Retired Does Not Always Mean Not Working

A co-trainer and I were visiting a program on the street where a policeman was gunned down as he attempted to intervene in a shooting. We had been at training all day and decided to attend a talking circle in the community we were training in.

Our visit started out well. We were invited in as we were early, and the meeting would start in an hour. We were invited to eat hominy/pasole soup and a pasta dish. As we finished, we could hear gun shots and then sirens. We heard "A cop was shot by the bus stop!"

People were coming in for the meeting as this happened. One guy had gotten off the bus in time to see the happenings. He saw the policeman on the ground. "He looked dead to me" he said. Some others said they dropped to the ground as bullets were flying over their heads.

People sitting by the windows were concerned bullets may be coming through the window or that the shooter may enter the building we were in. Others were concerned that the young people hanging around to watch what was happening would be mistaken for the shooter.

The concern was racial profiling. As the conversation about fear for the young men continued, one man said, "They won't be confused as the shooter is white."

While people were fearfully moving around in the house, the sirens kept coming and we watched as law enforcement were getting out of their cars and pulling their guns and running toward the shooting. It sounded like 20 cars with sirens pulled up in front of the building we were in.

We saw a highway patrol man get out of his car with a shot gun/rifle. He didn't appear to have a vest on. The rest of the officers we saw had vests.

Next, we hear the shooter is barricaded down on the next block continuing to shoot it out with law enforcement.

As we went to the basement for the meeting, everyone that came into the room was smudged, the room was full of smudge. Ceremony happened in that room. Prayers were sent up. We met while the siege continued.

We couldn't leave if we wanted to as the roads were closed off and there was law enforcement all over. When the meeting was over, we went out a back way and zigzagged around until the road was open.

Later we would hear the shooter is dead. And that innocent bystanders were shot too.

We had one more day of training and when my co-trainer got a message of the news from her daughter the next morning, she told her we were there. She said, "Get your pretty ass out of there!" The neighborhood does not have the best reputation.

This brought up another training we were at when a shooting happened. We decided that it may be time to retire again. At age 70 and 80 we may have a heart attack from all the excitement. JK, although I suppose it does happen.

Our training team had a lunch meeting close to the site of the shooting before this other training. Just a short time later we hear about the shooting and hear that the hotel we are at is blocked off, so we weren't to leave the premises until the shooter is in custody.

We hear that two people were shot. No apparent connection to each other or to the shooter. They were shot several feet away from where we had a meeting a short time earlier.

Then my co-trainer was having dinner with her daughter when a man went down from an overdose and another man started running. It turned out the man was running for Narcan. Medical people were called, and the police arrived in a short time.

The man was given Narcan and as the medics were carrying him out, he sprang up and then he was on the ground again. She felt like she was going to go over there to intervene when her daughter told her that is the response to narcan as they go into automatic withdrawals.

A short time later law enforcement was walking him out of the hotel.

We talked about maybe not training back in that town as a woman's son in the training was found dead at her house while she was at the training. Her daughter called and told her on the phone. The phone dropped, she hollered, and she quickly left the room in tears.

She was inconsolable! We had a drum song and a smudge and sometime later she was able to go back to where she was staying. She lived in another town about 4 hours away. Her friend offered to go home with her so she could be with family and to take care of her son.

The rest of the participants would stay on and finish the training. A couple of us had been long time friends with this participant, and she was my supervisor back in 1984. This was a tough one for me. We carried on with the training.

These both have happened in a span of a year's time. Having trained on this particular curriculum since 2009, this may be the time to step down. We continue to offer training for trainers and have some excellent trainees and new trainers that can continue the work.