To start out my story... I have to first tell you that I went to Ruban Rouge in Palm Harbor tonight for scrapbooking. This won't make any sense to those who don't live in Tampa, but for my local friends who know how directionally challenged I am, they will laugh. Did you know the longest way to go to RR from Brandon? Well I found out tonight... you go across the Gandy Bridge. Yes I said it, not sure how it happened since I WAS using my GPS, but I managed to make a 1 hour trip into almost 2 hrs. Then on my way home... I did a little better...but did you know that you can actually drive through Tampa Airport on the way home to Brandon? I bet no one ever did that before LOL . But the most important thing to remember, I made it to RR and back home safely. LOL
Ok on to my post about Guns, Police & Scrappin' ...OH MY!
While about 20 ladies and I were sitting in the Ruban Rouge Design Studio scrapbooking and having a good time... a young black man (maybe early 20's) opened the door and sightly out of breath asked if we saw a man running by. We all said no, he looked like he had been chasing someone so a lady by the door said, should we lock the door and he said yes and left. Then ladies a couple tables over from me saw this man pull a gun out from his waist band behind him and hold it with both hands like he had someone cornered. These ladies yell, he has a gun out, everyone down! Ok, I've never seen so many people dive to the floor before at once. I was kinda just standing there thinking ...is this for real? I couldn't see the guy outside, so I walked over to the bathroom and stood in the door way and peeked out.
Then the guy came back over to the door and was motioning for everyone to get up and he was flashing his open wallet at the lady by the door showing some kind of card. So she got up and opened the door and henshowed her up close his wallet. She said it was an Army Military Police card and he was wearing a set of military dog tags. He said everything is ok, we got him. In the meantime, a lady hiding under the table was calling 911 and reporting it and another lady was calling the store to let them know what was going on. The dispatcher on the phone with 911 told us to keep the door locked and stay under the tables until a uniformed officer arrived. By this time 1/2 of the ladies were already back to scrappin' , including me, the other half were still under the tables hiding!
Finally the police arrive in FULL FORCE! There were officers everywhere, they had dogs, BIG rifles... it was crazy! A few of the officers came in and asked a few questions about what direction the guy left in, etc and off they went with the dog. And let me tell you that dog was excited! I've never seen a police dog in action before and he was ready to go find the bad guy!! So a few more officers came in and talked to everyone trying to get the story straight. Then they asked us if this guy ever pointed a gun at us, we said no, he then said were you scared? And everyone said yes... and we still had people under the tables at this point! Three officers stayed with us while the others were out hunting this guy down. I couldn't understand why the police dept didn't have a communication link with the Military Police.
They found this guy who had the gun a couple of blocks away and put him in a police car. The lady that made the 911 call had to go and ID him and they took him to the police station. His story was he was playing with a friend of his, chasing each other around and he only had a pellet gun. So who knows if we will read about this in the paper tomorrow. Of course, being the scrapper that I am, I need pictures for a scrapbook page. So here are few of our officers and a little reenactment of the crime by Liz & I. Actually Liz & I were probably the only ones who weren't on the floor hiding when all of this happened. :)
We had to each complete a victims form stating what we saw, etc. After all the "higher up" officers left we had some fun with the remaining guys who stayed to gather our paperwork. I even heard someone ask about having their picture taken with handcuffs on... LOL
Crime Reenactment
Marian, Joni & Liz ~ my first scrapbooking friends
Love you guys! :)
Liz & Officer McCloud
Ya know me, always find an opportunity have my picture taken with a guy everywhere I go! ;-)
Some of the officers that were still there...
This was probably the most fun they ever had on a call!
Look how wonderful Mandisa looks! 
