OT: Scarey story

[Guest guest]

I just needed to vent, my husband called me with this story.

This morning Jim (Sour Mouse) was exiting the city building where his offices

are to go out to the field where he does his job enforcing city code when he

was confronted by a woman carrying a huge backpack who asked him, " Excuse me,

do you work in this building? "

He replied yes.

" Good, " she said in a calm manner, " Do you know Harold? Because I am going

to KILL him! " she stated in a threatening manner.

At that, she started waving around something he surmised was a gun in a

pancake holster, and took off back to the building.

He attempted to raise someone on his radio, but apparently nobody heard him,

so he ran back into the building. Going straight to his supervisor, he

interrupted him in a meeting and he called the PD. They were there within a

minute and surrounded the building as they looked for the woman and her

accomplice, (he didn't know about).

On the phone with a police dispatcher, he reported what another coworker was

observing, as he was instructed to stay in a secured location. The coworker

reported she had heard shots fired and a struggle.

Jim asked her " How many? "

She replied " One. "

" How do you know they were shots? "

" I don't know, I heard a BANG and it sounded like shots, " she told him,

agitated.

Relaying the message to the PD dispatcher, he then listened to what the

dispatcher was getting from the officers.

" Code four, suspects in custody, " she returned. " No shots were fired. "

***********

The police officer told him she would have thought that was a gun also, and

he did the right thing not giving into his impulse to take her down

physically when he didn't know for sure.

It turns out they are transients that have been threatening people around the

city for the last few months, but this murder threat was the most they had

done up till this point. There was no way he could have known this, and the

woman was clean, sober, and appeared to have complete control of her

faculties. He had eye contact with her, and she was very calm.

He was wearing his LAPD SWAT jacket, (it's a black bomber, with gold LAPD

swat logo as a chest patch) that a SWAT member had given him a couple of

years ago when he was at Sony. He loves that jacket. Good thing she didn't

read that, because he is unarmed.

Who knew what was in that backpack? Who knew her real motive?

He's been there less than a month! They aren't paying him enough.

Barb-who hasn't stopped shaking, but he's okay.