Saturday, July 05, 2008

Sometimes Life's no Picnic

It was about seven thirty this morning and we were headed towards the Ferry Plaza Farmers Market to watch the vendors sent up their wares. Suddenly the calm, quiet morning is shattered by the piercing sound of police sirens. They are coming from every direction and their wailing is bouncing off hard surfaces all around us. We are located in Justin Herman Plaza just across The Embarcadero from the Ferry Market Place. The sirens stop but emergency lights flash and the sounds of shouting come in our direction. A squad of San Francisco Police Officers are following a man wielding a knife. The lead officer is yelling at the eary morning crowd "get out of the way he has a knife." My wife and I scramble away from the oncoming danger. I yell out to my wife "prepare to run like hell!" The group is led by two officers. The first has his automatic sidearm drawn but is holding it down in a safe position. The second officer is pointing a "less than lethal" shotgun that fires rounds that stun. The officer with shotgun keeps yelling "drop the knife" but the deranged man continues to flee. The sound of rounds being fired echo off buildings. The man finally complies and is taken in to custody.


One of the officers involved passes by and shows me the knife. It looks similar to knives I've seen used in martial arts. Thank you, San Francisco Police Officers for a job well done. The public is safe and the knife wielding man survives.


My adenaline is still pumping. Maybe I should have decafe coffee this morning.My apologies the following video is very shaky.

2 comments:

cookiecrumb said...

I was gonna go today... Ended up lazing in bed past "deadline."
Glad you're safe.

Zoomie said...

Whew, scary stuff! I'm glad it ended peacefully!