Sweet holy crap, if I needed a sign that I made the right decision... I just got it. GET ME OUT OF THIS BUILDING PLEASE.
So about an hour ago I'm sitting here when I hear two men yelling outside. I peek out the window and there's a car pulled up in front of our front steps and two guys fighting in the parking lot. And by fighting I mean they are rolling around on the ground punching each other in the head. Okay, clearly this is not just two guys showing off by yelling, or just horsing around. There's a girl out there - who I later realized was my downstairs neighbor - yelling at them to stop. Which they do. So I start to walk away and then it starts again, okay fine, I'm calling the cops. I call 911 and report a fight at our address and they say they'll send someone out.
A few seconds later I hear a car engine roar, then there's a big... sound... crash... and the car roaring away and next thing I know a woman screaming. I run to the window and the car is gone and the girl is laying in the parking lot screaming. I call 911 back and tell them to get someone here NOW and send and ambulance because I'm pretty sure the fight just ended with someone being run over by a car.
Neighbors are now coming out to see what's going on. I get out there and the girl is up walking around screaming. Then I look over and the police are already there, one of them is talking to a young man and telling him to sit down and take it easy. Then I look down and realize the railing down the side of our front steps has been completely torn out of the concrete and is just laying there at the across the bottom of the steps. The window of one of the lower level apartments has been completely shattered. The young guy the police are talking to is bleeding from the head and face. The poor girl is screaming about her baby.
I realize she's my downstairs neighbor who I've talked to many times, she's a sweet girl, fairly young, always very polite and soft spoken. She's hysterical because not only did the other guy hit both her and the other young man - who is her boyfriend and the father of her baby boy - he did it behind the wheel of her car, which he then stole WITH HER BABY STILL IN IT.
Turns out he is the brother of the boyfriend, why he was there or what started the fight between them I do not know but it ended with him getting in her car and trying to run both of them down. He hit her and knocked her to the ground, injured her leg somehow, but I don't think she even noticed at first because obviously all she could think of was that this maniac just drove off at high speed with her baby.
He hit the boyfriend - his brother - hard enough to throw him face first into the other neighbor's window. He may have even pinned him between that and the car, because it sounded like he actually rammed into the building - so maybe it was actually lucky that it was the window and not the brick masonry. Poor kid's face and head are cut up real bad though.
After hitting the two of them this <expletive deleted> plowed up and over the front steps, taking out the railing, and leaving a big chunk of the car's body or bumper in our shrubbery... then he took off at high speed and drove back to where he lives with the cops chasing him. Don't know if they'd already arrived by the time he was driving off or not, but at any rate they located him and the car pretty quickly. He left the car when he got back to wherever he lives, abandoned the baby there as well, and took off on foot. I think I heard one of the officers say they caught him soon after, I certainly hope that was the case. The baby was fine and someone called the girl's father and her family was going to that location to meet the police and get him. The girl and her boyfriend both went off in separate ambulances but they were conscious and mobile so I'm hoping they'll be okay eventually.
But THIS is why I have to get out of this building... not just because it's a good time to buy, not just because I'm tired of living in a tiny little apartment, not just because I suddenly have the money to do better. This neighborhood was not like this when I moved here many years ago. Slowly but surely, this is what it's turning into. I don't know if it's the economy or what, but the quality of life around here and especially in this building have been going downhill for several years. Now it's gotten to the point where if you hear raised voices in the building or just outside, it might be some people horsing around or it might be an attempted murder waiting to happen.
Please let this closing go through without a hitch. I really, REALLY have to get out of this place.
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