Squirrel & SWAT Team Delay Turkey Dinner

Canadian Thanksgiving is celebrated on the second Monday of October which sometimes coincides with my father's birthday, so it becomes a double celebration for the family. Although the two dates didn't coincide in 2002, I was gratefully looking forward to sharing Thanksgiving dinner with family members, something of a rare occurrence for us.

Living an eight-hour drive away from my closest family members and the width of the whole country separating me from the farthest ones, made it impossible for holiday get-togethers like those routinely enjoyed and taken for granted by most of my friends & neighbors.

This year's celebration would be a memorable one, although in a way that none of us could have anticipated. One of my sisters and her spouse had made the 8-hour trip, my father had already moved to live in a retirement home near me and my son lived close by, so at least a small portion of our family would be together.

Thanksgiving Day dawned sunny and balmy in my well-treed neighbourhood that was neither in the suburbs nor part of the downtown core, but a quiet, leafy area of well-kept homes of various vintages and designs, adjacent to the main thoroughfare leading into the centre of the city.

Stately 50- to 60-year-old spruce trees lined the sidewalk across from my house, originally planted to mark the boundary of what was once a sizeable farm. The main thoroughfare bordered a substantial park area which was bounded on its far side by the river that forms the international border between Canada and the U.S.A. Altogether, a serene, picturesque part of the city.

An early morning start had me prepping the turkey, peeling and dicing vegetables for our many traditional Nordic casseroles and assembling the ingredients for the stuffing. By mid-day the prep work was finished, and the turkey was tucked away roasting in the oven. My father and brother-in-law were in the living room reading the paper and my sister was upstairs napping. Knowing that I had everything under control and on schedule, I decided to take a breather outside on the covered deck that stretched the width of my house, just outside the kitchen door.

Opening the door, I was immediately affronted by a belligerent male voice demanding, "Get inside and close the door!" coming from a yet-unseen person on the driveway adjacent to my neighbors.

Thinking that they had a very loud-mouthed visitor and wondering who he might be ordering about so rudely, I was in total shock when a man dressed in black carrying a weapon dashed across my deck, crouched down on the ground, positioning himself by the side of the deck skirting with his weapon aimed at the house on the other side of mine.

Instinct and fast reflexes had me back in my kitchen without a second thought with the door closed firmly behind me. Being in shock I'm amazed that I didn't panic as it could have been any gun-crazed lunatic running across my deck. It was so unexpected and happened so quickly that I didn't have the presence of mind to realize at first that we could all be in imminent danger. There was a man with a rifle outside my door!

Back inside, taking a deep calming breath, I peered out the front window to discover two more men, dressed in black like the one in my yard, hunkered down on the sidewalk below my stone retaining wall with another behind a tree, all with weapons aimed at my neighbour's house. Several squad cars blocked either end of our short block. Ok, so not a lunatic behind my kitchen door, but some kind of operation in progress.

As everything remained quiet outside, I opened the kitchen door a few inches and asked the officer by my deck what was happening. I was told that they'd received a call about the man next door pointing a rifle at vehicles on the street. As repeated phone calls to his house had remained unanswered and all the drapes were drawn tightly closed, speculation ran high that he might be inside ready to shoot or there might be a worse situation ensuing inside. He was deadly serious as this was happening in the midst of the 3-week long sniper-shooting spree in Washington D.C.

I just couldn't conceive of the mild-mannered quintessential "Mr. Mom" next door, who cooked and cleaned for his 2 young daughters while his wife worked long hours at a nearby hospital, being involved in something so horrendous.

But whatever was happening next door, I was told to keep everyone away from the windows and not to leave the house. My father and brother-in-law were safe in the living room as there were no windows facing the suspect's house and my sister was asleep upstairs out of harm's way.

Within a short while, we were faced with another altogether unexpected development---a phone call instructing us to vacate the house and to leave the doors and windows open. Trying to quell visions of a gun battle from inside my house, I worried more about my 82-year-old father's reaction to all this upheaval, but it was my sister who created the bigger problem.

