So then there's this.

Yeah, turns out I may or may not have been witness to a shooting on my block this afternoon. Before I get down to brass tacks, let me preface this story by saying this: I live in a ridiculously safe neighborhood. I am across the street from a public park and a public school. Generally speaking, the grade school children are the biggest threat one faces on a day-to-day basis around my house.

Now, allow me to set the scene: it's shortly after three this afternoon, it's chilly but clear, and my street is more or less choked with minivans of families taking advantage of the sunshine. I walk down my front steps and out to my car. As I am passing the front of the car I hear a crack, but don't think a lot of it. It sounded more or less like someone was snapping a large piece of wood, or (as I thought) some piece of something off of a car. As I'm unlocking my door and throwing my bag into the back seat of the car, I see a couple of guys "tussling" up the street, and notice one guy bleeding pretty fiercely out of his nose/face. No one seems terribly panicked, save a middle-aged guy who has run across the street with his kid and taken to hiding.

Still thrown off, I see the bleeding guy walking down the street in my general direction, and as I start my motor, I see him getting into a car and starting to pull out. I was kind of shaken, because regardless of what happened, I don't usually see bleeding people walking down my street. Eventually, upon my return home a few hours later, my mom tells me about "some commotion" up the street, and said she'd heard that there might have been shots fired.

Now, here are my theories as to why it was NOT a gunshot, beyond the obvious fact that I would be rather disturbed to think that I was witness to a shooting.
Number one: it just didn't sound like a gunshot. It sounded like something cracking - like something snapping off a car or even a piece of wood cracking. It wasn't powerful enough to really make me jump, and as someone who's been to a gun range, I can say if I walked within fifty feet of a gunshot, even from like a .22, I'd probably realize it.
Number two: Everyone moved too casually after the fact. Maybe I've watched too much TV, but it seems to me, if you're "college aged" and you or one of your friends shot someone, you'd be hauling ASS to get as far away as possible as quickly as possible. After I heard the crack, I saw the guys wrestling around a little more, in an almost playful way, before dispersing in a none-too-hurried way. Even bleeding guy was at a quick walk at best - and I'd think if he'd been shot, he'd be running his ass off to get away.
Number three: Good ol' Officer P, assuming if he's working tonight and assuming he might have heard about it, would have called me with a QUICKNESS if there had been a shooting on my block. As of right now, it's roughly two thirty in the morning, and I haven't heard peep.

Either way, whether or not anything major happened, it was enough to at least slightly diminish my sense of well-being in and around my home. I know that regardless of what happened this afternoon, I live in a safe neighborhood. I know that the chances are much higher of me being injured in a car accident or even a natural disaster than me getting shot in my neighborhood, but still. I'm sure I'll wake up tomorrow and things will be pretty much back to normal. I just don't like this feeling of being so... jumpy? Unsettled? I don't know... I guess all I can say is, on the bright side, it'd take a hell of a lot for tomorrow to be worse than today.