I hadn't realized until I covered the police beat just how seedy crime is.-Jessica Savitch

Sunday we decided to take Fiona to the train museum. It seemed like a good idea at the time but we failed to realize that Fiona and I were still getting worse rather than better like we hoped add to that the fact that Fiona didn't take a nap and well the afternoon did not go well so we went home. We were all relieved when we saw the turn to our street. Unfortunately the next thing we saw was a police car blocking the street and an officer signaling that we needed to turn around and drive away.

Dude that's our street where do you think we're gonna go?

Luckily they were still in the process of blocking the circle that come out right at our house and we squeezed past pretending we didn't know what they were trying to do. As we turned from the circle we could see a SWAT tank with a freaking machine gun turret parked across from our house. There were more cop cars blocking the rest of the street and officers milling around trying to look important. We got Fiona out of the car and in to the house as quickly as possible. Then Dave did what any man would do...went outside to watch the show (I totally would have been out there with him if I'd had any energy to get off the couch). He quickly figured out that the activity was centered on the neighbors house half a block away. Now this neighbor is a bit of a character and sometimes tells stories that make you think he's either a little loopy or a compulsive liar. So I wouldn't be surprised if he did something to get arrested but I did have a hard time picturing him doing something that would require a SWAT team. Eventually Dave saw them bring the wife out with her hands up and after a bunch more posturing they got the guy out. He was complaining that this was ridiculous. We were a little worried that the SWAT team would shoot their dogs, which if you pay attention to the news seems to be standard operating procedure for SWAT teams. Luckily they did not do that in this case.

Monday the neighbor was back at home so we figured what ever it was didn't stop him from getting bail.

Dave looked it up on the police log. Do you want to know what the neighbor did that made it necessary to lock down our whole street, bring in a swat team, and bring his wife out with her hand up and a machine gun trained on her? Do ya?

He made a suicide threat. Now obviously I'm anti suicide (wait is that obvious to people who don't know me personally? Okay remember how I've mentioned that my brother died. Yeah guess how he died). Yes if someone is making threats they should be stopped but this was just encouraging the guy to try suicide by cop. The police serve an important function and I'm glad they're around when we need them (hey I never told you about the crazy people who came to the door) but it's bullshit like this that makes them look bad. Also the part about always shooting the dogs that's assholley.