Police Evacuation

Friends,

The police evacuated me from my apartment building around 6:30 this morning.

That makes it a little more dramatic than the truth, so here's the whole story.

Emily goes out for a morning jog, which she does expertly. She does this at around 545AM or so, which means I am sound asleep. The phone rings, waking me up slowly, and Emily leaves this frantic message.

"Bryan, wake up. The police are out here and you got to get out of the apartment. Get dressed, get the computers, I'm not kidding. You got to go."

I hear that in that hazy half-awake mode, so I'm pretty sure I was just told I had to leave the apartment. Emily calls back immediately and tells me the whole story.

She jogged and when she tried to get back into the apartment, there were three police cars in our lot that stopped her from re-entering the premises, as in wouldn't let her in the parking lot of our place. Since she had the cell phone, she called me to alert me to the situation.

A man in our apartment building is threatening to kill himself. Since he was an Iraq War veteran, and worked for one of those private security firms, he probably has a lot of guns, so the police want to evacuate the building. So I dress quickly, throwing on whatever clothes I can, and I grab Emily some jeans and a shirt to change into since she is wearing jogging clothes. Then, I come out of the apartment, with two computer bags, a backpack, Emily's "I'm Sorry You Feel That Way" tote and a handful of her clothes. Surely to the police, I looked like a normal person. Anyway, I got in the car, got Emily and drove away.

As of right now, we are currently blocked out of our apartment by this suicidal guy. What's even more troublesome, is that I don't know when this standoff will end because we are sequestered on the MNSU campus. And as far as I can tell, none of the Mankato media has responded to the scene to keep the public up to date on the happenings.

What sucks is that I haven't showered, and neither has Emily. She had to change clothes in the ladies bathroom of Panera (where we ate breakfast). We also gargled and deodorized ourselves in the Wal-Mart parking lot (where I had to buy socks since I dressed in such a hurry, I readied myself without them...which, by the way, Gold Toe socks really are awesome). Also, I got to wonder why I, on the third floor, needed to be evacuated because of suicidal man on the first floor. It makes some sense in case bullets start flying since the walls & floors are kind of thin. The suicidal man could take hostages too I imagine, so that also makes sense for that. But I hope he didn't make some kind of stupid "I'm going to blow up the building" claim, because that would be really shitty. All my clothes and books are in there.

First Update:
Mankato media has responded...here's the first Free Press Article I found. Read it here.



Second Update:
Here's a picture I snagged from the Mankato Free Press website of the police outside my apartment complex involved in this standoff. Is it just me, or does this look a little more serious than one guy with a gun threatening to shoot just himself?

Third Update:
We found out the standoff ended while we were still camped out in the MSU Library. When we got back to our apartment, the police were still here and a camera crew was in the parking lot. And, a police truck was in our parking spot. We decided it best to go to lunch today and avoid whatever leftover police business and media involvement we could. We had vegetarian fare at the Mexican Village and when we got home, everybody had cleared out. I'm just left to wonder now what are they going to do with this suicidal character. I mean, are they going to let him back in the building after all this? The altruistic thing would be to let him back in and trust the system to treat him, and the guy to heal himself. But man, it'll be hard to be the neighbor of that guy when he comes back. Watch the Mankato news, or read the Mankato Free Press site for more info later. Now I'm finally going to take a shower and brush my teeth.

Fourth Update:

Hopefully this is the last bit of news I need to report about this situation. This information was found on the Mankato Free Press website. The guy, David Papin, a 27 year old Iraq War veteran, was "expressing suicidal thoughts" and promised to make a stand in his apartment (my building). He also promised to kill any police officers who interferred and he wanted to be killed by a police officer in the process of his stand. Also, a second person, Kristopher Rysavy, was in the apartment with David, and also came out when David surrendered. Kristopher was charge with obstruction of justice. Now, the SWAT reaction, pictured above, makes a bit more sense than before. I wasn't aware of a second person, or his wish to actually have a showdown with police. I hope David gets the help he needs to treat what is probably PTSD plus something else.

viva el mustache