CommentsFIRST PERSON-The public debate over assault weapons brings to mind the harrowing experience I had in my early twenties. I learned from experience that people do not know what they would do in an emergency situation…until they do it.
President Trump stated that he would have run into the Florida school during the recent shooting, even without a weapon, but I argue that he does not know how he would react in a life-threatening situation, in the same way that I could not have predicted my reflex in favor of composure and self-preservation.
I remember sitting in the backseat of a police car in Los Angeles in the early 1980s and fidgeting with my brown corduroy purse. I was in agony over Fred and Buffy. Were they dead? Were they injured? They had been alone in my apartment with the gunman. I had deserted them, and my body was wrapped in a blanket of guilt. I’d learned how I would act under pressure. I’d saved myself and left others behind. This was not altruistic. This was not commendable. But it proved one thing: I was a survivor.
Coldwater Canyon Boulevardwas normally buzzing with cars, but that morning it had been evacuated by official orders. It was as dead as my former high school during a fire drill. There were ten law enforcement vehicles in my line of sight and what seemed like a hundred police and SWAT officers scampering to and fro, hoping not to get nailed by the gunman who could have poked his rifle out of my apartment window. The incident had the distinction of being Los Angeles’ number one news story for the day.
Despite my pleas, the officers did not care about Fred and Buffy. They were only animals. Fred was a regal German shepherd and Buffy was a striped golden cat. Both belonged to my roommate, Lynn.
Lynn had wanted to offset the cost of rent, so she’d offered me the distinguished position of “roommate” in her one-bedroom flat. I was only there for a few weeks before the gunman incident. We had to share a bed unless I was willing to make the pint-sized couch or porcelain tub my sleeping quarters. I opted for the bed but slept fully clothed each night in shorts and a T-shirt.
At two a.m. that morning, I woke to find a gunman hovering over our bed with an assault rifle aimed at Lynn’s head. I recognized him as Mack, a twenty-year-old guy who was obsessed with my roommate, although they were not romantically involved. He often took Fred to the dog park and Lynn to lunch. Mack had broken down the front door and the bedroom door, both which had been locked. He’d thought she was with another man, but he had been wrong. It was just the dog, cat, and me.
I did not scream or panic like they do in the movies, nor did I jump into action like Indiana Jones. I knew I could not count on physical strength with my five-foot-tall build. My only hope was my brain. Could I outsmart this guy? That is when I left Lynn, the dog, and the cat behind.
I yawned as if Mack’s presence was routine, even boring. I folded back the covers with an air of detachedness and calmly slid out of bed. I slipped on my flip flops and casually collected my purse from the bedside table. Thank goodness I slept dressed.
“Well, I’m already up. I might as well go the grocery store,” I stated in an aloof and tranquil way.
To my surprise and relief, Mack said nothing. He allowed me to walk right past him out of the apartment, his gun still firmly fixed upon Lynn’s face. Maybe he thought I always hit the supermarket at two a.m.
As I descended a staircase toward the street, I heard Lynn pleading,” I need to go to the store with Charlotte. I need to go to the store with Charlotte.” Moments later, she jetted onto the sidewalk beside me. I was relieved that she made it out, and we dashed to her car. As we took off for a nearby phone booth to call the cops, I looked back to see Mack standing at the top of the stairs in the semi-darkness with his gun aimed at the stars. He looked like a statue.
Several hours passed while I sat in the backseat of the police car, agonizing over the fate of Fred and Buffy. Lynn was out-of-sight, briefing officers on details about the assailant. The SWAT team strategized for what seemed like forever on how to get this young man to surrender. Their megaphone efforts to coax him out had failed. They were understandably cautious because they had searched Mack’s pickup truck and found enough guns and ammunition to equip half of the stalkers in Hollywood.
A strategy was finally agreed upon at six a.m. and tear gas was tossed through our apartment window, shattering the glass. The SWAT team rushed inside to find Mack face down and lifeless on the carpet in the living room. He had been dead for hours, apparently shooting himself when Lynn and I drove to seek help. I was relieved to find that before taking his own life, he had compassionately confined Fred and Buffy to the bathroom. I knew it was compassion because he had set out bowls of food and water for them. The animals had not been exposed to the tear gas, the gruesome suicide, or the armed SWAT team members bursting through the door, prepared to shoot anything that moved. They were safe.
Lynn and I stood over Mack’s body. The scene was surreal. Wind—which I had never felt to that extent in Los Angeles—whipped through the broken window with tremendous force, whirling dozens of twenty and hundred dollar bills through the air. We were immersed in a tornado of green. It was like being inside one of those game-show glass booths where contestants attempt to catch flying cash. This was other people’s money. In fact, it had belonged to Mack. Why he had brought thousands of dollars to our apartment no one knew.The incident was a mystery to Mack’s family and friends. “Out of character” was the phrase they used. Mack had bought his weapons legally, was not considered mentally ill, and had no drugs or alcohol in his body.
Twenty-year-old Mack was a young man in a panic. He had given into a fit of jealousy and rage, and like many mass shooters, he was immersed in America’s gun culture. If the law had prevented Mack from buying assault rifles in the first place, he might have shown up at our apartment with only an arsenal of angry words. He might have said his piece and gone home. Mackmight be alive today.
(Charlotte Laws is known as the “Erin Brockovich of Revenge Porn” and was an L. city commissioner and a member of the Greater Valley Glen Council. Today, she is a BBC TV political pundit and the author of the new book, Devil in the Basement, which is based on the true story of her Italian grandfather who was kicked out of his house by the KKK and killed by a devil worshiper. You can follow Laws on Twitter @CharlotteLaws.) Prepped for CityWatch by Linda Abrams.
