Last week a drama unfolded less than a mile from my home here in the foothills of the northern Cascade range. A 41 year-old man going thru a divorce decided a gun was going to solve his problems. What played out over the next several hours was a microcosm of many issues in this country so I thought I'd share it with you folks.
As is the case these days social media is how we learned something was happening. Who watches the news anymore when folks with police scanners are on FB and Twitter feeding info to umpteen followers? But that's not really an American thing -- social media is world wide. Anyhow, a report came in that police had closed down a nearby street and though details were sketchy a woman was being held at gunpoint. It turns out the details were correct. So there's the first slice of American pie for you -- violence against women, gun violence in fact. And this isn't the first incident in this small town in the past 12 months and might not be the last. Maybe 7,000 people live in the town and the surrounding community and we've had multiple incidents like this (or worse). America!, excuse me, 'Murika!
Next came the escalation of police forces. Remember, there is one man with a handgun and one woman hostage. How many police did that call for? 10? 20? 50? Nope, try over 70 including helicopters and a full SWAT unit to deal with this issue. Militarized police response -- the next slice of American pie. I'm sure when the suspect looked out the window and saw over 70 armed troopers, tactical vehicles, and some robots he calmed right the fuck down... oh, wait, he didn't.
Then came the long hours of waiting, morning turned to noon and noon became afternoon and parents were desperately trying to find their kids because this event occurred on a main road thru the neighborhood and that meant it was closed to most traffic including school buses. But the police waited patiently because, well, you won't need to guess -- the suspect was white. Membership does have it's privileges after all and that's our next slice of American pie -- a white suspect and the police (mostly) behave themselves.
Finally, after several hours the woman was released around 5:30 in the afternoon. Nobody was shot, nothing was burned down, or blown up. The matter looked like it could resolve peacefully with the arrest of the gunman. Well, it could have, but boys and their toys can't be denied and finally around 7:15 the SWAT unit fired flash bangs and tear gas into the house to drive the suspect out. In a final moment of irony the gunman tripped on his own stairs on the way out of the house and shot himself in the chest. He survived. Yeah, that's about American as pie can get.