The Wild Wild West: University Place Style

I've always felt safe in my quaint little neighborhood of University Place. I've lived in the same house throughout my life and watched the city grow up around me. It's normally a quiet, uneventful place to live (which is a good thing!). I go running alone at night and always have to watch my speed so that the cop that seems to be on every street won't pull me over. My friends who live in the more "seedy" end of Tacoma laugh at me when I'm paranoid in their ends of town. But still, in our fallen world you are going to find crime anywhere and we've had our own bits of excitement through the years--a memorable one being when a drunk guy knocked down the front door and Ben wrestled with him (you'll have to ask Ben about it for more details). Last Sunday was another memorable night in U.P.

It was about 9:30 on Sunday evening and Dad, Mom, and I were relaxing in the living room when I heard some screaming outside. This was not ordinary screaming and in fact at first I thought it must've been a child. When I looked outside, I saw a hysterical lady walking in the middle of the intersection and then realized that she was frantically trying to break up a fight between a couple of guys. They were not paying much attention to her (or the cars that kept swerving to miss them since they were in the middle of the 4 lane road!), and they looked so angry. They kept sizing each other up and then throwing punches and then almost getting hit by cars. It was crazy and it made no sense! Dad called the cops and they had already had a call from someone else but were still not there. Then one of the guys went back to his car which was still in the middle of the road and pulled out a gun. At this point we stopped watching to get away from the windows and Dad called the cops again because there were 2 shots fired. Pretty soon after this they all jetted and I don't think the police ever even showed up. It was such a sad thing to watch and see how angry these men were in order to want to kill each other in their rage. The worst part was seeing the helpless lady and only being able to pray for her and not do anything to help her physically at that time. Mom and I were pretty shaken up after this--I cried some when the guy pulled out the gun, not because I was scared for my own life but because it was unbelievable to be watching it.

So go forward 3 days and the excitement is continued! My dear Paige called me up because she was in Tacoma, so we decided to go for a walk down at Chamber's Bay with her boys: Gunnar and Rowen. It was such a beautiful January day so it was great to walk and talk by the water along with a lot of other UPers who were enjoying the day. BUT when we returned to Paige's car which was parked in plain site, we found that her back window had been broken and her diaper bag stolen! It was so sad! I'm really not sure how they got away with it because there are lots of people around there. But, I hope those kids are loving the diapers and Babies R Us gift card they stole. Thankfully, Paige didn't have any cash or credit cards in there, so the biggest hassle was just canceling her debit card, and now she needs to replace her license, diaper bag, and car window. I called the police while she talked to her bank (who said they'd already tried to charge something on her debit card) and then I put a pull-up on 4 month old Rowen since that was all that we had to work with. Possibly the only cool thing from all this? I got to ask the cop about what happened on Sunday night and he was able to tell me a little more about it. Apparently it was just some serious Road Rage. The guy with the gun was military and is going to be in big trouble with them. He called himself in later because he thought he had killed the other guy--whom he totally missed. The other guy was just minding his own business but decided to get out when the military guy flashed his gun (stupid!). Apparently the lady was pregnant. I think she was with the guy who didn't have a gun. They were from Tacoma and Tillicum so hopefully they won't be driving through here again anytime soon.

So those are my adventures from the week. You can pray that Paige's things are returned to her--she has had a good attitude about it: they are just "things," but it sure would be nice to have her bag, wallet, and license back.