Here’s the story of the dead guy in my driveway: It was 5:15 pm on Wednesday 7 October 2009 in Madison, Wisconsin, and I was just sending out the last email of the day. It had been a pretty good day at work. I’m a web developer in academia. I’ve spent a good chunk of my career to date in academia, and, frankly, I like working in higher ed. I logged out for the day, but by that time the die had already been set. I had driven to work that day, although sometimes I walk, and I hopped into my car. I had some grocery shopping to do and headed over to Trader Joe’s on Monroe. I emerged a while later with a bag of groceries and a gallon of milk. It was just about 6 pm. It still seemed like any other day. I was back in the car on my way home.
I turned onto W Lakeside from S Park. My house is a couple of blocks down W Lakeside at the corner of Whittier. Right away I could see the lights on the police cars. The first thoughts through my head were: a parade? a block party? There were lots and lots of cop cars. It wasn’t something you see everyday, but I suspected nothing ill. And then I saw the police tape. There was a yellow stream of police tape running across Lakeside and all around the block. A cop car was parked across both lanes of traffic.
My driveway faces Whittier, and it was clear I couldn’t go home on Lakeside. So I turned right a block early and headed up Lowell and then onto Emerson. I came up to Whittier and the police tape extended all the way to and beyond that intersection. I parked on the side of the street, grabbed my groceries, and walked towards the police tape. A man walking his dog was behind me. I walked up to a police officer who was standing within the police tape perimeter.
“I’m wondering if I could get to my house,” I said. I could see my house a short block down, but there seemed to be a lot of people on that end of the block.
“Where do you live?” the police officer asked.
I told him, and he immediately replied, “Sir, your house is a major crime scene.” But somewhat encouragingly, he then instructed me to come around back on Lakeside, and he would ask the officer in charge if I could gain entry to my house.
I talked briefly to the man who was standing there with his dog. He said that there had been a shooting. Someone had been killed. But that was all he knew.
I hopped in the car, and drove back around to Lakeside. I grabbed my groceries again and walked towards the police tape crossing Lakeside. I could see many cops congregating in the middle of the intersection, which was completely blocked off. There were police cars everywhere. Actually there were pretty much cops everywhere in sight. I thought to myself, “I’ve never seen so many cops.”
There was yet another cop standing guard at the perimeter of the police tape. I explained who I was, and asked if I could get into my house. The cop said something into the microphone attached to his collar. His radio crackled. A minute later he said, “No, sir, we can’t allow you in right now.” He asked for my name and a phone number I could be reached at. I gave him my cell phone number and name. It was still unclear what had transpired.
But a number of my neighbors were there, talking. Information was sketchy. What I quickly learned though is that someone had apparently robbed Cousin’s Subs on S Park. That’s about four blocks away from my house. Four shots had been fired, they said. A police officer had shot the robber, and that man was lying dead in my driveway.
I was stunned. A neighbor, who I had just met, asked me if I had anywhere I could go. I’m new in town, I said. Let’s put your groceries in my refrigerator, she said. I followed her into the house. She said you could see the dead body from her kitchen window. We walked into the kitchen at the back of the house. I put my milk and groceries in the fridge. “You can look out the window, if you want,” she said, and walked into the living room. I leaned over to get a look. There was a partially covered body lying in my driveway. And there were also a swarm of cops.
I walked back through the house and outside. Someone said the shooting had happened around 4:50 pm. One person claimed that the police officer had struggled with the deceased. There was talk that the robber had a gun. It was unclear if he had shot first before being gunned down by the police office who was chasing him. Further down the street some neighbors invited me in. I shared a beer with a web designer and his family. The web designer had been home when the shooting occurred. He had taken a photo of the deceased from his kitchen window with his iPhone and had immediately tweeted it on Twitter. News travels fast.
The police officer hadn’t given me a time estimate of when I would be able to return home. The investigation would certainly take hours, someone said. I left the neighborhood and started driving. I had in mind to get some supper somewhere. But my thoughts were confused. The shock of seeing a dead body in my driveway was starting to hit me. I drove around aimlessly until a plan emerged: I’ll go back to work.
So that’s what I did. I pulled into the parking lot on the edge of the University of Wisconsin campus. It was about 7:30 pm by this point. A co-worker I work closely with was just leaving the building for the day. I told him what had happened since I had left work. I told him to watch the news at 10 pm, so that he could tell me what it said. I don’t own a television. I walked to my desk and booted up the computer. The first thing I did was check a couple of local news sites to see if anything had been posted about the shooting. Just a paragraph here. A paragraph there. No details yet, just word that someone had been shot and killed by the police.
