Last night there was a situation in our neighborhood that resulted in the arrival of copious police cars, SWAT snipers, police dogs, riot gear. The Smyrna Police department will release a statement later today, and I'm waiting for that because right now the four local news channels are reporting it all a little differently. Which is sort of funny, but not so much.
The good news is that the professionals did their jobs with excellence and that there was no loss of life. For that we are thankful.
Here are a few of my observations and questions from last night. (I realize this was a serious and potentially dangerous situation for our neighbors and the police officers. My comments here are not intended to make light of that fact.)
1. When a SWAT sniper bangs on your front door at 9 p.m. while you're watching The Killing on Netflix do you ask for ID? I didn't actually think of it until I was opening the door to the deck and he was already in my house. That's probably too late. Now the SWAT officer is standing in the doorway of the deck with all his gear trying to pull out his ID, which he finally admits is back at his vehicle. He tells us we can call the Smyrna Police Department to verify that he is supposed to be there. We do. He is. They give me his name. I can't remember it. Of course he assumed that we had seen all the police cars and such, but all that was happening on the street behind us. And we were glued to the crime drama on Netflix oblivious to the actual crime drama happening right behind us.
2. Ever wanting to be the gracious hostess, exactly how and when do you offer a beverage to the SWAT guy sprawled on your deck? All we were able to do was eek out "Do you need anything?" from a crack at the sliding glass door to which came the reply, "No. Please stay inside your house." OK. Will do. Just wanted to make sure you weren't thirsty.
3. Can you go to bed with a sniper on your deck? Now, for some of you this is not a question at all. You probably wouldn't have slept even after he left, but since I had already fallen asleep on the couch twice after he arrived (only to be awaken by gunshots--not from our deck by the way), I was seriously thinking about it especially not know how long this was going to be. We finally decided that it would be rude to go to bed with a visitor on the deck, so we stayed up. (Actually going to bed with a sniper on your deck could give a whole new meaning to "safe sex.")
4. What does one say the police sniper when he leaves your house? About 12:15 a.m. after spending 3 hours on our deck, he knocked at the sliding glass door and said that he was being deployed to another house. This fine officer, who just had his rifle trained at our neighbor's windows where we could see movement inside the home, offered to come back and move our deck furniture into place, "if this all resolves well." Michael told he we would take care of it. We thanked him, and he hurried off reminding us to stay inside and away from windows. "Yes, sir. Thank you, sir!" Just over an hour later four shots were fired and the incident ended. Rubber bullets were actually used to disarm the man. We don't know if they were from our sniper or not, but they didn't come from our deck.
5. Apparently, when we are instructed to stay away from windows and move to the front of the house, we can do that with no problem and just continue to watch TV. I did call a couple of neighbors to make sure they were OK since we didn't know exactly what was going on. I'm not sure what that says about me and Michael, but I'm going to go with the "peace like a river" thing. I don't always flow with that river, but we did last night.
6. I keep wanting to make some snarky Smyrna vs. East Nashville remark because of that bumper sticker Daniel loves "East Nashville: Way better than Smyrna." But I can't make it happen. If you come up with something let me know.
Pretty sure I'm going to need an extra cup of coffee and a nap, right after we move the deck furniture back into place.
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