Gut Check Time

OK, i know, i promised i was going to post about revolvers. I will, i will.

There were a couple of, uh, incidents this weekend that made me really want to do a gut-check on why firearms are a good thing. Here is the first one, which happened Friday night:

Police sergeant stabbed in attack outside restaurant
One suspect in jail; another still sought
From Staff Reports

A Spokane police sergeant was stabbed in the face late Friday, and later two officers investigating the attack were injured in a hit-and-run accident.

One suspect in the stabbing is in custody on a felony assault charge and another, described as a transient, is still at large.

Spokane County Sheriff's Department major crimes detectives are investigating the attack in downtown Spokane.

Sgt. Brad Thoma was stabbed in the jaw outside the Steam Plant Grill about 10 p.m. Thoma was taken to a nearby hospital, where he received stitches and was released.

In a news release this morning, detectives reported how both the assault and hit-and-run unfolded:

Thoma, Spokane police Officer Amy Ross and a civilian female friend were leaving the Steam Plant Grill. They had split up and were getting their individual vehicles from the parking area.

As Ross was pulling up to Lincoln to exit, she was confronted by two men walking southbound on the sidewalk. The men began making rude and sexually inappropriate comments to her, detectives said.

Thoma told investigators that he walked over and told the men to knock it off and to show some respect. The two suspects began advancing on him, and Thoma identified himself and Ross as police officers. He told Ross to get her pistol from her car, and he displayed his identification to the men.

The two men continued to advance on Thoma, and when they were about four feet away, Thomas saw that one of the men, identified as 19-year-old Kenneth James Kheel, was holding a knife in his right hand.

Kheel lunged at Thoma and stabbed the sergeant in the jaw, detectives said.

Thoma was able to grab the suspect's arm, but Kheel tossed the knife to his companion, identified as 23-year-old Gyles "Shannon" Dogskin, who fled the scene with the weapon, detectives said.

Thoma, Ross and a civilian passer-by fought and detained Kheel until patrol officers arrived to arrest him. Kheel was booked into the Spokane County Jail on a first-degree assault charge.

Meanwhile, patrol officers located a man they thought might be the other suspect. Spokane police Officer Cory Lyons drove Ross to the man's location to attempt an identification, but the man detained was not Dogskin.

As Lyons and Ross were driving back to the scene of the assault, their patrol car was broadsided by a hit-and-run driver. Both officers were injured and taken to the hospital. Ross received stitches in one of her legs, and Lyons was treated for an injured wrist.

The Police Department is investigating the collision. Patrol units also are searching for Dogskin, the Sheriff's Department said, "because they best know the downtown haunts where he likely is hiding."

Police say there is probable cause for Dogskin's arrest for rendering criminal assistance. Anyone who knows his location is encouraged to call Crime Check at (509) 456-2233.

So . . . This is cause for a gut-check because Sgt. Thoma and Officer Ross were HANGING OUT WITH ME AT THE RESTAURANT that night. A mutual friend of ours was throwing a "baby shower" to congratulate her husband on his first horse (she's a big black Percheron mare)(awww). So yeah. Matt and i left around 9 and this happens an hour later. How easily could this story have been about us? Only i guarantee the words "hail of gunfire" would have been included if this story was about us.

Downtown Spokane is crawling with transients. Matt and i must have walked past 5 or 6 in the half-block from my car to the restaurant doors. Granted, most of them are relatively harmless, depending on how much it annoys you to be panhandled. But apparently some of them aren't. And i will say that i was thankful that both Matt and myself were carrying handguns. I would rather have one and not need it than need one and not have it. As Funder says, "I'm more important than someone who wants to kill me." I don't mean to sound ultra-paranoid, but there are scary people in the world, and it is best to be prepared.

Second (dumber) thing happened to me last night.

I live in a fairly nice neighborhood but it is an interesting place. It is older and some of the rental homes have been or continue to be drug houses. So you will be driving down the block, looking at the homes, thinking: "nice house, nice house, nice house, crack house, nice house, REALLY nice house, crack house . . ." you get the idea. Oh, i should also mention that i don't really differentiate between types of drugs. Methamphetamine (sp?) is a HUGE problem out here in the rural West, and is generally considered by law enforcement to be the cause/reason for 95% of theft crimes in the region. But anyhoo, if a person is whacked out on drugs, i call them a crackhead. May not be actual crack, but the results are the same. It's still a toothless drug addict and still a crackhead to me. So when i say "crack house," i probably mean "meth house." But whatever.

ANYWAYS, when i moved in to my house (which i rent from my grandmother and which has had a string of . . . tenants of questionable character over the years), I was fairly insistent on having an alarm system installed. Not because i own anything worth stealing, but for my own peace of mind. Being broken into is something i AM paranoid about, majorly. I need to feel comfortable in my own home.

So i am sound asleep at 2:30 a.m. last night and my INCREDIBLY LOUD alarm siren goes off. I am not sure WHY, as a brief and panicked investigation revealed nothing out of the ordinary.

Here is the ideal course of action, for me anyway, when my alarm is triggered in the middle of the night:

1) Grab loaded firearm and cell phone, both kept close at hand for this sort of situation

2) Lock bedroom door

3) call 911

Here is what i ACTUALLY did. If this was a test/dry run, it would have made Failblog.

1) Alarm goes off. Scream.

2) Attempt to leap out of bed, foiled by tangled sheets

3) Stumble over to bedroom keypad, TURN OFF ALARM cuz OMG I can't wake the neighbors!

4) dig around in purse for handgun

5) find handgun

6) unholster handgun

7) THEN think to check alarm pad for notification of WHAT sensor was tripped. Stupid Serena, check that BEFORE you turn off the alarm!!

8) Motion sensor in the living room. Great. Living room attaches to my bedroom. Might have been good to know before i shut off the siren.

9) Check all entry points in the house. Everything checks out, so, false alarm.

10) lay in bed, heart racing. Don't think about going back to sleep as it is physically impossible now. Assess reaction to potential threat, give self a failing grade.

False alarms happen, and used to happen all the time when i had a cat that leapt up on stuff he wasn't supposed to. My motion sensor is infra-red and programmed to ignore small bodies such as dogs and cats, but any heat at a certain height (head high) will trip it. So i don't know if my current cat jumped up on something or what. Still. Trial run, and i sucked. What if an actual crackhead had been in my living room?

Definite food for thought.

I live alone. If my alarm goes off in the middle of the night, i have no one to rely on but me. So what if i had to check all my points of entry without a firearm? What am i going to carry to subdue a crackhead, a baseball bat? A big flashlight? My hunting knife? Nope, nope and nope. This is a fight i want to WIN.

Sorry to delay the revolver post, i have just been thinking about this all since . . . 2:30 this morning.