I stayed up for a while last night, about an hour after whatever happened happened, they brought out the dogs and they had helicopters in the air until around 1:30 a.m. or so but the dogs stayed out a while longer. I couldn't find anything about it on the news or online, nothing was bigger than the Michael Jackson coverage.

So this morning when I tried to leave for work, the street was completely empty of traffic and parked cars so I walked into the road and saw this:



and thought "oh, so I'm not crazy." Then I looked in the other direction and saw this:



I walked over to the policemen and asked if I could leave since they had cordoned off the street completely and one fellow told me sure, I could go North or South only, and as I walked away, he added "on foot." So we had some discussion and I was allowed to leave on the hideous vinyl banner side and as that parking enforcement guy removed the cones and tape, I asked him if there'd been a shooting last night and he replied "yes, this morning" which was close enough. Sounded like there was miscommunication already. I was impressed at how well parking enforcement and police got along. In Long Beach, they are mortal enemies so it was nice to see cooperation. (Also, I would have liked to have gotten better pictures but I didn't want anything confiscated and normally, I can carry my camera in my pocket and can shoot from the hip, which I tried to be all sly-like and do only to realize I was in work gear and those sort of trousers have no pockets (or rather, these particular pockets were sewn shut) which caused a small moment of frantic hand waving and only these views of the day after.)

More news searching when I got in to work and after inquiring of several sites, I was directed to the Daily News article (which is a Valley paper yet is almost always more on the ball than the Pravda West LA Times). Which confused me since if the helicopters were only lighting up the scene, what were the dogs for? Go, go L.A. Weekly (courtesy of Agent Marty whom I called at 11:20 and who now has a voicemail message of me freaking out), which is keeping a running total of the City's homicides, no matter how they're caused. Theirs sounds more accurate, although it doesn't explain the lady screaming.

This would be the second police-involved fatal shooting I've overheard and the third fatal shooting I've been within a hundred yards of. Don't stand too close to me.