A Slice of Life
Bill Lites
The other night, at 2:30 in the morning, the wailing of sirens and flashing red and blue lights bouncing off my bedroom walls jolted me out of a sound sleep. “What was going on?” I said to myself. I sat up and looked out my front bedroom window just in time to see a small dark car (with its lights off), followed by four Titusville city police cars, zip around the corner in front of our house and race off up the street. I thought, “Wow, a movie style chase scene right here in our quiet little neighborhood!” I had never seen a movie or TV chase scene that took place anywhere but on a busy city freeway or on an open two-lane road out in the middle of nowhere. I wondered, “How could anyone expect to get away from the police in this maze of one-block and curving streets that make up our small neighborhood?”
I waited a few minutes to see if anything else was going to happen, and then laid back down to try to go to sleep. A short time later I heard the wamp-wamp-wamp of a helicopter buzzing around overhead and more flashing red and blue lights. When I looked out the window this time, there were two cars at the intersection, a police car facing one direction and the other car (with its lights off), facing the opposite direction. I thought “What kind of a standoff is this?” Just then, the car (with its lights off) sped off up the street, and the police car wheeled around to follow after it. This time I sat there waiting to see if there would be any more activity. I could see the helicopter flying around in large circles with its search light probing the area.
It wasn’t long before the first car (with his lights off) came speeding back down the street it had just gone up, whipping around the corner, and headed for the dead-end of our street just two houses down. I said to myself, “They’ve got you now Dude.” That short portion of our street has a big steel barrier across it with nothing but thick woods on the other side. Just then the three other police cars came roaring up and uniformed officers piled out of their cars and headed for the woods.
A couple minutes later, as the helicopter continued to circle overhead, illuminating the woods with its search light, several Brevard County Sherriff cars, red and blue lights flashing, came zipping into the intersection to join the fracas.
The whole area was swarming with uniformed officers, and one of the Sherriff Deputies removed a German Shepherd dog from his K-9 SUV on a leash.
As this scene unfolded before my eyes, I wondered what the suspect(s) could have done to warrant such an extensive manhunt. I would have to watch the local NEWS in the morning for sure. About ten minutes later an EMT vehicle threaded its way through the crush of official vehicles in the intersection and stopped. The EMTs got out with their emergency bag and headed for the woods. I couldn’t see where they went, but my neighbor told me later that by then they had the suspect out of the woods and handcuffed, at the dead end, out in front of her house. She said that after putting on gloves, it appeared the EMTs didn’t have anything to deal with on that suspect, as it seemed that they only questioned him.
—–To Be Continued—–
Old Things R New 