I heard the sirens wailing out at around two in the afternoon yesterday. It wasn’t an ordinary ambulance or fire department call; much more serious than that. A life time ago I experienced a similar event when I was a store clerk at the mom-and-pop convenience store in West Richland where I lived until 1997.
It felt exactly the same. Two hours and multiple sheriff cars later I saw the news on my app. It wasn’t good and it felt like more of the same. People were shot; a domestic violence incident and lives were lost.
When the event occurred in West Richland, I was just coming on duty, reading the gasoline volumes on the meter along side the pumps. Four police cars came screaming around the corner where the store and the main street called Van Geisen and 38th Street intersected, heading south.
The perp was the estranged husband. The victims were two of her friends, though I doubt it was romantic, but the perp believed otherwise. He shot both, then went outside and took his own life. I knew all the actors. I served them at least once or twice a week as they came to buy cigarettes or beer or fill up their cars’ gas tanks.
Yesterday it was similar in that it was a domestic incident, but the difference is that two sheriffs deputies were seriously injured, both shot by the perp, who killed three others before he too died at the scene. Details are at best sketchy right now.
I actually had another blog idea lined up for today but obviously this became the topic of discussion whether I wanted it or not. So next week I promise to give you my loyal readers something more positive than what I had to report to you this somber day.
