I wasn’t looking for any more excitement this week- I’ve already got plenty, thank you very much – but some unexpected excitement managed to find me all the same. It happened tonight at about 9:45 p.m. as I was making my way back from the Racine Theater Guild to Holy Communion to rehearse with one of my private voice students for Saturday’s contest. (It was literally the only time we could get our crazy schedules to align.)
As I turned from Chicago Ave. on to Carmel, I soon came upon what looked just like a Brink’s Armored Truck sitting basically right in the middle of the street- leaving just barely enough room for cars to squeeze past it. And as I inched past it, I realized that there was another truck just like it right it front of it. And that’s when I noticed the words <<Racine County Sheriff S.W.A.T. >> emblazoned on the side of it. And then I noticed two more S.W.A.T. vehicles parked in the church lot, and standing around them were at least a dozen guys in full swat team regalia (black uniforms, helmets, firearms- like something straight out of a movie. Except that this was real — although surreal was more like it.
But nobody was redirecting traffic – and nobody seemed concerned as I inched myself down the street and eventually into the parking lot. And even as I exited my car, nobody seemed concerned that I was there – nor concerned for my safety. But I was concerned, to put it mildly, and decided that if they weren’t going to say something to me, I would say something to them. So I walked on over to the nearest swat team member, looking as unthreatening and law- abiding as I possibly could (good thing I had on one of my Davey and Goliath ties). “Excuse me, but I’m a staff member at this church and have some work to do there. Is there anything I need to know?” The officer smiled, said there was nothing to worry about, and then explained that they had just executed a search warrant at one of the houses on the block – but were all done and about to head out.
Gulp.
I guess I was hoping that whatever they had been doing was some sort of drill – maybe a practice run, sort of like what the fire department occasionally does when they light a structure on fire in order to douse the flames. But no -the SWAT team was there for real – evidently because there was the very real possibility of a trully dangerous situation. And there I was, heading into a dark and empty church armed with nothing more threatening than a battery-operated metronome with which to defend myself.
Actually, I didn’t walk into church alone because my voice student and his dad arrived just as I was returning to the parking lot. And here’s the funny part of the story. Due to some street construction (the details of which I won’t go into here) the student’s dad found himself to drive up the hill and into the parking lot- which meant driving the wrong way on a one-way street. (The hill in front of Holy Communion is a one-way street going down.) And just as he drove past the “Wrong Way- Do Not Enter” sign, the dad said to his son “let’s just hope that there isn’t a cop sitting there at the top of the hill.” Honest to God. So what do they find when they get to the top of the hill? More than a dozen uniformed, armed, formidable-looking S.W.A.T. officers! (Talk about cracking down hard on mild traffic violations!) Fortunately, none of them seemed to even notice this little traffic infraction – let alone care about it.
And thus ended the Unexpected Excitement of the night.
pictured above: the last of the S.W.A.T. trucks right before it pulled out of the church’s parking lot. I was tempted for about a second and a half to snap a picture of the S.W.A.T. officers themselves, but decided not to draw any undue attention to myself.