It’s always a bit disconcerting when you come home and see a street in your quiet neighborhood blocked off with fire trucks, police cars and crime scene tape. That’s what Noah saw as he rounded a turn headed to our house yesterday afternoon. I happened to be on the phone with him at the time and he noted that the incident was by our friends’ house and wondered if we should be concerned. I explained that our friends were at work, so as long as their house was not aflame, probably not, but they do have elderly neighbors. I was thinking that it was probably a medical emergency and hopefully not a murder. No one wants a murder in their neighborhood.
I told Noah that I was going to pull off the road and check Twitter to see if there were any news stories posted that could offer an explanation (It’s a small town, even the most mundane events make news). Whilst I was parked on the dirt shoulder/hillside of a semi-rural road, with my hazards flashing, a cop pulled up behind me. I didn’t even notice him until I caught his reflection in my side mirror as he approached my door. I rolled down the window, greeted the Man in Blue and told him that I was merely checking my phone, when he asked if everything was alright. The police officer beamed and told me I am “awesome” for pulling over to check my phone. That I am “the one person” who actually does that. He stated again that he wanted to ensure I was not broken down; I reiterated that I was just checking my phone and all was well. He again told me I was “awesome” and thanked me for pulling over. Once he left, Logan realized it was a police man and then wanted to me to follow the patrol car so he could see the flashing lights (of which there were none). May that be a lesson to you, not only is it safe to check your phone whilst parked, but you may make a policeman’s day and be told repeatedly just how “awesome” you are. 🙂
Fast forward 10 minutes, it’s my turn to drive through our neighborhood. I decided to take a slight detour to be a subtle lookey-loo with all the police activity. I did not get to see much as driving between two firetrucks made the road narrow and there was an oncoming vehicle. However, what I did see directly across the street from my friend’s house was a bomb squad truck (which, at first glance I thought was a CSI vehicle), two men in bomb-protection clothing, and the bomb-detonation robot. Okay…NOT a medical emergency! I drove around the block to get a view from the other side of the closed off section of road, but was stopped by a policeman before I could turn out of the way onto another cross street. He informed me that, although I was not trying to get to the area that was closed off he needed me to turn around because he didn’t want me close to the “corner” when the bomb squad worked. I asked him what was going on and he said that the bomb squad was going to detonate a suspicious package. At that point I had no choice but to make a U-turn, wave at the friendly policeman and head the the 1-1/2 blocks home.
At that point I scoured Twitter for information and tweeted to local news agencies. My curiosity peaked more than anything. My nextdoor neighbor thought it was a meth lab bust until I told him what the police officer informed me. I’ll take the suspicious package over a meth lab or murder (I want our house value to increase). By the time I headed to the gym 15 minutes later all but a couple of police cars were left. I never heard a boom from the detonation. By the time our friend returned home, everyone was gone and you could not even tell an event had occurred.
Finally around 7:30 last night, a local newspaper reporter tweeted back to me, stating he was waiting for a call back from the police department (and then responded that he had found out what was amiss). He asked me if I wanted to tell him what I saw, but I didn’t see anything useful and he never called me. No big loss there.
Noah and I never expected the suspicious package to be an actual bomb, although there have been a couple of instances in recent years (2010, 2012) in our town. Noah even joked that someone probably had just set out their recyclables a day early. Turns out, the suspicious package was a unexpected, oddly wrapped, gift from a homeowner’s friend that was placed in their mailbox (full details here). Noah then quipped that this is what happens when the mail comes early (our mail typically arrives after 5:00 p.m. and the incident occured around 2:30 p.m.). I guess with all of the domestic terrorism of late, especially in CO, people are a bit on-edge and unnerved. Better safe than sorry, however.
In light of the 2012 bomb incident, the city started making use of a social networking site called “Nextdoor”, where news stories specific to your subdivision are posted and neighbors can community with each other on neighborhood issues. You’d think the city would send an a civic alert through this media, or perhaps texts. Guess not. One neighbor, other than myself, did comment on the site about the incident. Oh well, at least it was all a big misunderstanding and not something more serious.
