The Tatafu Family: April 2013

So yesterday was quite a day. Here is the story.
To start out I have to give you a little backstory. (I going to try to be as anonymous as possible so that I do not embarrass anyone involved);
I have someone who is close to me who has an ex husband with depression among other things. I heard yesterday morning that this ex husband recently had threatened to take his own life with a gun in the presence of his family members. That made me feel sad for him and his family and also a bit uneasy. I went about my day and after putting a second coat of paint on some shelves at naptime I headed back through my yard to my house. As I was climbing my steps, I heard a gunshot. Now I have heard gunshots up in the hills behind my house and up in the mountains and this sounded like neither of those things. This shot was west of my house, somewhere down in the neighborhoods of Lake Point. It was LOUD. It was not a shotgun. It was a loud, sharp "CRACK!" I immediately felt on edge, and waited for a minute or so to hear more. I heard nothing.
I called Mitch upstairs and he and I began to listen and watch for anything strange. I then texted my friend who lives a few roads away and asked if she had heard the gunshot. She replied back that she did and it was very loud. I knew it was a stretch that the gunshot had anything to do with the news of the persons ex husband earlier in the morning but it still made me feel very uneasy. Why weren't there more shots? If someone was shooting at targets there would be more.... Why was there no noise? If someone was hurt I would expect a neighbor would have checked on them after the shot and I would hear something.
A few minutes after my text conversation with my friend, Mitch and I saw a man in the property neighboring ours, at the West end. (We have never seen the people who live there) He was wearing a black hoody with the hood up over his head. He was looking all around and kept glancing at us. After a minute or so, we realized he must be looking for a dog, as we could hear a faint whistling. He did this for a few minutes and then walked away. Then a white beat up Bronco slowly left the house and crawled along the road leading away from our houses. We waited to hear anything else and made a few jokes about how the guy was pretending to look for a dog and scoping out who might have heard him commit a murder. We joked that he was coming to our house. We laughed and headed back inside.
I called my sister Jana to tell her about the weird gunshot and she told me I should call the cops just in case someone was actually hurt. So I reluctantly heeded her advice, cause, she was right, what if somebody was hurt and I did nothing? I thought, "someone else will have called, I don't need to" but I did it anyway.

"9-1-1 What is the address of your emergency?" Oh boy. So much for reporting it and not having to have the cops over. I told the dispatcher all of my info and what I heard and she said the cops would be by shortly. I ran around cleaning up my house so that when the cops came in they wouldn't call DCFS on me for my messy living area!

Shortly before the cops arrived, I realized they wouldn't know to come around back, so I ran over and woke my sister and asked her to send them back when they got there. Benjamin woke up and sat on the couch all bleary eyed and pantless. Ally called and told me they had arrived and she wanted me to come answer the door cause she needed a shower. So instead I put my sons pants on as fast as I could and carried him as I walked around front. The deputy was super friendly and I was at ease as we discussed what I had heard.

As I was describing things and answering his questions, I glanced around and for a split second and noticed a white bronco at the top of our circle. In the few short seconds I registered it and dismissed it My thought-there was no way it is that guy, that would be crazy, its just my neighbor who also has a white bronco. I continue speaking to the Deputy and suddenly the man is approaching us from a few feet away. He is wearing the same black hoodie, he has a shaggy hairstyle and a shaggy full but shorter beard. He seems to be kind of dirty and from close up I notice the hoodie is full of holes. His hands are both in the kangaroo pocket moving around and, I realize, making it hard to tell if hes hiding a gun. I think Oh crap, he really did come to get us and he's just approaching us out in the middle of the street with a cop next to me. How will I save Benji if this man draws a gun on us? Can the cop save us in time? I guess I just have to trust he will. I can't say that I'm scared right now and this is suspicious cause I will just sound crazy in front of this cop. I keep my cool though and he asks us if we have seen a black lab. We both tell him we haven't. I say we were outside because we heard a noise. The man says someone from a vets office called him and said someone has his dog. The cop tells him that if "we" meaning the county, took the dog, it will be at Roundy's Vet office in Tooele. So the man leaves.

After he has left, the deputy and I finish discussing where the shot may have originated. I tell him West of me and South of my friend. He asks if Mitch and I saw or heard anybody or anything else. I tell him we saw the man looking for his dog and thats all. He asks if the shot may have come from the mans house. I say it very well may have. He thanks me and leaves to scope out the neighborhood and see if he can find out what happened.

After I walked back to my house, I realized that if the deputy was suspicious of him, I was not being too paranoid in my suspicion and maybe I need to be careful for awhile. I called my sister and told her the latest. I talked to both her and Mitch about how uncomfortable I still felt, even though it was most likely nothing. I start to settle down and think about making dinner.

At this point it has been about one to two hours since the cop left and two to three since the gunshot. My boys are both awake and playing in the living room and Mitch is still downstairs at work. I walk into the kitchen to start getting my ingredients out for dinner and I see the white bronco pulling slowly into my backyard driveway, he has pulled past the house and is approaching where I park my car. As soon as I register what I see I run to the window I left open for hearing any other noises and shut it, then as quickly as possible, I open the basement door and yell to my husband "MITCH! HE'S HERE!". I grab the hands of my sweet little boys and rush them back into the bedroom and command them "Stay HERE!" As I am putting the kids away I am thinking I don't have time to call the cops, if I called them, I would not have enough time to explain the whole situation and its seriousness to them before the confrontation occurs, it will only distract me and it will be over before they can arrive anyway. You know how they say in an emergency you go into "fight or flight"? Well yesterday I found out I am a fighter, a calm and calculating fighter. As I run back into the kitchen, Mitch has joined me with his weapons. We watch the car from the window, ready to defend our lives and that of our children. We watch as he applies his brakes. Here We Go. He backs up and turns his car to face outward, and stops again. He's parking for a quick getaway. You aren't going to use it. Then he slowly drives out of our driveway. Mitch begans putting on his shoes. I go grab my kids to move them further into the house where I can contain them in their room and go help their father make sure we are safe. In their room, which faces the East, I look through the blinds out their window and notice him parked in front of my neighbors and walking up to their door. He still has his hands in his pockets but I am starting to calm down realizing it was a false alarm. I rationalize that maybe he thought he was driving down a private road or something. I call Mitch in and we watch him get in his car and leave our line of sight in the direction leading away from our house.

I have two minutes and I start to calm down and then Mitch is calling me into the living room. My visiting teacher is at the door, she has brought muffins. Mitch stashed his weapons when he registered it was not a man in a black hoodie on the other side of the door and we acted natural. I invited her in saying I had just cleaned the house in case the cops came in and she laughs and says uh oh. Then I start at the beginning saying I heard a gunshot. She covers her mouth and makes a sound letting us know she or someone she knows is the source of the shot.

I tell her the whole story and she tells me that her mother in law shot a dog who had come into their yard again after killing some of their chickens the day before. She said they had warned the owners and it happened again so they protected their livestock. She apologized for the crazy day I had and said she needed to rush home and tell her mother in law they needed to call the police and let them know that everything is okay. I told her it was perfectly okay, I understood, and I was just so glad that the man wasn't actually trying to kill me. What a laugh we had though. We of course, guessed that the dog belonged to this man instead of the neighbors she had warned about their dogs.

Through text messaging she later told me the man had found them and took his dog home. The cops came over and told them they were justified and everything turned out okay. But what a day we had...

I obviously grew a little paranoid in my time pursuing a degree in Law Enforcement coupled with my love of law suspense/dramas. But hey, I now know that in a real emergency, I will keep a cool calculated head and will be brave enough to take on anything for my husband and kids. And that feels pretty great.