"Man, 23, Found Fatally Shot in Head in NW. A 23-year-old man was found shot to death about 9:30p.m. Saturday night in the 5800 block of 7th Avenue NW [on the corner of 7th and Nicholson, to be precise]. Antoine Womack, of the 6000 block of North Dakota Ave NE, died from an apparent gunshot to the head, authorities said. Police urged anyone with information to call the detectives at..."
That's a blurb from today's (Monday) edition of the Washington Post. It's significance? I was on my police ride along Saturday night. That happened in my district. Are you catching on yet? I was there. I was on the scene of that homicide. I saw his body.
Trauma doesn't even begin to describe how I feel, and I'm not going to be OK with this for a long time. Dr. Bennett says he still has flashbacks from the homicides he worked as a cop. I'm having nightmares, and I can't get the images out of my head. But I have appointments with the counseling center, and I'm going to try to talk to Captain Williams. In short, I'm starting the road to recovery, but it's not going to be pretty.
Most people go their entire lives without seeing death, let alone such a violent death as this one. Hell, most cops never work a homicide case in their entire careers. I'm 20 and this is my life. Someday I'll look back on this day and say "that was the start of the next part of my life, I'm glad I saw that, for it's helped make me who I am today." But you know what? Today's not that day. Tomorrow's probably not going to be that day either, and if I had the chance to take back Saturday night, with no memories, I'd take it in a heartbeat.
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1 comment:
Hey Steve. Guess what. Unless you're in Anacostia, your odds aren't that high. In fact, our area of DC has virtually no homicides. It's not a homogenous area.
It would only be naive to expect to see one.
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