I logged into Facebook and updated my status. I dumped what I knew at that point into the comment thread on my Facebook status. And then I tried to refocus. With the start of the academic year, work has been busy. It seemed an appropriate place to be that evening, even if it wasn’t necessarily by choice. I worked with little regard to the time. Finally, around 9:30 I decided that I needed to figure out what I was doing for the night. The police hadn’t called me. I made a couple of phone calls. A neighbor gave me the number for the Madison police department. I called the police, and they said that I should come back to W Lakeside. Talk to the officer at the perimeter, and maybe they’d let me in to get a few things.
So I went back to my house. The street was still blocked off by police cars. There was an officer standing guard on that side by the sidewalk. It was dark at this point except for the glare of street lights and the lights of emergency vehicles. The officer talked into his radio microphone. A minute later, two men came walking over. They said that the officer would escort me to my house, and I could enter. Then they returned to their duties around the corner towards my driveway. And that’s when I became aware of the blinding light coming from the direction of my driveway. “Am I to just get a few things and then leave?” I asked. No, the officer said. I could spend the night at home. But he warned me not to look out the window at my driveway.
“The deceased is there,” he said, “and the body is only partially covered. It’s a gruesome scene.”
We walked toward my house, and then I saw the source of the blinding light. At the end of the driveway was a mobile crime lab truck and a whole phalanx of large floodlights, which were all aimed at my driveway. It was bright. It seemed brighter than daylight. Everything started feeling surreal. The policeman walked me up to the front door, which is at the corner. I fumbled with my keys, but got the key in the lock and walked in.
The light from the floodlights was pouring through the windows. Who needs compact fluorescent bulbs when the police have brought their floodlights? I closed the shades, which didn’t help much, and I avoided going back into the kitchen where the view of the driveway would be clear. It was shortly after 10 pm. What now? It was too early to go to bed, and I was definitely too wired with energy at this point to sleep. I could hear conversations going on outside. The police were talking loudly.
Eventually I went to bed. My bedroom is on the opposite side of the house from the lights. I lay there for a while, but then sleep descended. Quiet.
I woke with a start. I looked at the clock – 5:13 am. I walked out of my bedroom. It was still bright, but not as blindingly bright. I went into the kitchen. I could tell that they had turned off some of the floodlights. I looked out the window. There was some kind of tunnel-tent structure covering the driveway. There was light coming from inside the tunnel. The investigation was continuing away from prying eyes. I went back to bed and fell asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow.
The next thing I knew, my clock radio was buzzing. It was 7 am. A new day.
From the living room, I could see that Lakeside was no longer blocked. A cop car sat blocking Whittier though and the police tape now just encompassed Whittier while keeping Lakeside open to traffic. I walked into the dining room and looked out. And then into the kitchen, with windows on two sides. Most of the cops were gone. The crime lab truck remained at the end of the driveway, and the tunnel structure was still on top of the driveway. The investigation had continued all through the night.
I’m sure it was a long night for the police. The police chief had come to the scene and given a press conference. Stories were appearing online. It was the lead news in the newspaper and with the TV stations.
I went to work and told a few people what had happened. But I put it out of my mind: I had a meeting at 10 am to prepare for.
I came home over the lunch hour. The police truck was gone, but the tunnel-tent remained to protect the crime scene. The police officer on duty recorded when I arrived and left. I received a call from a detective on the case in the afternoon, but I didn’t have much to tell. I hadn’t physically witnessed what happened myself.
When I went home at 5 pm, it was as if nothing had happened just 24 hours before. The police were gone. The police tape taken down. And the driveway was empty except for some patches where the blood had been scraped from the concrete.
It was a random, freakish thing: a man shot dead in my driveway. How did that happen? It was reported that after Cousin’s Subs had been robbed that the robber made his way into my neighborhood. A police unit was looking for the suspect. This officer from his vehicle did see the suspect. An eye witness said the officer was shouting orders to the man. The police officer left his vehicle and approached the suspect. A struggle ensued. The police chief reported that the suspect had a gun and that a gun was recovered from the scene. The officer shot the suspect four times, who just happened to be standing in my driveway when this all happened. And, indeed, these things happen. I have no sense that Madison, Wisconsin, is a more dangerous place than anywhere else. My friends in other, larger cities say this is a common occurrence and were surprised at the length and depth of the crime scene investigation. The whole event does seem an unusual thing, and certainly in my life experience, it is.
An incomplete collection of media stories referring to the shooting in my driveway (best stories are first):
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