Bang! You're dead.

[Flyvåpnet]

A couple of hours ago, there was a shooting just across the street from my apartment.  Cat Blue and I heard the shots, of which there were several.  Although I didn't see what happened, I immediately telephoned emergency services and within several minutes the scene looked like this:

Please click on the image to view its full size.

It's the first time I've seen all four lanes of Southeast Powell Boulevard, one of the city's busiest streets, closed.  That building across the street, where the police cars are parked in the photograph, has a bar and grill on the ground floor; and it's been something of a low-life place ever since it opened several years ago.  Why the city decided this neighborhood needed two bars in the same block remains a mystery.  The bar just across Southeast 66th Avenue from me — the supposed "Neighborhood Pub" with the "Gator's Bar & Grill sign" over the door — has had its moments too, but at least it's never been the scene of a shooting.

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[Captn' Red]

Aww man -.-

Sigh.

[0235]

aww, well looks like im not the only person to live near a shooting (though it was just someone shooting an air rifle at a police officer).
its some scary stuff when you realise just what went on so close to you, but seeing the response, it should be fine, hell, i dont think there are that many police cars in the town i live in!

[Flyvåpnet]

Thanks, Red and 0235, for your empathy.  I still don't know what went on over there, as there's nothing about it on Web.  Of course, had this happened downtown or over on Portland's west side (where the more well-to-do people live) there'd be plenty of reports to read; but the local-yokel corporate mainstream media of communication don't give a shit about shootings in working-class southeast Portland.



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[0235]

yeah. where i live happens to be the nicest place in the town, so i think it even got onto regional news (sort of like state news i guess), and as a lways the media hyped it up so much, throwing in the odd "lest blame it on everything but bad parenting".

i think its a shame that they dont tell you what happened, at least have someone drop an explination through the door.

[Kov]

I've only ever heard gunshots when I've shot an air rifle, an awesome little handgun and a shotgun myself.

I can't even think of how I'd feel if I heard a gunshot from somewhere in the neighbourhood.

[kaznokrad]

I'm glad nothing happened to you, Fly. Hopefully, given the police response, this type of behavior will become a thing of the past, but when you mix idiots and alcohol you never know what will happen.

The wife and I just moved from downtown to the outskirts of Portland (not the one in Oregon, though, the one in Maine) and it has been a welcomed change. No more meth addicts parking in our driveway to shoot up, no one yelling obscenities or letting their car alarm go on for all hours of the night. Also, no one to break into my wife's car by throwing a brick through her window... Still can't believe we didn't hear that happen. I do miss being able to walk to all the cool businesses downtown, but we have a bigger space now (an actual house and not an apartment) and the neighborhood is a lot nicer.

Is it possible for you to move, or are you pretty much stuck where you are?

[Flyvåpnet]

Thanks, folks, for your expressions of concern.  I really appreciate it!  Well, I'm still unable to find out what went on — via the Web, anyway.  I'll probably end up telephoning the relevant police precinct and hoping they'll be able to shine some light on that incident.



Kaznokrad, I'm very glad to learn you and your wife have moved to a (shall we say) quieter neighborhood.  It's nice, isn't it?  I've lived here for nearly eleven years now; and I've gotten quite used to this location as well as my apartment, so I don't want to move.  Only some legal dictate will get me out of here:  the Republican fascists at Washington approving legislation which cuts back on what the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development allocates for subsidized housing; or the Housing Authority of Portland deciding to do something along similar lines; or that same group of Republican fascists at Washington approving legislation cutting back on the amount of pension money one receives from the Social Security Administration; or the landlord deciding to sell this building to an entity which wants to tear it down and make way for another bar; and so forth and so on.

Any and all of those things could happen; and I'd receive a last-minute notice in the mail from some entity dictating that I've 30 days to move out.  One never knows.  All I've got going for me is the fact I'm elderly and am a military-combat veteran; that, plus the helpful existence of Northwest Pilot Projects — a worthy organization which assists low-income people who are required to relocate.  The absurdly-high "deposits" demanded by landlords are quite beyond the means of low-income people like me; but, as they did for me eleven years ago, Northwest Pilot Projects can step in and foot the entire bill.



Anyway ... things hereabouts are much quieter these past few years, but during my first five years here (give or take) there was a lot of bullshit to contend with:  drunkenness, gang activity, illegal-drug sales, noise at all hours, prostitution, etc.  I fought back, via the Portland Police Bureau and even the mayor's office; and it worked, eventually.  The high point for me was when my correspondence with the mayor resulted in a squad of heavily-armed police showing up and lowering the boom on those drugs-and-prostitution folks.  The property-management corporation which does the landlord's dirty work for him finally got the message:  no more renting to ex-convicts.



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[Tragic]

I see you live in a neighborhood like mine...

