A gentle wind tugged golden leaves from the trees on a sunny day as puffs of cottony clouds dappled the sky.
A woman listening intently to music on her iPod jogged on the sidewalk running along one side of a drainage culvert, and a man pulled two young children down the concrete ribbon on the other.
They were oblivious to the men in uniform hiding behind trees a half-block away, their guns drawn, their eyes studying a house that had been built during World War I. Two young men had scrambled from the house, bleeding, and run next door to escape.
They had been shot, police said. By their mother.
She had a gun and a rifle, police were told, so neighboring houses were evacuated quickly.
Disbelief filled the faces of the people with whom I spoke, and those who remained silent. What could drive a mother to shoot at her own sons?
Police will not get the answer from her. She had killed herself by the time the SWAT team forced its way into the house, flash-bang grenades shattering the silence gripping the neighborhood and announcing their impending encroachment.
Her boys, 16 and 20, are in two different intensive care units at a hospital just a few blocks from where they were shot. They may very well recover from the physical wounds inflicted Wednesday morning, but the emotional scars? That's something else entirely.
No comments:
Post a Comment