Armed Robbery

First of all: Grandma, I was perfectly safe and fine the entire time.  OK, on to the story.

Last Saturday, Vanessa and I met at Jack-in-the-Box in Fremont (our half-way point) to catch up and hang out for a little bit. We were sitting there, at about 10 PM, sipping our beverages when I looked at the door to the restaurant.  Two men in black hooded sweatshirts, with the hoods pulled up, came in.  One had an automatic-looking gun (the police told me it was a Teck 9; you can see a photo here), and the other a duffel bag.  Since I was facing the door, I got a good look at them.  They did not spare any of the seven people in the establishment a second glance, just went straight to the counter and hopped over.  I have to confess to freezing for a moment; there had been a HUGE gun a foot away from me and my six-months pregnant friend.  I mean, what is the protocol in a situation like that?  Since they robbers hadn't said anything to us diners, I made a decision to get us up and get out.  I grabbed my phone and dialed 911 on the way out the  door.  I was able to tell the police what was going on, where we were, and as luck would have it, the robbers drove right by us on their way out of the parking lot, so we got the license plate number, as well.

The police soon converged en masse and began the process of interviewing us.  I told them my story, and they asked me to hang out in order to ID a suspect in the field.  The high-speed chase had ended in Milpitas (about 10-15 miles away), with the suspects abandoning the car and fleeing on foot.  They caught one guy, and drove myself and two other people down there to take a look at him.  After that they drove us back to Fremont to speak to a detective.  After hanging out there for an hour, they had us drive to the Fremont police station to speak to the detective there.  I drove there and then hung out for maybe 45 min. longer, waiting to speak to someone (thank goodness for my iPhone; it saved my bored bacon AND helped me navigate my way to the police station).  Finally, they let us go home and told us to keep our phones on because they might need us to come back and ID the second guy, if they caught him.  At this point, it is 2 AM; I was EXHAUSTED.  I went home, gave Kevin the whole story in detail, and went to bed at 3 AM.  I slept until noon (which never happens), missed church (which started at 9) and was exhausted the rest of the day.

Monday morning, while at work (and still insanely exhausted), I got a call from the police detective, asking me to come down to the police station ASAP to ID the second suspect.  I traveled 30-40 min. to view a guy through a two-way mirror, tell them I thought it was the second guy, and was on my way back to work five minutes later.  They will be in touch concerning court dates, etc.  I hope they just plead guilty and spare me the headache.

It was an insanely surreal experience.  Things like that don't happen in real life.  But it did, and it all turned out okay.  Just exhausting and kind of freaky when you sit down and think about it and how it could have been different.