Holy shit.
I just walked into the aftermath of a mass shooting.
I took the dog for a frolic in a park, as is my wont, and on this occasion we chose little Ravenna park, on the northern edge of the University District.
(We didn’t frolic in that kind of fragile area, but in a flat grassy area at the top of the ravine.)
I drove up pretty Ravenna Boulevard toward Green Lake to take the scenic route home, but was stymied by a big roadblock full of people and cop cars and tv trucks with the huge towers. Wussup, I thought, and seeing people wandering around, I parked and let the dog out and wandered around myself. I thought it must be a movie, because of all the media trucks, except it was puzzling that they could afford that many cops. But then we were on a side street a block away from the stopped police cars, heading back to the car, when four cops and a civilian came along, the civilian explaining something about a garage or storage area behind a shop, which he hadn’t been in for several days…Two of the cops had machine guns assault rifles.
Machine guns. Assault rifles.
This is not a movie, I said to myself. I watched what the four did – they went up the alley behind the building in question and stood peering at it. The tallest one tried to see onto the flat roof. I decided to go away then.
So I did, and I turned on the radio, and was informed that someone had shot five people at the Cafe Racer, and was out there somewhere. Two of the people were dead. A third was reported dead while I drove past Green Lake.
This is the Roosevelt-Ravenna neighborhood, just north of the U District. I have friends who live around there.
The people shot were in a band, performing.
This freaks me out.