Wednesday, June 15, 2005
"Everyone put your hands where we can see them!!"
My first taste of paintballing and what an experience it was!! What really got my blood flowing was actually the event preceding paintball........it was actually pretty interesting and scary and funny......depending on which way you want to look at it.
All of us had made plans of meeting at the mosque in the morning and then heading out. Little did we know that an unexpected visitor would soon drop by. While waiting for a friend to show, 13 of us with 4 cars (2 of them black with tinted windowz) were standing in the street infront of the mosque (strike 1).
Then some one had a bright idea of showing us his paintball gun that he had recently bought (strike 2) and to make things worse, it was in his trunk when he pulled it out.
Then to top it all off, he decided to fire it a couple of times, though mind you it was empty and just made a loud bang (strike 3).
Just as we were about to leave the mosque premises, I see two cop cars pulling in the street with their lights on. 'This can't be good,' I thought to myself but the worst was yet to come!! Three cops get out initially and start walking towards us while the fourth one gets a shotgun out and loads it!!! Then one of them shouts:
"Everyone put your hands where we can see them!!"
Luckily, the car I was getting in was a few yards away from the rest and therefore the cops assumed that I was just some random guy standing in the street. So, I stood there watching the cops telling everyone to get out of their cards with their hands up. Meanwhile a third, fourth, and a fifth cop car had pulled in the street, all surrounding my friends like a pack of hyenas.
Apparently someone had called in with a tip that a gang was infront of their house with guns. Thus the whole gang unit was called in to confront us. By the end of the whole ordeal, there were seven cop cars, 14 armed cops, one of them with a loaded shotgun in his hand standing in the street. No coffee or tea will ever make you this alert in the morning like the sight of guns pointed at you!!
Obviously, it was a matter of time before the cops found the paintball gun and realized their embarassment but I guess they were just doing their job. Nevetheless, as a 'bystander' to this incident, it made for an interesting morning and a jolly tale to be told to anyone willing to listen.
All fun and jokes aside, this situation could have really gotten out of control but alhumdillalah, nothing happened. But the lessons learnt will certainly stick with me for good: never get a bunch of young non-white males together infront of someone's house and pull out an object that looks like a gun.........but then again, thats just common sense!!!
All of us had made plans of meeting at the mosque in the morning and then heading out. Little did we know that an unexpected visitor would soon drop by. While waiting for a friend to show, 13 of us with 4 cars (2 of them black with tinted windowz) were standing in the street infront of the mosque (strike 1).
Then some one had a bright idea of showing us his paintball gun that he had recently bought (strike 2) and to make things worse, it was in his trunk when he pulled it out.
Then to top it all off, he decided to fire it a couple of times, though mind you it was empty and just made a loud bang (strike 3).
Just as we were about to leave the mosque premises, I see two cop cars pulling in the street with their lights on. 'This can't be good,' I thought to myself but the worst was yet to come!! Three cops get out initially and start walking towards us while the fourth one gets a shotgun out and loads it!!! Then one of them shouts:
"Everyone put your hands where we can see them!!"
Luckily, the car I was getting in was a few yards away from the rest and therefore the cops assumed that I was just some random guy standing in the street. So, I stood there watching the cops telling everyone to get out of their cards with their hands up. Meanwhile a third, fourth, and a fifth cop car had pulled in the street, all surrounding my friends like a pack of hyenas.
Apparently someone had called in with a tip that a gang was infront of their house with guns. Thus the whole gang unit was called in to confront us. By the end of the whole ordeal, there were seven cop cars, 14 armed cops, one of them with a loaded shotgun in his hand standing in the street. No coffee or tea will ever make you this alert in the morning like the sight of guns pointed at you!!
Obviously, it was a matter of time before the cops found the paintball gun and realized their embarassment but I guess they were just doing their job. Nevetheless, as a 'bystander' to this incident, it made for an interesting morning and a jolly tale to be told to anyone willing to listen.
All fun and jokes aside, this situation could have really gotten out of control but alhumdillalah, nothing happened. But the lessons learnt will certainly stick with me for good: never get a bunch of young non-white males together infront of someone's house and pull out an object that looks like a gun.........but then again, thats just common sense!!!
Faraz Ahmed 11:43 p.m.