If you live in the Blenman Elm neighborhood in the University area near Tucson Boulevard and are at home, please be alert and cautious. Police are currently searching for an armed suspect in that area. They have blocked off street entrances at the Tucson intersection and are also searching backyards of homes near Speedway Boulevard.
I counted at least six parked patrol cars with lights flashing near the intersection of Speedway and Tucson, and police have advised a friend of mine who lives in the area to stay below the windows of her home while they search her backyard.
Update: Police left the area around noon, but are following leads in the neighborhood. I don’t know if they caught him or not, but they are looking for a hispanic male between 5-foot-7 and 5-foot-11. He dropped the gun in my friend’s neighbor’s backyard as he was fleeing over fences.
This article appears in Feb 22-28, 2007.
Yikes! I wonder what’s up there.
Update: Police left the area around noon but recovered the gun. They are following up leads in the neighborhood.
Sean, thanks so much for the update!
So many times I have seen these incidents go down: I once tried to go to the Wells Fargo at Grant and Dodge (this was before Chase opened branches in Petsmart) and the officers were everywhere there abouts with perimeters and dogs and helicopter. Needless to say, I vamooosed bigtime. But there wasn’t any mention of it in local print or TV media. Another time dude offed his sister over on the eastside and went home and offed himself. This was next door, where he holed up. All I could think of to do at the time was offer a copy of “American Detective Stories” (ISBN 0-19-50851-7)to officer, gun drawn. He laughed, and I went somewhere and had a good burger.
Can we do a window check now? Is it all clear? May we stand up?