May you live in interesting times

• So the last three days have actually been interesting and different. Last week, I was in Miami, which included spending about 18 hours last weekend trying to setup a firewall. I failed, and someone else managed to get it to work. Not afraid to say I don’t have the best grasp of this stuff.
• A co-worker died over the weekend as well, and HR spelled his name wrong in the notification e-mail. (I only dealt with him sporadically, so it’s not as hard-hitting as it might have been.)
• On the plane ride back, had an interesting chat with a girl, centerpieced by…an AutoCAD 2009 presentation she needed to finish for today.

So I got home, about to relax when I hear someone bang on my door. 10 seconds later, I hear “HELP!!!!”. Rushing outside, there was a woman lying on the grass outside my patio, hands over her face bawling. A shirtless male was close-by approaching her, and she told me to call the police.

I ran inside to get my phone, and came back out to make the call to make sure nothing else was going on. As it turns out, Shirtless Guy had two of his friends with him, and as I dialed 911 they all surrounded me, telling me not to call police. (Shirtless Guy was well-muscled, a second guy “T” was significantly larger than me, don’t remember much about the third guy. Yes, I probably should have been scared ****less at this point.)

I told the guys I wouldn’t call police, and walked calmly back inside my apartment. THEN I called 911.

After the call, I ran back outside to see what was going on. The two friends weren’t around, but Shirtless Guy and the woman were across the parking lot. He was restraining her with a bear hug from behind; she was bent over trying to get out. At this point, I ran back inside with the idea of grabbing my cell phone to take pictures or grab video. I started thinking “Should I go back outside? Should I stay inside so they can’t see me?” By the time I went back out, they had separated, the woman walking away towards the gate to the apartment complex, still sobbing.

At this point, “T” came up to me, smoking, and asked if I’d called police. I responded affirmatively, and he went on about how she always exaggerates stuff, and it was a household matter that wasn’t any of my business. And of course, complained that he’d have to deal with police now. (He also referred to me as “nigga” every other sentence, much as a white guy might use “dude”.) I told “T” I had a responsibility to call police in that situation, didn’t really want to deal with them either, and if it was true nothing was going on, he shouldn’t have any problems. He still wasn’t happy, but oh well.

After 5 – 10 minutes of waiting for the police, I decided to go out to the gate by the main road since it’s not that easy to find. On the way, the woman was walking back still upset. I tried talking with her, but very little got through. She started talking about how I’d understand if I had a sister or mom who had to go what she did. It took a while to figure out she was pissed because she thought I didn’t call the police. I had to assure her that I did and was going to wait for them. She seemed to acknowledge, but just kept walking; I told she could wait in front of my apartment or whereever she wanted. Then I stood outside the gate to await police.

The first policeman arrived, and I brought him to the area of the incident. But it was empty, no woman, none of the three guys, none of the neighbors. A second policeman showed up a few minutes later. I explained and described as much as I knew. Then another neighbor came by–he was even driving his truck around the complex to find the woman, with no luck.

The police told me they couldn’t do anything if the woman wasn’t there to press charges, and that was that. I should have stayed with the woman until police arrived, but this whole incident just ended up wasting their time.

(As I side note, I talked with a couple neighbors afterwards who were observing from their balcony. Apparently, my vegetable garden has garnered some notice.)