Overkill?

Yesterday, I was sitting here watching the news around noon when a cop car pulled up down below our apartment. I didn't think too much of it because our landlord happens to be a cop. Seems like he's paying a visit to our apartment complex about once a week just to see if there are any complaints, collect rent or talk to our handyman who lives up here. It's nothing to be alarmed about.


What is alarming, however, is when three more cop cars pull in, minutes afterward. That's what happened next. I was thinking there had been a murder. Here I was, bored, and finally something exciting like a killing has taken place right where I live.

Oh joy!


At least five or six cops hurriedly get out of their cars, looking serious, knocking on the apartmart door below. My heartbeat quickens a bit. Perhaps there's been a throat-slashing or a satanic ritual gone awry. Then someone, not in a policeman's uniform, comes out of a cop car, which looks like a minivan, really, and is toting a big black box on wheels. He takes that inside the apartment below us.


After hearing various doors opening and shutting and the muffled voices of cops and tenants downstairs for awhile, I finally hear the highly anticipated knock on my door.


A smile magically developed upon my face as I floated towards the door, with hope sparkling in my demented heart. I open the door and a cop, also with a smile on his face, though not as broad as mine, says, "Sorry to disturb you."

I reply, with subdued glee, "Oh, that's alright."

The cop asks, "Have you seen anyone unfamiliar coming into the apartment complex today?"

I said, "Uh.... No. Why? Has there been a murder around here? I've never seen so many cop cars here before."

The cop chuckled, momentarily, giving me reason to believe that something really freaky had transpired. Then he answered, "No, no. Your neighbor below just thought maybe someone had come into the apartment that wasn't supposed to." Then he inquired if I had heard anything strange. I repeated my answer, NO, once again.


That was a kind-of-odd answer he had given me, pertaining to the reason they were there. It was also a letdown, too. No bloodletting had occurred. No outrageous domestic argument that spiraled out of control, leaving individuals without teeth or eyes. Just somebody may have, perhaps, broke in a tenant's place below. How boring. But, like my wife said, it may be something to be concerned about. It could be us next. If that's what really happened. The cop was sort of obscure with his answer, as if he wasn't telling me the full story. Maybe he wasn't allowed. I don't know.


If it was just a matter of somebody "maybe" breaking into an apartment, then I think, with all the cops pouring into our lot, it was a case of overkill.