So here's the short of it, 
We had some excitement at work today. 

And here's the long.

Yesterday and today we've been training our newly hired special education teachers at the W. 40th street office.  At lunch we were eating up on the 3rd floor just outside my office.  One of my colleagues had gone out to get her lunch -

There's only a short story in the news so far 

Jennifer came in and told us that as she was coming into the parking lot, a police car came flying into the exit side of the parking lot with his lights flashing.  He drove over into the sports field behind our building (which is an old school building).  She saw him jump out of his car putting on his vest with a rifle in his hands.  He began walking parallel to the building.  She was on her cell phone with her Mom all this time telling her what was going on.  Her Mom told her to get herself in the building and stay away from the windows (she didn't obey the part about the windows)

We watched off and on while we were eating lunch.  We'd eat a bit and then go look out the window.  It wasn't long before we saw another police vehicle.  And it wasn't long before there were 5 or maybe even 7 police officers.

Now in the meantime - the woman who runs our building, Dottie,  called Central Office to see if there were any directives for us - like maybe locking all the doors so someone couldn't run into the building...

We headed back to our training after our lunch.  Most of our teachers had gone out to get something at a local restaurant.  Everyone got back into the building without any incident - thank goodness.  As we started up the afternoon sessions, Jennifer went to one of the doors in the back of the building that is kept open so that if there was some kind of movement toward the building we could be warned. By about 2:30 she came in and reported that they had apprehended one individual. They watched him surrounded by the police officers, handcuffed, and put into the patrol car.  Shortly all the patrol cars left and we were all back to normal.

I'll tell you this - during all that time, I sure didn't have to worry about falling asleep!

Now, just want to say - Dottie never did hear anything from Central Office about what we were supposed to do.

 


This is the view out of my office window.  The police car is visibile in the middle of the picture.


















Here's the first police officer on the scene.  You can't tell, but he's wearing a vest and carrying a rifle.  He's also got on shorts?