Excitement in Sleepy Lander

This afternoon I was visiting teaching Peggy when she got a phone call from Erva saying that there had been a stabbing on Cascade Street. I called the Carters because they have a police scanner so I knew they'd have the scoop. They said it was on the 500 block of Cascade, which is exactly 2 blocks away from our house and right by the church. South Elementary and Starrett Junior High were both on lock-down. This happened around noon. I called James, who was planning to go on a run with Lizzie, and warned him to be careful both on his run and in the house. I rarely if ever lock the doors, and this guy was still on the loose.

The description the lady who was stabbed gave was that he was about 6 feet tall, in his 20's or 30's, caucasian with long, blond hair, dressed in camoflauge and a baseball cap. James talked to a police officer who was driving slowly down our street and asked him if he ought to take his phone with him on his run. The officer said, "if I were you I'd bring a gun." I don't know if he was kidding or serious. There were lots of police cars on Cascade and driving all around our neighborhood. I found out that the lady who was stabbed lived right across the street from Kitchens' house on Cascade.

I called the school to see if they would let the kids walk home. Celina said that the Lander police department had told them it was OK to go off lock down and to release the kids on time. I didn't want my kids walking the 2 minutes from the school to the house so I walked over there and met them at the gate. They were all pretty excited about the lock down, except for Teancum who complained that it made him miss his favorite subjects. I've been there during lock down before. It is pretty boring, especially for a first grader.

When we got home, Bonny called very worried that she hadn't been able to get ahold of Jacky. She told me how to get into Jacky's house if she didn't answer the door. I ran over there and the front door was unlocked, so I went in. I searched her house, but didn't find Jacky. Then I went over to the church to see if she had gone to her Family History class, but she wasn't there either. I had to pick up Rebecca from pre-school, so I ran to CDS and then went back to Jacky's house. She was home and on the phone with Bonny. She had gone to get her hair done.

It was an awakening for everybody, especially in our sleepy neighborhood. We have felt very safe here and the thought of a lady opening her door and being stabbed in broad daylight and in a quiet, safe neighborhood by a total stranger was just unbelievable. And thus it should be, because it turns out that the lady just made it up -- or at least that is the latest rumor. Everybody was worried for nothing. The police wasted an entire afternoon. But we all had a wake-up call about being more careful about our safety. And it was good practice in seeing how everybody cared about each other. My VT partner Tami lives next door to the house James grew up in on Cascade, so she was very scared to go home. Within minutes of finding out what had happened, Tami had 2 phone calls with offers of places to stay until the stabber was caught. Our kids had an exciting afternoon and will hopefully be more careful at home (when I run on the treadmill I lock the front door and twice Rebecca has opened the door when someone came to the door -- luckily both times it was my friends). I think Jamey was a little disappointed to find out the stabber wasn't real because he was preparing to launch his full "Home Alone" strategy with paint buckets and baseball bats and everything else he could rig as a weapon!

I'll be interested in reading what the newspaper writes about the whole thing. It was sure some excitement here in Sleepy Lander.