Last night, I was watching television with some friends when we heard what sounded like screeching tires followed by a small crash. At first, we didn’t think anything of it, as the noise was so slight. Before we knew it, however, the sound of police sirens filled the humid night air. As the activity in my normally-quiet neighborhood seemed to be picking up, a few of us decided to wander in the direction of the noise to see what the comotion was about.
When we reached the end of my street, we found at least five police cars scattered around Woodland Avenue, some blocking traffic, others shining their teardrop lights into nearby fields. Those officers charged with traffic control quickly set up flares and began forcefully directing cars to turn around. Shortly after the requisite fire truck arrived, two people walked down from the direction of Mills Lane and approached a police officer. At the same time, a man riding a scooter approached us and reported that two officers had detained a white male on Mills Lane. While the scooter rider recounted what he had seen, the two individuals who approached the police officer were overheard discussing an individual they had seen run through their yard.
It would appear that after crashing his car, the driver fled through my neighborhood and was aprehended somewhere along Mills Lane. Woodland Avenue is not terribly well-lighted, and the area where the vehicle crashed is particularly windy. What possessed him to run, though, I do not know. Fortunately for police and the community at large, the man ran in the wrong direction, directly into a dense condo development.