Lockdown in Morningside

On leave, yesterday and today.  I think I was planning on buying a new car (since the old one is now property of State Farm) but the idea of having to drive around to car dealerships and talk to car salesmen is just not something I can force myself to do right now.  So instead I've done a little work in the yard; the strawberries are mulched, now, and I discovered there are some volunteer tomato plants that have come up in the bed where we planted the heirloom tomatoes.  So maybe we will be more likely to have tomatoes for more of the summer, with more varieties growing.

Yesterday Tom and I went out to lunch and stopped by Home Depot on the way back and bought a couple of small Japanese maples for the backyard.  Put them in the ground or leave them in pots on the patio?  It was while we were still moving things to the backyard when we got back that I noticed the helicopter that kept circling, low, and just a few blocks to the south.  Tom said it was an Atlanta Police Department helicopter, and they must be looking for someone.  I checked my email - the neighborhood message boards are good about posting safety and security warnings - and signed up both Tom and I for the APD alerts.  But no information anywhere, just the incessant circling of the helicopter.

The first email came at 1:55 p.m., with the alarming subject line, "STAY AT HOME!!!!!!!"  There was "an incident with gunshots on Greenland Avenue," and a request from APD that "EVERONE stay in their homes til this incident is sorted out."  We locked the doors and I forwarded the email to the neighbors.  More emails, that streets from Courtney Drive to Amsterdam Avenue were closed.  The helicopter kept circling.  There was a report on channel 11's website that someone had thrown an explosive into a house on Greenland.  Tom said that probably meant we didn't have much to worry about, since people who throw explosives are usually pretty crazy.

Morningside Elementary School went on lockdown but it was lifted around the time the kids would have been leaving school anyway - a message from a parent at the school was that the kids would be released just a few minutes late.  At 3:16 p.m. there was a message that they were no longer concerned about Greenland Drive, but the "person of interest" was said to be on Kings Court.  By 3:51 p.m. there was a notice that the person of interest had been apprehended.

By yesterday evening, the story was on line at the AJC, that there had been a disagreement between two men that had been playing out on Facebook - Facebook?? - and that the one of them had shot a gun into the other man's house; no one had been injured.  By this morning, the AJC reported that an arrest had been made and that the shooter had been taken to Grady Hospital for evaluation.

Last night, Iain and I stopped by Lynsley's to say hello, when we were out walking the dog.  She had been at Murphy's with an old friend, and (thanks to a new Blackberry that wasn't working yet) had no idea what had brought the SWAT team and the K-9 Unit out.  This is not usual for our neighborhood, she told her friend.

Since I was home (and indoors, with the doors locked, for much of it, I would add) while all this was going on, I did forward all the emails to the neighbors.  That's the good thing about all this connectivity.  The bad thing, of course, is that disagreements get amplified the same way.