Oh What A Night

Working overnights as I do means that when our overnight desk guy, Russ, takes a week or even a day or two off, they never replace him. So, usually no one is on the desk overnights until at least four a.m. I usually take it on myself to sit at the desk and listen to the scanners. It's not my job. It's not my jurisdiction (different union) but I feel like I need to because I can't stand the fact that we might be missing something.

So as I'm sitting on the desk last night, I hear a call for a house fire. I tell our E.P. that I'm heading out to it because it's a worker. This means that our E.P will have to keep an ear out on the scanners and produce the five a.m. show also.

So I head to the fire.



While here, I find that the fire is a garage on fire. No big deal. Then my phone rings. It's our E.P. calling to tell me that he heard an officer calling "SHOTS FIRED..SHOTS FIRED...MAN DOWN!!!" He tells me it's at E.71st and Mound. That is south from where I'm at and a good ways away. Still in the city of Cleveland though so, off I head.

I arrive at Mound Ave.



To find.....nothing. No activity whatsoever. I drive all around the area looking for anything and don't see a blessed thing. I call back and talk to my E.P. telling him I don't see anything. I ask him if he heard it right and he screams at me...."I KNOW WHAT I HEARD!!" So, I drive around the area some more. I've spent about 15 minutes looking so I call him back again. This time he says he'll call the police and find out.

Then he calls me back twenty minutes later and says, "Ok..E.71st and Superior." So I head there.



Notice where it is? If you need to, go back and look at the first pic. I'll wait.......

Ok, back? It turns out it was E.71st and Myron, not Mound as I was first told. See how close I was to the shooting when I was at the fire? I was at least six blocks or less. And now I was about 45 minutes behind the action.

It turned out to be a good story. A car with some bad guys chase another car, firing at it with an automatic weapon. The bad guys take a turn onto E.71st from Superior and hit a cargo van head on. The bad guys back up and speed off. The car that was shot at turns the same corner and stops in front of the van. Two guys fall out of the car. One is wounded in the head and another is shot in the chest. A cop is coming down E.71st and sees the car shot to hell and the guys laying in the street bleeding profusely.

I just hate being sent on wild goose chases. I didn't miss the story but I could have been there to get the victims and the scene when it was hot.

I was that close. Oh well.