Did I really just hear that...?

Well, I realized something about myself and my life this weekend.  I've never heard a real gun fired in person... well except a BB-gun. 

Well, until Saturday night.

I should explain that I have a fairly nice apartment in a somewhat questionable part of town.  Now, I've never had any issues and know a lot of my neighbors.  Yes, there is an out-patient drug rehab center half a block away and some pretty shady looking people hang around.  But can I really blame them they are at least TRYING to get it together.  Well, anyway, mostly I'm surrounded by students.  Things have been pretty quiet around here -- well until about the last month or so.

The house next door is, apparently, an unofficial fraternity house.  It's unofficial because the fraternity does have an official house but is on probation with the university so they cannot get caught having any parties at their "official" house. 

The weekend before spring break they had a party that went on until 4am.  I didn't have an issue because when I went to bed and turned on my fan I couldn't hear their noise and, more importantly, neither could Sassy. 

This weekend was another story.  Thursday night they had a party.  They had something like 300 folks over for a cook out.  Now, they are really nice boys and they are friends with my upstairs neighbors.  The boys upstairs are very respectful.  When I went to take Sassy out they offered me food, which was nice of them.  I declined because I was on my way back in to work to deal with stupid stuff.  When I got home there were like 20 people on my front porch, sitting on our steps, hanging out with the boys from upstairs.  When Zack, one of the boys upstairs, saw my car pull up he told everyone it was time to go and they all headed next door.  He smiled and told me to let him know if they were too loud.  See -- nice boy!  Well the party next door went until about 3am.  Again Sassy and I were able to go to be during it so no big deal.

Saturday, however, we weren't.  I was sick over the weekend so I was already somewhat cranky.  They had another party and were loud at 2:30am and Sassy was going nuts so I called the police and filed a noise complaint.  The dispatcher told me that it was the second complaint they had received and officers would be down soon.  About ten minutes later they showed up.  Things quieted down.

For about 20 minutes.  Just long enough for Sassy and I to get settled into bed.  I was watching some TV trying to sleep, which was already difficult because my tonsils were so swollen that I couldn't swallow at all and could barely breathe.  Anyway, we just get settled down and I hear five loud popping sounds...

and then a bunch of screaming and running from next door... 

I was stunned... was that gunshots fired next door? 

I'd never heard gunshots in real life and didn't want to call the police if it wasn't gunshots...  but I heard people running and talking about it... so if figured it really was and called the police back. 

It was gunshots.   

Now, I've been telling campus police for weeks that if they are bored on a Thursday they should stop by because I know where the party will be.  For some reason they haven't taken me seriously. 

Today I was at work and my boss came into my office and said, "Did you have to call the police this weekend?"  He then went on to tell me that at his earlier meeting they  had talked about a birthday party this weekend where they had kicked a guy out and he came back later with a gun and walked into the house and started randomly shooting around the room just above people's heads.  Someone approached him to intervene and the guy pointed the gun right at the intervener and pulled the trigger, but the gun was empty.  He then took off running.   

I said, "Yep, that was next door!" 

I'm moving soon.  Not soon enough, but soon -- anyone want to help??