[legion]

My wife and I knocked off early from work today. Not much going on. Might as well start the holiday weekend early, right? Many people in town did the same thing.

As my wife and I are sitting in the living room talking, her phone rings. It's about half past 4. She picks it up. The expression on her face changes immediately. The blood drains, the muscles tighten. Finally she responds: "Are you sure? How do you know this?" She pauses as the other person talks. "Have they caught the guy?........Okay, bye then."

My wife tells me that a gunman was spotted entering the headquarters of one of the largest employers in town. The building is in lockdown, employees have been relocated to the basement, the entrances have been sealed, roads are blocked off, and the police are searching the building.

My wife turns on the local country music station. It is not playing country music, but is instead giving minute-by-minute coverage of the gunman situation and relaying any new information that comes in. Someone who was leaving the building spotted a man entering the complex at a different entrance with what appeared to be some kind of long gun.

We live a half-mile from the place where this is all going on.

I have tons of friends that work in that building.

My wife and I both get on our cell phones and start calling people. We confirm that all of our close friends had also left early for the day. Everyone we know is safe.

Now, let me back up two years... A bank near our house was robbed during the day and the robber fled into our neighborhood. He ends up knocking on our next door neighbors door--presumably to demand sanctuary. No one is home and he ends up hiding in the neighbors bushes where he is found by the police.

Now, I had no intention of injecting myself into the situation, but if the situation were to come to me, I felt the need to be prepared. My wife and I relocated to the basement and took the radio, the 870, and the G17 with us.

No real new information is coming out. At around 5:50, my friend text messages me and says that the local CBS news will have a story at 6:00. At 5:55 he calls me and relays the conclusion to the situation...

At 6:00, the local news confirms what my friend told me. Bloomington police have searched the building and found nothing. The have reviewed the surveillance footage and confirmed that at 4:10 p.m., a custodian entered the building with a 3 foot section of conduit. They have found the custodian in question and verified this.