Shooting Just Now on Capitol Hill:
There is a dead man on his back in the street outside Twice Sold Tales, on John Street, half a block east of Broadway. I have a perfect view of the scene from my apartment window. The man is naked but covered in a white sheet. His face and body and legs are hidden from view, but his white feet are poking out of the sheet. Clumps of his clothes are next to him. (Some people in the building watched the cops strip him naked and got a look at all his bullet wounds.) His shoes are off and they lay near his feet. The dead man is white and he lived on the street, according to a chaplain who explained a little bit about what was going on when I arrived home to my block cordoned off in yellow tape about a half an hour ago. Apparently the dead man was wielding a gun and was perceived to be enough of a threat by the cops—some say he was firing the gun, everyone’s account is different—that they shot and killed him. A minute ago three cops were scanning the exterior walls of Perfect Copy & Print, presumably looking for bullet holes. Another just shined his flashlight on an old-fashioned hand pistol with a wooden handle on the sidewalk just in front of KT Imports (that’s the sign on the empty storefront between Perfect Copy & Print and Twice Sold Tales). They’re not touching it.
9:08 AM