Sirens are still blaring outside of my home. It's strange to process tonight's events, and I'm not exactly sure how to talk about them without trivializing them and having them become some kind of a dinner party story.
To summarize quickly: I am 100% safe and so are all of my friends.
Tonight, like almost every Sunday (since I have been in Denver), I went to Jazz in the Park. Jazz in the Park is a weekly concert series hosted in City Park in Denver. My friends and I go each week. I spent my day baking and decorating cupcakes and genuinely just having this silly, wholesome fun.
This morning, as I was picking up Rachel to walk over, we met up with our friend who was clearly distraught. Today there was a drive-by shooting near the anti-gang violence center on which she serves as a board member. As we were talking about the situation, she mentioned that she "hoped everything would be fine tonight."
I took everything with a grain of salt, because...well, I live a life of white male privilege. It's chock full of getting promotions, walking around safe at night, and having a ridiculously high credit score.
Around 8 PM, my group of friends heard what we assumed to be fireworks going off. I saw a police officer running past us, but it wasn't something strange or out of the ordinary. I remember commenting on how intense the police was running, but I didn't process anything..and neither did any of my friends.
A moment later, we heard screams and people running towards us. Jazz in the park is filled with people, so to see a group of people running in waves and screaming is really, really scary. It also is something that looks like it does in the movies. I remember having this really distinct thought, that I felt like things weren't real.
We ran away, grabbing some of our things and leaving others. We ran until we were several blocks away and there was no one around us. But, we still saw police officers streaming in and we heard a loudspeaker telling us to get inside as the area was not secured.
It was horribly scary, and we later found that a police officer had been killed. I'm safe. My friends are safe, and I guess that is all that matters.
To summarize quickly: I am 100% safe and so are all of my friends.
Tonight, like almost every Sunday (since I have been in Denver), I went to Jazz in the Park. Jazz in the Park is a weekly concert series hosted in City Park in Denver. My friends and I go each week. I spent my day baking and decorating cupcakes and genuinely just having this silly, wholesome fun.
This morning, as I was picking up Rachel to walk over, we met up with our friend who was clearly distraught. Today there was a drive-by shooting near the anti-gang violence center on which she serves as a board member. As we were talking about the situation, she mentioned that she "hoped everything would be fine tonight."
I took everything with a grain of salt, because...well, I live a life of white male privilege. It's chock full of getting promotions, walking around safe at night, and having a ridiculously high credit score.
Around 8 PM, my group of friends heard what we assumed to be fireworks going off. I saw a police officer running past us, but it wasn't something strange or out of the ordinary. I remember commenting on how intense the police was running, but I didn't process anything..and neither did any of my friends.
A moment later, we heard screams and people running towards us. Jazz in the park is filled with people, so to see a group of people running in waves and screaming is really, really scary. It also is something that looks like it does in the movies. I remember having this really distinct thought, that I felt like things weren't real.
We ran away, grabbing some of our things and leaving others. We ran until we were several blocks away and there was no one around us. But, we still saw police officers streaming in and we heard a loudspeaker telling us to get inside as the area was not secured.
It was horribly scary, and we later found that a police officer had been killed. I'm safe. My friends are safe, and I guess that is all that matters.
It was really, really scary. Jazz in the park was one of my favorite things about summer.
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