And goodwill to all men

The intersection of Clinton and Stanton is blocked off with yellow crime scene tape this morning, and two police cruisers squat in the middle of the road. A little further down the block, there is a fairly extensive trail of blood and a bloodied man's undershirt.

I didn't at first connect it with the string of loud bangs that woke us last night shortly after midnight. "Sounded like someone kicking a door," said M. as we both sat up in bed. "Meh," I said, replaying the sounds in my mind: one bang, momentary hesitation, then three more bangs in quick succession, evenly spaced. "Handgun, semi-automatic, sounded louder than last time. At least two rounds left in the clip, probably more." I thought to myself and then immediately went back to sleep, forgetting all about it. Apparently the analytical part of my mind works well enough when woken from a deep sleep, but either I've become blasé about gun violence or my sense of urgency takes longer to wake up.

Bowery Boogie describes the incident as "an altercation" that apparently involved both stabbing and shooting. From the lack of other news coverage, I'm guessing that it was non-fatal and that (happily) no one actually got four rounds of 9mm for Christmas. If that's correct, the owner of the undershirt was probably the stabbee and is presumably celebrating the holiday in hospital.

The blood has now been washed away, the tape is down, and the police cars are gone. We now return you to your regularly-scheduled Christmas Day.