My current next door neighbors have been in some trouble as well. Apparently two years ago, the father of the family was arrested for selling guns to gangs in the area. SWAT teams and stuff were all here and they removed a bunch of automatic weapons and semi-automatics from the house. >__>

Nevertheless, they still live next door, and I don't ever talk to them. xD

[Flyvåpnet]

Tragic, did I mention my apartment is right on a major bus route?  Since I haven't a car, this is a good thing.  See?  It's nothing but perks all the way to the horizon....



Or not.  But yeah, I can relate to your situation regarding the Loser Family next door.  Ain't landlords just grand?  (I'm assuming those folks are renting.)  In the apartment just across the landing from me, for about nine months some years ago, an inner-city gang operated its command center.  Mind, my neighborhood is far from the inner city; but that gang wanted to expand its territory and thought this was a good location for doing so.  Wrong!  Dozens of telephone calls to the police, nearly all of which resulted in police officers showing up, plus my pestering of the property-management corporation finally resulted in the scumbags being evicted.



I blame landlords for all these kinds of problems, because they're the ones who write the laws pertaining to themselves; yet they whine about how they can't do this or that because of those very same laws.  Right.  My reaction is, "Go tell it to the chaplain, because I don't believe a word you say."  Of course, those are merely my thoughts on the matter.  Were I to actually speak or write those words to a landlord, I'd be on the street within 72 hours.



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[Tragic]

Yeah, they are renting. For some reason, they were supposed to move out, but the current landlord gave them another chance or something. 'Twas a sad day. I was hoping that they would move. xD

[CapeBarnes]

Sorry that i didn't reply sooner, but I'm glad to know that you are safe, Fly 

I used to live in a more dangerous (at the time) part of San Jose. When someone got shot and killed at my sister's school, mom moved us away.

Spoiler for Hiden:

(On an unrelated note, Fly, would it help you if I typed in a bigger font? Just curious.)

[Flyvåpnet]

I'm glad your mother had the wisdom to move everybody to a different location, CapeBarnes, in the aftermath of that shooting.  Shootings are signals indicating low-life scumbags are attempting to take over the neighborhood, or have done so already.



Regarding that "hidden" matter, thanks for your concern but I can read the type here just fine.  It's those damned tiny subtitles on newer feature films that I can't read; and that's only if I try viewing them properly, via my television receiver from the comfort of the living-room lounge chair.  Older subtitled films are no problem, since their subtitles are of a proper size.  Viewing these recent tiny-subtitles films via the computing system presents no reading problems, since I'm right on top of the screen, but that in itself presents eye-strain problems of another sort.



Tragic, that idiot landlord of yours needs some re-education.  When somebody's selling illegal drugs and keeping automatic weapons, no second chance should be given.  What, a second chance to break more laws and endanger more lives?  Landlords, as a class, are nothing but shitbags.



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[kaznokrad]

Landlords, as a class, are nothing but shitbags.

I agree wholeheartedly.

Our last landlord told us we'd be able to use the basement for storage when we moved in. Then my wife cleaned out the entire thing (it was full of X-mas decorations from the '70s) and the next day the management company came by and put a padlock on the door, claiming they never said we could use the basement because we might "leave all our stuff there." Okaaaay, and clearly that wasn't a problem for you with the previous tenant whose shit we just cleaned out. We fought back, telling them the fusebox and the water heater were down there so they couldn't lock us out. "Okay," they said, "we'll unlock the basement as long as you move your stuff out of it, then you'll have access to the fusebox and water heater." So they unlocked it the next day, we took all our stuff out, and the next day I was leaving for work and notice they'd locked the door on us again. THOSE FUCKERS! So, we had to borrow my father-in-law's bolt cutters to get access to our damned basement. they tried several more times to lock it, but we just cut the damn lock every time.

That's not to mention their continuously shoddy repair work they would do. We finally decided to move out when we told them we had found toxic mold in our apartment and their reply was "It's not toxic mold." HOW THE FUCK WOULD YOU KNOW!? YOU HAVEN'T EVEN SEEN IT! We put up a stink, threatening to call the local housing authority if action wasn't taken, so what did they do? They sent over a guy who paints ONE of the affected closet walls. Wow, way to make me feel safer, just cover up a potentially deadly problem.

Landlords are the scum of the Earth.

[Flyvåpnet]

"Amen!" to that, Kaznokrad.  What you describe is exactly the sort of thing property-management corporations are infamous for:  treating paying customers as workers in their employ.  Of course, this is due to the whole landlord-as-boss mentality which has been foisted upon citizenries for millennia.  Why do we stand for it?  Any entity accepting your money is your employee, not the other way around; yet nothing is done to rectify the written-in-stone absurdities of law which (of course) are devised by corporations and landlords, not by citizens at large.



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