Still half asleep when I approached her with the news, she laughed and refused to believe me, thinking I was kidding, and it took several rounds of persistent persuasion to convince her about the seriousness of the situation. Reluctantly, she did get up and it was then that I noticed that the window beside her bed was directly in line with those of the neighbour's house and would have put her in danger had there been any gun fire from that direction.

Having helped my father with his jacket, gathered up his eyeglasses and cane before unlocking the doors and windows, I quickly whisked the turkey out of the oven, crouching as I did so, to stay lower than the kitchen window. We all hustled out into my car heading for my father's apartment and calling my son enroute to warn him off.

Settled in my father's small quarters of what he called his bachelor apartment, I made a call to one of my neighbors for an update.

Shortly after vacating my house, the troublesome neighbor, with his mother and daughters in the car, had turned the corner onto our street only to be stopped by police manning the barricade and asked where he lived. On stating his address and pointing to his house, he was invited into their squad car for a "chat" during which his story unfolded.

One Hour Earlier

Having settled his daughters into his car ready to pick up his mother for dinner, he had spotted a squirrel gnawing at the woodwork of the lower part of his back door. Squirrels had already caused some damage and all his attempts to deter them had failed. We were all constantly battling squirrels and raccoons for territorial rights and his house, in particular, had always been the showpiece of the neighborhood, sitting as it did on a rise above the street, surrounded by extensive gardens. He was in the process of refurbishing and remodeling both the interior and exterior as it had sat empty for several years before he purchased it.

Thinking to take drastic action (or more likely not thinking at all) he went back into his house for his air rifle to take care of this one, once and for all. Although the newspaper article claims that he discharged a weapon, we hadn't heard any shots being fired, but perhaps air rifles are not as loud as others, and then again, we hadn't heard the squad cars arrive either. In any case, having actually shot or not, he drove away totally unaware of the drama about to play out as a consequence of his actions.

While aiming at the squirrel, he had been spotted by someone driving past who assumed he was pointing his rifle at traffic on the street below and duly reported it to the police, resulting in the swift deployment of the SWAT team and the order for my family to evacuate my home.

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Having received the "all clear" message we returned home to find all visible signs of the previous conflict and of the police presence on the street gone. The suspect neighbor was out on the sidewalk surrounded by nearby residents to whom he was contritely offering explanations and apologies for the inconvenience his actions had caused.

I heard some time later from his mother that as he had been escorted to the squad car, his oldest daughter, aged 7, had matter-of-factly and in a resigned manner announced, "The police are taking Daddy to jail", completely unaware of her younger sister's distress at her pronouncement.

Our turkey went back into the oven and at some point, that evening we did have our Thanksgiving dinner, but strangely enough (or not) none of us can remember any details of what exactly I had prepared other than the turkey.

My father, bless his heart, took it all in stride having experienced far more dangerous situations during his childhood when late-night home raids were common, and the perils he had faced during his patrol treks behind enemy territory during the war years. Though I doubt he could have imagined that something similar would happen here, but he certainly had quite a story to share with his friends.

The irony of my sister and husband coming from a large metropolitan area where crime was a daily occurrence, only to have the SWAT team interrupt their holiday in a much smaller, less crime-ridden town, didn't escape me.

At the end of the day, I was thankful that at least the situation, in which we had unwittingly and unwillingly become embroiled, had not had its inception in any of the violence that was initially suspected by the police.

But 20 years later, I find myself annoyed at our local constabulary for not having the courtesy to call and thank us for our cooperation after disrupting the family, surrounding our home, and then commandeering it (although they did not have cause to enter it in the end), especially as they knew we had an elderly parent with us. It was, after all, Thanksgiving Day!

Tuesday, October 15, 2002

POLICE CLOSE QUEEN & LAKE STREETS

Yesterday at 1:50 p.m., City Police were called to the area of Queen and Lake Streets regarding a report that a man was shooting a rifle. When the officers arrived, they were unable to locate the suspect. Queen and Lake Streets were subsequently closed to traffic for about an hour. At about 2:45p.m. the suspect was located, and a pellet gun was seized. It is alleged that*** discharged an air rifle within the city limits. ***was shooting at squirrels on his front lawn. ***has a by-law preventing people from discharging rifles or air rifles within the city other than in a designated area. He is charged with breaching by-law #70-359.