Talk about exciting!

Zadie and I went to the shopping center by our house to buy a lottery ticket (blame Sweetie) and get an ice cream cone each. I finished mine and decided we would walk home while Zadie finished hers. Just as we were leaving the parking lot, Zadie said "siren." I said, "Oh you hear sirens? Mama hears them too. Do you also hear the helicopter?"

I wasn't really thinking anything was amiss, even as the sirens got closer and closer. Sirens go down Folsom Boulevard by our house all the time. And there's a freeway very nearby -- helicopters circle that regularly. So even as they got almost to us, I still thought nothing of it.

But then I heard an engine running curiously high. I looked behind me and saw a sporty blue Ford going about 80 down the street towards us. I pulled Zadie's stroller up onto the lawn we were next to on instinct, then watched as the Ford tried to turn the corner in front of us. And failed. We heard a huge crash, and almost instantly, about twenty cop cars pulled up, slammed on the brakes, and cops started getting out and running into people's backyards. I saw a K9 unit get the dog out. Then nothing much happened for a few minutes. I thought it might be safe to get a little closer.

Then every cop on the street shouldered a shotgun. I backed off two houses and got behind a car. More cops came, including two undercovers and two more K9s. From where we were, we couldn't figure out what was going on. After everything seemed to die down a bit, I finally went the long way around back to our house.

I checked back in with Sweetie, who had just come from the other side of the scene, and decided to check it out from there, too. From there, I saw what had happened -- the car had crashed into a house. Luckily, the owner wasn't home. My neighbor is friends with him and said he frequently sits on the porch and has a glass of wine.

I also found out (all hearsay) that they took the guy away in an ambulance with his leg all bound up, that the police found a big bag of money, and that he initially jumped one fence, only to find that in the backyard was a cinderblock noise wall about twelve feet high. So he jumped the fence into the neighbors' backyard and ran into their house. The people inside ran out front and yelled "he's in here, he's in here!" That's where the police got him. The suspicion is that his leg wound was from the K9 unit.

One funny-ish thing was that I was watching as the people in the house next to the corner (the one the guy went into) were getting a Schwan's delivery (groceries). They were talking to the Schwan's guy when the Ford came roaring around the corner and the Schwan's guy got out of the way FAST.

Another funny-ish thing was the woman who pulled up after a few minutes. She got out of her car and started marching toward the scene. Someone asked what she was doing, and she said "he almost hit me on Watt Avenue* and I followed the chase all the way here!" We asked why. She said "Because I'm pissed! And I'm nosy!" and she kept marching.

Two news cameras showed up after a few minutes, but I don't think anyone realized I was an eyewitness, so I just hung back and didn't say anything. Almost everyone else had just wandered over after hearing the commotion. I thought about talking to the cops, but I didn't think I had anything useful to add. "You were chasing him, and he crashed!" I mean, duh.

So that was our big adventure tonight.