What's the Worst thing you have ever seen?

Monday, September 25, 2006

What's the Worst thing you have ever seen? Category: Life What's the worst thing you have ever seen? October 1993 I was working at Silo in El Cajon. It was just another day selling audio gear and drinking coffee, killing time. The life of a commssioned salesman. I was up near the front of the store when I heard a shotgun blast. No it didn't sound like a backfire from a car. You cannot mistake the sound a double barrel shotgun makes when it is fired nearby. As I moved to the front window to take a look another blast from the shotgun rang out. As I looked out the glass sliding doors into the parking lot I saw a body lying on the sidewalk across the parking lot about 50 feet away. I pushed between my co-worker Gary and his customer at the front counter and reached for the phone and dialed 911. As I was talking to the Police operator the gumman shot out the front windows of the Family Fitness Center shattering the glass. He walked into the building and you could hear more blasts from the shotgun. As I was describing what was happening to the 911 operator one of our stockers and one of the install guys were runninig over to check on the first body slumped on the sidewalk. As they reached the body the gunman came back out of gym through the broken glass windows and calmy walked to his brown 280z parked in front of the wndows. I told the 911 operator what he looked like, height, size, clothing.Then he sat down in the drivers seat of the his car with his feet still on the pavement. One fianl blast from the double barrell shotgun and the 'blowback' came. A cloud of flesh, skull, blood and brains came out of the car in a fine mist as his feet lifted from the ground and twitched involuntarily for a few seconds then fell back to the pavement. I told the 911 operator that he had killed himself. She asked if I was sure. I was. I told her what I had seen coming from the car. He had killed 4 people and injured others before killing himself before my eyes. It was a few days later that we learned that he had gone there looking for a girl to kill her. We thought at first that it was just some random killing spree and we had been spared. The media hung out for a couple days. They new the 911 call had come from my store but did not know who had made they call. They wanted to know and kept asking my bosses but they wouldn't say. I eventually told them it was me just to get them out of there. I was interviewed by Mark Walton for PM Magazine. My 15 minutes of fame. 13 years later I still can vividly picture that asshole blowing his brains out in front of me (and others). For him it is over. For those of us unfortunate to have been there thay day it pops up in the occasional dream or when I hear what sounds like a gunshot. That's the worst thing I have ever seen.