Last night I went to hear my friend Mitch’s band, which was playing in NYC for the first time at the Lion’s Den. As we were standing outside the bar, on the west side of Sullivan Street, a guy walking across the street, pulled out a gun, and pointed it towards someone on the other side of the street. We all ducked and started running down the sidewalk when almost immediately he started shooting. He kept on shooting. He fired a lot of shots. I think I had time to get six or seven storefronts north on the street and duck into a doorway and he was still firing.
Almost immediately, a police car pulled around the corner from west 3rd Street and drove down to where this was happening, the police got out and there were a lot more shots fired. It was like firecrackers, they just kept going off. Then, or maybe before the second volley of shots, dozens of plainclothes police officers swarmed down Sullivan Street. It seemed like every person on the street was wearing a sweatshirt and jeans and had a badge, gun, and radio. One of them paused to demand, “Who’s behind this?” from me and Mitch.
They arrested one person and two people were lying on the ground on our side of the street, with cops all around them. Three ambulances showed, up. They closed off the street. A helicopter with a searchlight was flying overhead. The police were running around with another guy who had been standing outside the club who had a fraction of an ID of the shooter, “bald, light jacket, maybe white.” Mitch asks me, “does this always happen here?”
The most surreal part was the way the guy pulled out the gun. It was so premeditated that all I could think of was the Godfather movies. He didn’t rush, didn’t do it dramatically, just matter-of-factly pulled it out and actually started shooting. His hand wasn’t shaking, he didn’t pause. I don’t know if it’s just the way I remember it, but all I could see of the guy was his silhouette, like something out of a Sin City comic.
It was amazing that for standing so close to all of this, we really had no idea what was going on. Maybe the guy with the gun was a plainclothes officer, maybe someone had an automatic pistol, maybe it was a sting, a hit, a drug bust, who knew. Something big was going on if that many cops showed up that quickly, but we had no idea what. According to the newspapers, it turns out that the shooter had already killed a guy working behind the counter at a pizza place around the corner, shot him 15 times in the back. The cops were already out looking for him for that, when he started shooting again.
I always thought I’d make a terrible witness, and after this I’d have to agree with myself. I don’t remember what the guy looked like, if he said anything, what order events happened in, if there was a pattern to how the shots were fired, anything like that. All I remember is seeing the gun and running down the sidewalk.
Luckily for me, I’m ok and Mitch is ok, and the rest of the band is ok, but not everyone was.
Good god.
Yikes!, glad to hear that you and your friend are OK. – stay safe
I am also glad to hear that you are okay. I don’t want you to be The Last Mimzy (like that movie).
Wow.
Good that you’re safe and sound.
geez. I was just reading the story in the Times, thinking how confusing it seemed.
goodness, mim. I think I just swallowed my stomach going the wrong direction or something. That’s a frightening story.
I’m sure glad you and your friends were unharmed.
I was eating at the restaurant across the street from where the shooter was killed-so very scary- I will never forget the sound of constant gun fire as if we were in the middle of a war lying underneath the table listening or will I forget the 50 plastic cups that were placed by the police over the bullets casings on the sidewalk. I am so glad to be alive.