Non-fiction essay submission To Literary Review

This is an actual account of an incident that occurred at my family supermarket a few years back. I am submitting this in the non-fiction category. I hope you enjoy the read.

“Dat’s right! I’m da nigga wit da attitude!” As this proclamation reverberated throughout the store there were people diving for cover behind counters and store shelves. The reason was quickly apparent; he had a pistol in his hand, a .45 semi-automatic to be precise. Standing just inside the double glass doors at the front of the store was the young black man whom, only minutes before I had thrown out of the store for fighting with another customer. Amid screams, and the noise of shopping carts slamming into displays as they were quickly pushed away, he pointed the gun toward the upstairs office where my two brothers and one of our assistant managers stood looking down at him. Two shots rang out. In the enclosed confines of the supermarket, despite its spaciousness, the shots resounded like nearby thunderclaps. The sound was deafening. My stomach knotted up at the telltale sound. “Floyd, HELP, GET UP HERE,” came the shouts. I knew I had to get to the front and do something to stop this madness. Crack, crack came two more sharp reports. My mind was racing. Keep cool, stay under control. But all the while I was afraid of what I would find when I got there. Not the thought of the shooter still being there, I could deal with that, but what had he wrought? Who was shot? Was it one or both of my brothers? My father? Venita? I just didn’t know; I didn’t want to know.

My training came into play now. It’s strange how afterward you don’t recall each movement and decision you make in a stress situation like this. You simply find yourself doing the things that you must do to put an end to the danger. All the training and practice comes back to you and you just react according to the situation. I moved along the back aisle of the store parallel to the front door and the shooter. I came to the end of the beer cooler that runs perpendicular to the front door, where the shooter had been standing. I dropped to one knee and peaked around the edge of the cooler toward the front door. There was a straight line from my position down the aisle to the doorway. Damn! Not fifteen feet away, directly between the door and me, was a shopping cart just sitting there. In the seat was a small child not more than two years old. It seems mommy dove for cover and left junior sitting there to fend for himself. I couldn’t have fired even if the shooter had still been there. I looked and listened with the intensity of a hunter on the prowl for game. There was still screaming, but it was incoherent and directed at no one in particular. I moved from my position of cover and headed toward the front door. I stayed low and kept my eyes moving in all directions. Where was he? Had he run from the store? Had he entered to look for more victims? I just didn’t know and I wasn’t receiving any information on the subject.

As I neared the row of cash registers I saw my brother, Robert, crouched low and moving toward the door from my left, near the office. He had his gun drawn and was intently focused on the front door. We caught each other’s eyes at the same moment. He gave me a quizzical look as if asking, “where is he?” I finally spoke and asked, “Do you see him?” “No”, came the reply, “He ran out the door.” I was now about ten feet from the door and looking to the outside. I could not see the shooter, but did see a customer standing next to his car just outside the door. He looked at me and then quickly looked toward the east side of the parking lot, then back at me. Then, looking directly at me, he pointed toward the east and yelled, “He went that way!” As I moved to the doorway I looked to Robert and asked, hoping against hope that my fears would be assuaged; “Anybody hurt?” He shook his head and said, “No, everyone’s okay”. The relief was immediate and I could feel myself give a huge sigh.

Back to business - I then quickly moved into the doorway and gave a “quick-peek” in the direction the customer was pointing. As I drew my head back inside I caught the helpful patrons eye and he again yelled, “He ran that way”, and pointed toward the Afton Place Apartments just one block away. I holstered my weapon and started cautiously running in that direction. Robert ran to his truck and got ready to implement the routine we had employed so many times in the past. As I ran on foot after the suspect he would criss-cross the neighborhood to help me track down the culprit and provide backup if necessary. It was something we had done so many times before with much success and this time it took on a whole new importance. This was not a shoplifter trying to get away with some steaks or a bottle of wine. This son-of-a-bitch had tried to kill my brothers and my friend. If he thought we were just going to stay put and be happy that no one was hurt, well he just didn’t know us very well.

