Would YOU Open the Door? I Did

“Please bro, we got shot! We got shot! Please, I’m begging you! He got shot in his foot.”

10:55 PM, Friday night. Someone POUNDS on the door, then rings the doorbell. I crack it open, with two of my older teenaged boys somewhere behind me. I see a pair of black youths. They were on the run, with one shoe between them, no phones, and one of them was bleeding from his foot. One is holding the other one up.

“I swear to God, I got no gun on me! I got shot by a guy. I got no gun, I got no weapon. Nothing, I swear!” And they start to strip to show me they are unarmed.

Don’t take my word for it. Here is the video from our camera. And, as you can see, I let them in. I directed them first to sit on one couch – but then, when they expressed fear that the killers would shoot them through the window, I moved them elsewhere. They did what they were told.

We called 911. These guys were in serious shock. The one who was shot couldn’t sit up, and he kept collapsing, eyes rolling back. The other one was shaking uncontrollably. Actual damage was minimal – 4 bullet holes in a hoodie, a graze wound on a thigh, and possibly the one who claimed he was shot in the foot actually was – or he mangled it in the rush to get away.

I don’t know what would have happened if I had denied them entry. I doubt the killers pursued them, though the victims (or perhaps “losers” would be more accurate) certainly were in fear of being hunted down. So they probably would not have been gunned down had I turned them away. Their friend, by the way, did not die on the scene. The shooting was a few hundred feet away, and ours was the first house they approached.

On the other hand, it was a cold night, and these two were in such shock that I believe it could have killed the one. I have never before seen black guys look as white as sheets. And I would have felt bad had they died because I did the sensible thing and refused them entry to my home where my wife and children were sleeping.

We were prudent. We kept our distance. We gave them a glass of water and had them sit down.

In hindsight, we had heard the gunshots – there was a string of them perhaps a minute before they came to my door.

What happened after we let them in was even more instructive. We called 911, and had to suffer through the most inane and incompetent dispatcher imaginable. The police response was… underwhelming. They came to our door a full 20 minutes after the losers did – 17 minutes after we called 911. For reported victims of a shooting. And, even more impressively, the first police car parked in front and waited. And waited – until there were three or four cars in all, and they could approach, as a clump, an open doorway where the well-lit homeowner was gesturing them inside.

(I was reminded of Terry Pratchett’s Nightwatch, which specialized in never running too quickly, because you never want to actually catch the criminal. Nothing good comes from being too eager.)

One of the two called his mother, on speakerphone, at 11:02. The conversation went something like this:

“Mom, Mom, I’ve been shot.”

“Serves you right.”

“Tell my father I been shot!”

“Where you at?”

“Some Jewish person’s house.”

Click.

Redial. 5 times. Mom doesn’t answer.

So he calls his grandmother. Who is much more sympathetic, and promises to meet him at the nearest hospital.

This is all interspersed with the call to 911, who keeps us on hold, while Loser #1 keeps cursing that the police have not responded yet. He, too, keenly bewails the state of policing in the City of Baltimore. Though when they do arrive, both youths experience sudden onset amnesia. They don’t even seem to be able to remember their own names!

What has the world come to, I wonder.

We reckon it was all a drug deal gone bad. And while it happened on Shabbos, clearly active shooters and gunshot victims count as a threat to life, so we did not hesitate to do things (like turn on cell phones and use them) that we ordinarily never do on Shabbos. All this time, there is foot traffic outside, families with strollers and children walking back from Shabbos dinners to their homes. Was it better that they not know a shooting had occurred less than a block away?

The police came in force – at least half a dozen vehicles, including the ambulance. They blocked off the road, and hung out after the shooting for the better part of an hour. At no point did any police officer ask me or my kids any questions. They came in, assessed the losers, and they all left.