Sharon's Big Police Chase Adventure

I lived in a really safe town for a really long time.
We had crime there, but it was the stolen bicycle kind of crime.
If you forgot to lock your door at night it was no big deal.

Then we moved away from there and every place I've lived since has been very crime-y.

I have not adapted well to this (<--- really big understatement). 

I also have PTSD so you can imagine that living around crime is not the best thing for my mental health.  Hypervigilance is a symptom of PTSD so I am always on guard to begin with; throw in living in a crime-y climate and I'm like this guy, pretty much 24/7:




Which brings us to yesterday.

It's disgustingly hot and humid here so I decided to run my errands early so I could get home before it became unbearable outside. I had to go to the grocery store and then the health food store. While out, I called JP - who is kind of sick but still went to work - to see if he wanted me to bring him lunch.
He did, so I left the health food store and proceeded to Boston Market.  By the way, did you know you they have a special deal where you can buy 3 sides and a cornbread for like 6 bucks?  Sweet!

Anyway, JP's job at the car dealership is on a highway, four lanes on both sides, north and south. It is a major route around here and driving on it is not for the faint-hearted.  I used to drive in Manhattan on a regular basis and I would rather drive in NYC than on this highway, for real, it's that crazy.

So I get to the dealership and drop off his lunch and then I pull back out onto the highway, where I have to cross all four lanes to make the U-turn to go home on the southbound side of the same highway.  There is a traffic light at the U-turn  and I was stuck at the red light.  When it turned green, I hesitated long enough, as I always do, to make sure no one is still coming and blasting through the red light.  It was clear.

I make the turn and the very next thing that happened is that I am aware of a car passing by me on the drivers side very, very close to my car at a very, very high rate of speed.  The next thing I become aware of is that the car is now spinning in circles right in front of my car where it comes to a stop and I can see lots of body damage on it.  My brain couldn't comprehend what was happening fast enough and I was instantly confused because I thought he hit me or I hit him but I couldn't remember any impact. 

The next thing that happened was that I was suddenly surrounded by very many police cars and the police were now jumping out of their cars with their guns drawn and then there was a police dog and they were kind of running and my brain was trying to sort out what was happening but it all was happening very fast and brains can't keep up under those circumstances.  Then I realized that the speeding car was a criminal and the cops were chasing him and he spun out to a stop in front of my car and if he starts shooting at the police I am in big, big trouble.

So now I am really aware that I am literally right in the middle of an active police scene complete with guns and all I can think is that I should probably get out of there but then I got confused again because I didn't know if I was supposed to move and I didn't want to make the police mad at me.  But self-preservations kicks in when in such situations (who knew?) and I knew I had to get out of there but I can't because there are still cops arriving all around me and if I move one of the might hit me.

Somehow - and I actually do not remember this part - I got out of the middle of the scene and I pulled into a driveway right next to where this was all playing out.  Oddly, I turned my car around so that I was facing the scene (don't remember doing that either), I guess because I was thinking it's better to not have your back to a potential shootout.

The circled car is me, after I somehow got out of the middle of this 

 

 

 

I put the car in park and I suddenly start violently shaking and I can't find my phone so I can call JP - who is directly across the highway from where I am - and when I do find it I drop it three times because I'm shaking so badly.  When he answers I completely lose it and he can't understand me and I'm freaking out and telling him to look outside so he can see all of the police cars and activity.

He looks outside and now he's running out of the dealership while he's on the phone with me trying to figure out what happened and where I am but I'm hyperventilating and kind of hysterical at the same time.  He wants to run across the highway to get to where I am but cops don't usually like when people run into an active crime scene plus people get killed trying to cross this highway seemingly every day so I'm telling him not to try to get to me even though all I want is for him to get to me.

I wanted to get out of there really badly but I thought I was stuck until JP told me how to go behind the building to get out of there.  On my short drive home while still mildly hyperventilating, I thanked God a lot along with every guardian angel that had my back.  I was/am well aware that this could have plated out very differently.  A witness later told everyone at JP's dealership that he had no idea how the criminal missed hitting me.  I shudder to this minute thinking about how fast he was going.

There are several takeaways from all of this.

1. I strongly suggest that you should do everything in your power to not find yourself in the middle of a police chase or active crime scene. 😊

2. I actually don't know if I was supposed to move my car from the middle of it.  We know some cops so I'm going to try to find out the answer to that so that I can pass that info along just in case you do find yourself in the middle of a police chase or active crime scene.  You see them all the time on TV but you never give thought to what you should actually do if you're the person caught up in it.

3. I was desperate to get away from being in the middle of this, but you know what?  Every single cop was running toward it and that's what they do every day to protect us.  I'm sorry for you if you can't respect and appreciate that wholeheartedly. 

4. If your husband is not feeling well while at work and needs a meal, just use one of those meal delivery services. Ha.

After I took a nap yesterday afternoon, I woke up feeling more calm and, oddly, resolute: I woke up knowing my time living around this area is now limited.  See, police chases and the like are not rare around here and when you live in a place where that kind of thing is commonplace, it's time to reevaluate the value your put on your quality of life.  Who's going to argue with that?  No one.

Of course police chases can happen anywhere.  I watch Live PD and COPs, I know this.  But they shouldn't happen a lot in one place and if they do, you might want to re-think your place of residence.  Yesterday's event happened at lunchtime and by dinnertime I knew that I was done living around here. I told it to JP very matter-of-factly.  He didn't argue.

I don't have a timeframe just yet but you can bet that I'll be working on it.

I need different kinds of adventures than the one I had yesterday.