He Shouldn't Have Argued
My sister Sharon came home crying early yesterday evening. It was still light out.
She shooed the dog in and slammed the door behind her, and punched the arming code on the burglar alarm in a quick, four-digit tattoo. Beepbeepbeepbeep. Then she dashed upstairs, chased my daughter Judy out of the room—she didn't want a four-year-old to see her lose control—and collapsed, crying, into a chair, out of breath from having mostly run most of six blocks.
She'd taken the dog out for the nightly walk she'd been slacking off on lately, and which I'd been filling in. That had made me happy, because I'd already walked him around a lake today, and didn't feel like another walk. My feet hurt.
Judy had wanted to go along—it's fun to watch a four-year-old take a turn at holding onto the leash of a seventy-five pound Rotweiller/German Shepherd mix—but Sharon had said no.
Another night, she said.
Just as well.
She had taken her usual route, which loops around the park at Longfellow and 39th. It's one of mine, too, when I don't feel like walking around a lake. It's a nice walk. A few years ago, the city tore down some houses and turned the area into a very pretty open space which also works as a flood dump, to protect the houses on 38th. Pretty area—nice and green and open. Usually there's a bunch of kids playing on the baseball diamond or shooting some baskets, and usually a few folks walking dogs or throwing frisbees.
Nice place. Quiet.
Last night, though, there were cop cars all over the place, and yellow tape strung up, and a body lying on the ground next to a bike. She got that part wrong—he looked so small lying there that she was sure it was a little kid who had been killed, but it turns out to have been a man in his mid-twenties. He was playing basketball, while his girlfriend was watching his bike, when three teenagers came up.
They had a gun.
They demanded his bike, and one of them shot him in the head when he argued.
They fled running down alleys and made their escape as the sirens sounded. They left the bike. They got away.
Unsurprising. It wasn't risky for them.
He should have given them the bike.
They could see at a glance that there were no cops there—hell, you can't have cops on every streetcorner, in every park—all they had to do was have a gun, and that kind will always have guns. Of course it's illegal—even in Florida or South Dakota or Oregon, where citizens can get carry permits, that's only for law-abiding adults.
But anybody willing to kill a guy who doesn't give up his bicycle quickly enough surely isn't going to worry about committing the lesser crime of walking around with an unlicensed and illegal handgun.
Besides, murder isn't a beginner's crime, anyways. How many people willing to kill somebody over a bicycle are going to be able to even get a gun legally?
It was a safe thing to do. A few innocent-looking folks shooting some baskets at seven o'clock on a bright summer evening aren't going to be able to defend themselves, and since there wasn't a cop around, if you can pull a gun, you'll be the only one there with one—and so you own whatever they have, and he should have known better than to argue.
He just should have given them the bike, and then walked away. They probably would have settled for that. If they wanted something else, later, they could have taken it from somebody else, later.
After all, they had a gun.
Bystanders? Not to worry. They'll just be witnesses, and witnesses can get it wrong, or forget, or be intimidated, and besides, the cops have to catch you before you even have to worry about witnesses.
He shouldn't have argued. And they shot him in the head.
#
And so my sister, walking the dog, came across a body lying on the ground, and it looked so small lying there that she thought it was a little kid.
Not a big deal, I guess. It only made page 6 of the B section of this morning's Star Tribune. Not even a picture.
And it surely won't make anybody rethink the policy of keeping law-abiding citizens unarmed, so somebody who doesn't give a damn about the law can safely shoot a twenty-six year old guy in the head if he doesn't give them his bike quickly enough.
He should have given them the bike.
And if somebody does suggest that maybe the world wouldn't be any less safe if ordinary citizens were permitted to protect themselves—just maybe, maybe that would make even an armed thug stop and think, realizing that he just might not be the only one in the park with a gun—that suggestion can be dismissed as NRA propaganda, or simply as bad taste.
#
I don't know why they just asked for the bike. Maybe they should have asked for his wallet, too. Or maybe his girlfriend. They had a gun, and they knew they were the only ones in the park who did.
It would have been safe.
#
I don't think, though, that my sister will take the dog for a walk around that park anymore.