13 April 2011

About last night...

Technically, it was in the wee hours of the morning, but just barely.

If you read my Twitter feed, you know I called 911 just after midnight and Philly PD responded by sending not one, not two, not three, but FOUR (count 'em, four) RMPs (cop-speak for "not unmarked cars," or radio motor patrol vehicles, if you want to get technical - the things you learn being raised by a cop!) to my house with lights and sirens.

So, what prompted all this?  (Before you get worried, I'm fine.)

There I was, sitting on my couch, watching television and reading an e-book on my laptop (cause I'm not fancy enough to have an actual e-reader).  Since the weather in Philly has been in the fifties and rainy, I've had the living room windows open.  Suddenly, I hear a woman outside let loose with a SCREAM.  I wait a second, but it wasn't followed with laughter, which sometimes happens when friends sneak up on a person and scare her.  And this wasn't the kind of girlish yell that sometimes comes from the frat house across the street when they're horsing around "Oooh, the boys are threatening to spill their beer on me!!!" or some bullshit nonsense.

No, this was a from-the-gut, I-mean-business, full-of-terror SCREAM.

I looked out the windows, but all I saw was the guy across the street coming out of his house and on to the porch to look around.  It was obvious he had heard it, too.  I didn't see anything that looked amiss, but I wasn't messing around.  I grabbed my phone and called 911.  I told dispatch, "I don't know if there's anything y'all can do...?  But I have my windows open and I live at [address], and I just heard a woman scream."  He told me he would send someone out to look around.

When the officers rolled up (two cars from each direction!), I ran downstairs to meet them, and I explained that I pretty much had nothing else to tell them other than "I heard a woman scream."  And with the wind and rain, I couldn't even be positive about the direction of the scream.  One of the officers took my information and said they'd look around the neighbourhood, and if they found anything, he'd give me a call, but his best guess was that someone was probably a purse-snatching victim (since they'd received no other calls by then).  I never heard back, so I'm assuming they didn't find anything.

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