"Tacoma's not so dangerous..."

Some of you got a text from me about this tonight.

OK, those of you who are familiar with the Seattle area know that Tacoma is known for being a "rougher" area, particularly in certain parts. A few weeks ago, attending the Puyallup Fair, we passed through Tacoma and were kind of joking about the scariness of certain areas. I don't remember for sure who said it, but someone said, "It's not that bad." I even remember thinking it probably wasn't as bad as we make it out to be.

But on our way home from the fair, while driving down a wide street, a woman came running out into the street waving her arms in a clearly agitated way. As we got closer, the friend driving the car started to slow down, and a couple of us (myself included) insisted, "No, keep going. Just keep driving around her and don't slow down!" The look in her eyes was more wild than troubled, and I didn't trust her body language, almost angrily waving her arms at us yelling, "Stop! Stop!" as if we weren't allowed down this road, and she was in charge of keeping us out. We may be calloused and hardened by past experiences, but this just didn't seem right. As we passed her, I could see in her eyes that she definitely seemed...like she was on something. A couple of friends in the car were worried she might really have been in trouble, so we tried calling the local police just to report a woman running into the street endangering herself and others, potentially in trouble of some sort, and we circled back around after stopping briefly a couple of blocks away. Well, none of us could get a hold of the police, and she was gone when we returned. No tragic news stories that we knew of, so we figure she was on something and we'd done the right thing in not stopping. It was no huge thing, just typical city stuff you can run into anywhere, and we went on joking about Tacoma's reputation.

Tonight, a few friends and I ate at The Ram along Tacoma's waterfront. Apparently a decent neighborhood, it was also a beautiful spot to look out over the peaceful water at night. As we exited, one of the employees looked somewhat stressed as he re-entered and asked if we were parked to the right. We said no, our cars were all to the left. He said OK and let us out, suggesting we stay out of the righthand area of the lot. Meanwhile, some guy came walking up to the entrance and said, "I'd stay away from that area to the right; there's an altercation over there." Naturally, we were curious, so we looked over to find a couple of police officers a couple of dozen yards away, just arrived, standing behind their car doors, one shining a light and another raising a rifle of some sort towards the back part of the lot. Another officer was quietly walking around the side of the building. The restaurant staff were looking increasingly agitated. We couldn't tell exactly what was happening but decided it was best to not investigate too much and to get to our cars, which were really close, and lock the doors ASAP, so we did.

As I looked out from the car window towards the scene, I saw someone in the shadows and said, "I think they're talking to a man under that tree." Meanwhile, someone who shall go unnamed got out of the car and went back into the restaurant. The rest of us said, "What the...what's he doing?!" Turns out he had forgotten his leftovers. Ha, he admits that in hindsight, he probably should have left the leftovers.

I reported to my friends, "...yeah, he's right over there in the shadows...and he's waving something around in his hand...it does look kind of like a gun...that could definitely be a gun." At this point, I'm thinking, "OK, if he goes berserk, we're definitely in range. Not comfortable." I lowered myself in my seat and tried to keep the frame of the car between me and him while peeking around it as another police car drove up and parked, and the officers got out, opened the trunk, and raised rifles towards the man. Now they were between us and him. By this time, everyone was back in the car, and we'd called each other in our different cars to figure out where we were going and who was following whom to stay together. The man had now left the shade of the tree and was right in the parking lot area around the corner of the building from us, still in view. He seemed relatively casual but clearly defiant, waving his hand around. I said to my friends in the car, "Yep, that's a gun. He's waving around a handgun, and they're keeping their weapons pointed at him."

It all seemed a bit surreal. I thought, "If he points that thing at anyone, we know what's going to happen." Having coordinated ourselves, we all started pulling out of our parking spaces as more officers arrived, firearms drawn and ready, moving around the backs of our cars towards the scene. As the scene became palpably more intense, we had started driving towards the parking lot exit when we heard the loud, rapid-succession burst of gunfire. I turned back around towards the scene, and sure enough, the police had opened fire, and the man was no longer standing there. As we rounded a corner, we could see the police officers closing in around a spot on the ground with their weapons still aimed, now downward...he was down.

It was one of those moments you just don't know quite how to react to. Oh @#$%, that was gunfire right behind us. Who knows if there'll be more? Get out. Get away. Wow, I think we just saw a man gunned down. He probably didn't survive that. We could've been shot. Wow, you don't see that every day. That's Tacoma, for ya. Ha, what an experience. Man, it's times like this I wish my Facebook account were active...I'll just text a bunch of people instead. Wait, is it appropriate to laugh? Some guy probably just died. Or did they just take him down? Nah, with that many rounds fired? No way that wasn't lethal. There were a lot of cops, and that was a lot of rounds. This could've happened anywhere. Glad we got out of the lot before all of these police passing us going the other way with sirens blaring get there and tape it off. Maybe the restaurant shouldn't have let anyone out. But how could they know? What if the guy had opened fire on us as we walked to our cars? Would the one or two police officers have been able to stop him before one of us was hit? Did the man intend to commit suicide by getting them to open fire? Were there others with him we didn't know about, hiding in the parking lot? Those had better be some good leftovers. I wonder if he has relatives and how some people's lives just changed. Probably no good to think about that too much. But I don't want to be calloused either. I wonder how this will be reported in the news, or whether it's even news-worthy.

Some in our group were rattled for a while, others less so. I had felt more cautiously fascinated by the scene and how it might play out than shaken or fearful. We talked about how crazy it was to have been there right when it all happened so quickly. We quipped about never hanging out in Tacoma again or letting you-know-who pick the restaurant. I mean, what's appropriate, as far as responses go? Nothing. But I'll tell you this much: Tacoma's not exactly winning a lot of points with me so far.




Find news stories on the incident here and here.


Update: In the KIRO news story video clip, the reporter is positioned similarly to where we were, but we were just a bit further away to the reporter's left. The red tree you see in the background is the one the man was under when I first saw him. I wouldn't have been able to see the green one farther back from our angle.