

Those that glorify gangsta life and put it on a pedestal ought to think twice about it. You reap what you sow in this world. . .

So what do you think?

Hollow point, semi-wad cutter or FMJ?

Good penetration or just a well placed shot?:p

I had my house tepeed once 10 years ago

The big crime from Coto seems to be breaking into high school to change your grades.

believe it or not, a teenage party led to a stabbing.

I forgot about that, just a couple weeks ago?

Grew up with one Italian blasting another every once in awhile over business deals. No other crime was allowed to exist around here or the perp would eventually be found out and mysteriously disappear. Nobody thought much about any of it. I just figured this is how the world works all over. Every small Italian neighborhood has a large extravagant Gothic church and Catholic school, right. In Godfather 1 you can hear a soldier ask the operator "Long Beach 6-xxxx".

I saw a guy get shot in college. It was pretty terrible. There was an ambulance sitting at the red light right where it happened, so help was there immediately and he still died. We all just stood there and watched them cut his clothes off while he bled to death.

"and I'm inside typing on my computer sharing this with my Porsche buddies" I'd be doing the same thing, sorry but it just struck me as funny.. Sniper you've gotta get out of that neighborhood dude!!! Come west!!!

Today, just back from placing a letter in the mailbox, flag up...adjusted a sprinkler,
then chatted with a neighbor about his new pup who'd wandered onto our place. She really likes her chest patted. Was sorry to see that his MS has placed him in a chair now.

So, I come in, and read this? I was feeling pretty smug about my "safe" living area. Then I remembered a week of going nowhere outside unarmed, because a murder fugitive was in the area.

Be careful...