NOTE: The following events took place in 2011 in the Mission District of San Francisco. With big-city crime becoming such a political hot button again, and Trump sending the National Guard into our cities, it’s worth remembering that each violet crime is a tragedy — for everyone involved.
***
August 31, 2011
Life & Death
Last night, after I had dropped my kids off at their Mom's and parked my car and walked home, something awful happened.
I was writing, as usual, in the front room of my apartment when I heard five gun blasts from a pistol right out front. The blasts were so loud, I knew they were from a serious weapon, probably a 45 caliber.
The explosions set off the automated alarm at the corner store. As I ran out front to see what had happened I first glanced left, toward the store, because of the alarm. Not long before, one of my kids had walked there to buy some treats for himself and his siblings, as all three of them have done countless times over the years.
As I watched, a neighbor from across the street who works at the store ran out of his front door and headed there on the run.
But then I looked right. And there on the sidewalk lay a man face down. I immediately dialed 911, and told the operator that a man has been shot, please get here fast, come right away, it's bad, really bad.
As she took down my name and address, I saw his body heave its final sigh and collapse into an awful flatness.
"He's dead!" I screamed.
Within seconds, the first responders arrived. I watched as they tried to revive the man. Meanwhile, another neighbor, a young man, distraught and hysterical, ran up and down the street yelling: "No! Oh no!"
Yet another neighbor, much older, with hair as white as mine, also was on the scene, and looked disoriented and very disturbed. He approached the body as the emergency workers tried to revive it and had to be told to back away.
Soon the area was covered in cops, firemen, all sorts of responders. A woman ran out of her house nearby and screamed "He is my son. Can you save him? CAN YOU SAVE HIM?!" She had to be restrained, sobbing and wailing into the night, one of the most awful sounds I have ever heard.
As I watched, they gave up and laid a piece of plastic over the man’s body. Then the crying spread as other family members rushed to the street and realized what had happened.
The dead man had been walking his dog. Over the years, I got to know him due to his friendly manner. He was a striking figure -- tall, lean, black, with a fancy hat and the kind of attitude that revealed a sense of humor and an ability to connect with others around him.
He always had a knowing smile, a greeting, a certain way of connecting. "How are the kids?" He'd ask. "They're gettin' big."
He made me feel oriented, in that way, recognized as a part of the neighborhood.
Today, I went down to his relatives' houses, took off my baseball cap and held it over my heart, and told them how sorry I was that he has died.
Tonight, a memorial is growing outside of my front window. There are many candles, flowers, and lots of empty beer and liquor bottles. I don't understand the empty bottle gestures but pretty clearly all the men around here are getting drunk, and I fear there may soon be more incidents.
There also have been many people gathering here all day long. And reporters and photographers and undercover police, perhaps thinking that the killers may revisit the scene.
I've read the press reports and talked to the neighbors. I know what the conventional wisdom is. He was a drug dealer — marijuana, perhaps others. He had some problems at home. He was supposedly affiliated with one of the gangs that fight over territory around here, the Norteños and the Sureños.
But I also know he was a friendly man in what at times can seem like a pretty unfriendly place, a place that can be lonely and alienating and scary at times, but the place I also call home.
And I'm going to miss him.
END NOTE: So far as I know, no one was ever charged for this murder. Some people said they saw two teenaged boys running from the scene.
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