A Close Encounter With Your Average Drive-By Shooting

At 9:40 a.m. Monday I was walking to work at The Times, approaching Main Street on 1st when I suddenly heard two loud bangs. I thought they might be vehicular backfires.

But seconds later, several people ran out of their shops yelling about gunfire. As soon as this registered, I saw a man running toward me across the intersection and onto the 1st Street sidewalk, followed by several young people. His right hand was covered with blood.

“I’ve been shot!” he said. He left a trail of blood drops.

I looked around. He had come from the bus stop on the north side of 1st in City Hall Park, but there didn’t seem to be anything menacing there.

My next thought was that it might be a hidden sniper. Maybe I should seek cover, I told myself, but it didn’t seem that anyone else was doing that.

No other shots were fired. Nothing further seemed out of order. Already, 1st Street shopkeepers were beginning to hose down the sidewalk, erasing the blood drops.

Two or three minutes later, I decided to resume walking to work, and I arrived at The Times a block away, bursting excitedly into the City Room, describing what I’d seen.

I had always thought there would be nothing more meaningless than being killed by a stray bullet. Now it

seemed to have come close. What the hell had happened?

I’m still trying to figure it out.

*

Inquiries with police and a moment’s conversation with friends of the victim told me a little bit.

The shooting seemed to have grown out of bad blood at a nearby downtown courtroom.

Police said the alleged shooter, Michael Thomas, 21, of Los Angeles had been in court that morning where a man who had assaulted him was being sentenced. Also there were some relatives of the man being sentenced, including Marty Holland.

For reasons that were not clear, Thomas had taken umbrage and, with friends, followed the Holland party as they walked from the courthouse to a 1st Street bus stop. Thomas and three others were in a fancy car--”maybe a Lexus or a BMW,” Det. Timothy Dotson told me--when Thomas allegedly opened fire: four or five shots with a 9-millimeter semiautomatic pistol.

One of the bullets hit Holland in the hand. He was treated at a hospital and released.

Police said they had issued a warrant for Thomas’ arrest on four counts of assault with a deadly weapon.

As soon as the shots were fired, Thomas had driven away. It was a garden-variety drive-by shooting, with Holland and his friends specifically targeted. Neither I, nor anyone on the other side of the street, was apparently ever in danger, and by the time I looked up, it was all over.

“It’s kind of hard to figure out a motive,” said Dotson. “Why would he shoot in broad daylight?

The incident was “fairly uncommon,” he told me. “We have various shootings in that area, usually more in skid row [a block over]. There have been no shootings for several weeks. Really, downtown’s a fairly safe area.”

“Fairly safe.”

“No shootings for several weeks.”

It was the first time in 28 years working downtown that I’ve heard any gunfire.

Maybe I’ve just been lucky.

There would be nothing more meaningless than being killed by a stray bullet.