Noel asked if I wanted a snow cone. He and his sister Mikaela have been buying me snow cones from a woman who runs a little concession stand in the park. "Sure! Get me the orange flavor," I smiled. Their class was over, and their mother and older sister were beginning the adult class.
About ten to fifteen minutes later, Mikaela and Noel came running into the gym, holding the snow cones. "There was shooting outside, and Noel almost got hit!" Mikaela said. Their mother and I froze. "They shooting outside again?" I asked. "The bullet hit the ground near my foot, and the woman selling the snow cones saw it coming and pushed me out of the way. I was going to give her five dollars, but she wouldn't take it. She told us to get to safety and worry about giving her the money another time," Noel explained. The bullets did hit someone else; an ambulance showed up. I also learned that the football players had vacated the field when the shots rang out. The siblings and their mom rushed upstairs to let whoever may have been at the front desk know what was going on. I went to secure a crash door that leads to the parking lot and Shay, the siblings oldest sister followed me.
As soon as we got to that door, a couple of cops coming in told us we had to evacuate the premises. More police cars showed up. The cops said the shooter had run inside the field house. A search was done for nearly an hour, but the person was not found. A police helicopter flew back and forth.
Finally, the all-clear was sounded and the staff was allowed back into the building. On the drive home, I kept thinking about how horrible I would have felt if Noel and/or Mikaela would have been hurt. Every few days at the field house I keep hearing about shootings that took place three blocks away, two blocks away, one block away. . .I'm tired of that. Why is it that the go-to solution for a conflict these days is always a gun?
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