The receiving clerk at our store, Peggy, is also an official city of Seattle crossing guard. She patrols a corner in North Seattle that you may hear about on the news today (if you watch Seattle TV), or read about in The Seattle Times.
Anyway, this morning she was on the corner, in full crossing guard uniform (which bears a strong resemblance to a police uniform) when she noticed an "agitated" man coming up the street. He spotted her from the other side of the street, then crossed on her crosswalk. As he approached her, he put his hand in his pocket and said "I have a gun!"
Peggy is not stupid. She slowly raised her hands, and said, "Ok." The guy moved a little closer to her and repeated, "I have a gun!" Peggy didn't move, but she told me she thought it was the end when the man abruptly pulled his hand out of his pocket. Fortunately, all he had was a note. He told her to give it to the police, and tell them that he was going to kill them all. He set the note down on the sidewalk and walked away.
Stunned, Peggy wondered if she should call the police. She watched the man walk down the sidewalk for a moment, then pulled out her cellphone when the man walked into the middle of the street and stood there. A red car drove up and stopped, and the driver rolled down his window to ask the man if he needed help. Peggy, now talking to the 911 operator, watched as the driver of the car quickly got out and the agitated man got into the car (Peggy later learned that the driver had also gotten the "I have a gun" routine, and had been told to get out of the car or die). The former driver walked over to Peggy, and the man in the car started yelling. He wanted the keys to the car. They were on the driver's seat, and he found them a moment later, then roared off in the car, hitting several parked cars along the way. He was out of sight in moments.
I knew none of this when I got to work this morning. It had happened well before I got there. I was told that Peggy would be late because she was talking to police about the carjacking ("HUH?" I said, "We'll fill you in later," was the answer), and that was all the detail I had when I was left alone in the store for a few minutes shortly after we'd opened.
In walked a guy, kinda handsome, I said hello like I always do to customers entering the store, he said hello back and smiled. Another person, carrying a TV camera, came in behind him. I was slightly taken aback as the first guy introduced himself as Glenn Farley from KING 5 news. He wanted to know if Peggy was around. I told him all I knew, that she'd gone to the precinct to talk with the police about it. He gave me his card, and asked that I have Peggy call him when she got in. He and the cameraman left, got into their nondescript white van and drove off. And up drove a big white KIRO TV van. In walks a woman, and I said before she could get all the way in "She isn't here. They took her to the police station to give a statement." The woman, who identified herself as Alison Starling, KIRO 7 news, gave me her card and asked me to have Peggy call her. "She must be traumatized!" the woman said to me. I almost said, "You don't know Peggy." I wish I had. It might have saved Peggy some annoyance later.
In any case, I sat there with the two cards wondering what the heck was going on until the manager came back. We called Peggy's house to let her know what was happening, and she went ahead and called the reporters. She hoped that by agreeing to be interviewed, she might be able to get a word in for the plight of the crossing guards in Seattle (whose budget has been slashed). So she arrived at work in full uniform and got a couple of interviews in before I even left to come home. She said she liked Glenn, but the KIRO woman was a little too concerned with Peggy's emotional state for her liking.
In the meantime, I managed to find out the rest of the story from customers who came in, curious about all the reporters wandering the store. After leaving Peggy and the car owner, the agitated man drove to the freeway, hitting several cars along the way. Once on the freeway, he was captured in a fairly dramatic crash that was caught on videotape. The video doesn't work on my machines, but you can see it at KING5, KOMO TV or at KIRO TV.
0 comments:
Post a Comment