If you were out and about and in the mix Saturday night you know things were as hot as Sir Elton’s lyrics. Our people were out and mingling, too, trying to sneak dinner in between incidents and running from scene to scene.
Sadly, this lethal drug thing the county appears to have embarked on touched another local family, we’ll just say in Lamorinda this time, and our condolences to them. Equally lethal, as most of us also know, is public gunplay – two people going down as a result of that particular scourge near a market in the 3300 block of Willow Pass Road in Bay Point around 5:35 p.m.
One dead, another wounded – and deputies worked long into the night gathering evidence on that one.
We started getting word of “megaphones” in downtown Walnut Creek and headed that way as we rallied in Central County, helicopters thunka-thunka-thunking overhead but no “Ride of the Valkyries” as we followed them south to Danville and a vigorous search for a man – reportedly armed – who had just stolen the cell phones from three teenagers downtown.
Hell hath no fury like a teen who has had their cellie taken away but whoever the guy was that did it he must have been pretty shifty, eluding orbiting choppers (one rotor-addled reader guessed six birds but, no, merely two…), sniffing canines and probing police officers. A clean getaway, apparently.
By then the Witching Hour was upon us and bartenders and wait persons we know started checking in, giving accounts of some enthusiastic partying, unusual party favors, and repercussions as the hour kicked into full gear. At least one youngster went to the hospital after ingesting something she shouldn’t have, a woman was pitched out of a golf cart after a collision in Blackhawk, and police were dispatched to various venues to ask hard-partying crowds to roll the volume back from 11.
Our dogged but meagre crew was scattered hither and yon by then, linked by Flashed text messages and some wondering why, what with the pharmaceuticals and power drinking and all, everyone was managing to keep their cars safely between the white lines for a change.
“Kinda nice,” someone wrote and, yes, it was – since we use the roads like everyone else.
We even made it through the Bad Ex-Boyfriend/Ex-Girlfriend Hour (2:15 a.m.) – that critical period after Last Call when the recently dumped or divorced have had time to think things over, showing up on their ex’s doorstep for one final, muddled confrontation before slashing his or her tires or pitching headfirst into the rose bushes. We mean, hey, who said love would last forever?
“It’s that special time when the sane sleep and the less than sane hit the streets,” wrote consummate “shooter” and Nighthawk Supreme Craig Cannon, our guys getting all poetic and stuff this morning. “I’m out here with them. Looking, listening, eves-dropping. Let’s see what finds it’s way into my lens this morning.”
Whoa. And, yes, we call our photographers “shooters” and we don’t care if the term has been soiled by its use to describe mass killers. Strictly CSI Miami stuff and that show never carried any weight with us.
But the dawn comes, eventually, even for Craig, and we were hoping to drag ourselves home, cadging a little shut-eye before settling into Sunday, glad to have covered many of the night’s doings and wondering what we missed.
There’s always something.
These eyes have seen a thousand deaths. 108RS
We get it.