A Gunshot in the Afternoon
It happened on an unseasonably hot fall day a few years back on one of the most peaceful streets in all of Pleasanton. Sometime around two o’clock in the afternoon, a lady was going about her day inside her home, when a gunshot rang out in her backyard. It scared the heck out of her, and she didn’t know what to do.
The first thing she figured she ought to do would be to secure the home, so she quickly ran around the house locking doors and pulling down shades. After that was done, she settled down a bit and began to text her husband. She typed out “gunshot” and hit send. Then, she heard a knock.
Startled, she gathered herself and tiptoed slowly towards the front door. It was the kind of door that had a bunch of fancy translucent glasswork befitting a nice home in a peaceful neighborhood, but it didn’t allow anything more than a silhouette of whoever was outside to be seen by anyone looking from the inside. All she could tell at first, was that it was a BIG dude. Then, she saw the gun on his hip. “It’s a cop,” she thought. She moved to open the door.
Meanwhile her husband, a district judge, was sitting on the bench in his courtroom presiding over various and sundry hearings and motions pertaining to a number of cases. The judge kept his phone in his pocket, but he was wearing an Apple watch which allowed him to see the first few words of whatever text was sent. His watch buzzed, and he discreetly looked down and saw the text from his wife: “Gunshot.”
The judge got a little antsy, but he kept the proceedings going. His watch buzzed again. This one began, “Game warden on porch…” As he tried to piece together fragments of texts, he finally couldn’t stand it anymore and held up his watch in front of his eyes and started reading. He couldn’t tell if a game warden was shot on his porch, or maybe a game warden shot somebody there. “Excuse me,” he tells those in the courtroom, “I have to make a phone call – this might be an emergency.”
TIME OUT – we gotta back up some. Sometime before 2:00 p.m. that day, I received a call from the sheriff’s office about a crippled-up buck deer in the front flower bed of one of the homes on that very same peaceful street in Pleasanton. The deer was injured and scared and almost went through a plate-glass window. When I arrived, it was back in the flower bed. I could tell right away it needed to be put down.
The deer jumped up and hobbled around the back of the home before continuing down a fence line through numerous back yards. I followed but had a hard time getting close enough to take a safe, humane shot with my duty pistol – that is until I got to the judge’s house.
After doing what needed to be done, I went and knocked on the front door of the judge’s house. That’s when I got to meet the judge’s wife, who was relieved to hear there wasn’t a crazed gunman on the loose in her neighborhood. I never got to hear about all the hubbub I’d caused till months later.
Game wardens get those kinds of calls all the time, and that’s all well and good. However, there are certain calls that are frowned upon. They usually begin with, “I found this fawn that’s been abandoned by it’s mother.” There are lots of fawns on the ground right now, and mama is never too far away. The best thing to do is to leave them be.
As always, if you’re not sure and need assistance, or have questions, call a game warden.
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