Unknown to me, as I was already two blocks away, my younger brother, Alan, had recovered the shooter’s weapon from a trashcan in the parking lot. Using the methods I had taught him over the years he was careful to retrieve it so as not to ruin any fingerprints or other potential evidence that could help nab the culprit. It seems the same helpful customer who pointed me in the right direction saw the suspect throw the gun in the trash can and told Alan, as he came outside to see what was going on. By now the police were in the area and they and Robert were moving up one street and down another in search of the shooter. The first officer I came in contact with was an old friend of mine from the police academy, Russell Spence. I gave him a description of the suspect and told him what had happened. He quickly broadcast the information to the other units in the area.

I had already chased the shooter for four or five blocks when I lost him in some backyards on Wright Ave. I was heading back to the store on foot when a police officer stopped me and said that they needed me to identify someone they had stopped two blocks over at Lynhaven Ave. and Bellemeade Rd. They had stopped a black male driving the bright red Chevy SUV that was in fact the same SUV that had been driven by the shooter earlier. You see this whole thing started when two young black males began fighting in line at one of our cash registers. The shooter, who, it appeared to me, was high on some sort of drugs, had bumped into another fellow in line. When the offended party said something to the effect, “You could say excuse me,” the shooter-to-be responded by telling the aggrieved fellow that he should “go fuck yourself” and that’s when the brouhaha started.

I was called up front by Robert to help break up the fight. Robert and Alan were already in between the two parties trying to keep them apart and move them toward the door. The more aggressive of the two was the shooter who was continuing to try to hit the other guy who, to his credit, had calmed down and was trying to explain to me what had happened. I identified myself to them both as being a Special Police Officer in Richmond and working security for the store, and advised the mouthy one that he would have to leave. Now his attention was diverted from the guy he had bumped into and was directed toward me. He apparently didn’t like the fact that my brothers and I would dare interfere with him when he was trying to kick another guy’s ass. As I took the lead role in this little play he decided that he would turn his threats to me. He told me how he was going to kick my ass if I didn’t get out of his way. Well this only made me more adamant about moving him out of the store.

I grabbed him up by his shoulders and pushed him toward the door. I advised him that if he didn’t leave I was going to arrest him. He continued to make threats as he moved toward his red SUV. As he opened the door and got in the vehicle his parting threat was, “I got sometin’ for yo ass!” “I’m gonna be back, mother fucker!” And with that he squealed tires out of the parking lot and headed toward the Afton Place Apartments.
Well, if I had a nickel for every time I heard that threat I could have retired years ago, so I paid him little heed. I obviously would regret that decision. But now here was his SUV being driven by another black male whom we had not seen earlier. The SUV was in fact registered to our shooter, but he was nowhere to be seen. While the police were interviewing the driver I went over to search the vehicle. I did not yet know that my brother, Alan, already found the gun he had used and so I was hoping to find it in the vehicle. As one might expect I was disappointed. It was determined that the fellow that was stopped, while driving the SUV, was supposed to cruise around the block during the shooting and then wait to pick up our recalcitrant drug user. However, by pursuing him I messed up those plans and now he was still out there hiding somewhere. It was a few days later when a detective advised us that they had arrested the shooter on another charge. It seems that he was in fact one of Southside’s more prominent drug dealers. They charged him with three counts of attempted murder for shooting at my brothers and our assistant manager. However, the drug dealer decided to turn State’s evidence against some of his competitors in exchange for a pass on our charges. This really frosted my family and me, as we were not even consulted on this plea bargain.

Not your typical day at a supermarket you say? This was just one of many such occurrences at our store. Yes, our store. This was a family owned business and we took such affronts to our daily routine quite seriously, and personally. Had we been employees of a big chain store we would have attempted to avoid such confrontations and just call the local authorities and hope they arrived in time. But this was our store and no one was going to walk over us. You push us and we push back.

Despite the fact that our antagonist did not go to trial for attempting to kill our store personnel, justice was ultimately done. It was brought to my attention by a Richmond Detective some months later, that the drug idled scofflaw finally met someone who was a little crazier than he was. He was killed by a rival drug dealer in south Richmond.
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Despite all my rage I am still just a rat in a cage!