my sad neighbor

(This picture was the best one we could get w/o a flash. This was early on, before all the other emergency people showed up. You cant really tell, but there are two automatic weapons on top of the car, pointed at our neighbors home.)

Friday night (Mar. 6th)around 9pm a police man came to our door and asked us to turn of our porch light b/c "they had something going on over here..."

It turns out that there was a police stand-off from about 8pm until the SWAT team finally went into the neighbors house at 3am. Michael and I watched the whole thing (mostly). It was very intense. And one of the most bizarre, crazy, scary, things I have ever witnessed. The police were there, then the SWAT team showed up on our street, then the bomb squad. Our street was blocked off and trucks, hummers, and squad cars filled the street, along w/all the emergency people. A police car was parked on our lawn with two officers pointing assault rifles at the house across the street from us. The police were speaking to the man inside his house thru the mega phone from about 10-3. Apparently, this man, Tim Walters (48), had pointed a gun at his wife and pulled the trigger. No bullet was fired, so she was able to call 911 and leave the house with her 2 pre-teen kids. Tim barricaded himself in his room and shot himself in the head around 11-12. At about 1am, the bomb squad set off 2 gas bombs into his backyard. This was scary, the noise was loud and it lit the sky. It felt like we were watching some war movie. Then the bomb squad sent a robot/camera up to the house and the robot entered the home. The police and SWAT did not know that he had shot himself until they finally swarmed his home at around 3am. Tim was a military man for 23 years and had guns in his home, plus, all the neighbors, so the negotiater/police/swat people were overly cautious. The next day a clean up guy came and cleaned up the inside of the house and removed a bloody box spring. This experience made me feel very sad. I don't know why, maybe it was the lack of sleep, or all the guns, or just the intensity of it all. But I felt depressed about this for a couple of days. I didn't "know" my neighbor, we just would say hello in passing. It upsets me that people make decisions that can be so hurtful to themselves or others and that they feel so desperate and sad. Saturday, me and Audrey and Reese went to walmart and bought kites. It was another blustery day here, so it was perfect kite flying weather and it was nice to feel fresh air and blue skies. Reese did wonderful with his kite, Audrey kept getting tangled up. Sadie sat in the van and watched, it was still pretty cold.