Script Girrl: Calling 911

Since I've been in L.A., some of my habits have changed. One of them is that I have been using my DVR to tape the 'Ghost Hunter' and 'Ghost Hunter Academy' series so I can watch them at my leisure. I've always been intrigued with the idea of hauntings and ghosts, so watching those shows helps to feed my supernatural craving.

Last night, I was at a particular spooky part of one of those 'Ghost Hunter' shows which was covering the haunting of Mark Twain's home when I decided to pause it and grab a smoke on the balcony.

It was 2:15 am - early Saturday morning. Chilly. The street below was quiet except for the sound of an occasional car traveling down Wilshire Blvd. and the 'click' 'click' sounds of a lone woman's heels as she walked by on the sidewalk below.

Still in a scary state of mind from my ghost hunter show, my thoughts took a turn toward the gruesome side, and I wondered what I would do if the woman below was attacked and started screaming. Would I yell and try to scare the attacker away? What if he had a gun and shot it in my direction? Maybe I'd just yell and drop down so he wouldn't know which balcony I was on. Then I'd scurry into the house and dial 911.

The sound of the woman's heels faded away as she turned the corner at the end of the street, and I smiled at my over-active imagination. Hell. My street was safe. Right?

Relaxing, I took another drag off my cigarette, and I could swear I heard a faint yelp of a woman in fear. The sound came from the 'gated' garage of the apartment building directly across from my balcony. I leaned over my balcony's rail and strained to hear more, and felt a bit silly in the process thinking that my imagination was really running away on me.

Then, the woman yelled again. Louder this time, and the angry yelling of a man's voice chimed in behind it.

I wasn't imagining things. There was definitely an altercation going on between a woman and a man. Maybe a lover's quarrel? A drunken argument? I tried to rationalize it into something non-scary. Non-threatening. But, my gut told me that this argument was full of potential danger and violence for that woman. There was too much anger in the man's voice, and too much fear in the woman's.

Then, she screamed louder. A piercing, fear-filled scream that echoed through the garage, bounced off the buildings, and set my heart racing.

She was terrified!

I ran inside, dialed 911 and carried the phone back on to the balcony:

"911 Operator," a male voice said. "Do you have an emergency?"

"Yes. There's a woman screaming in the parking garage across the street, and a man yelling at her."

"Can you give me an address where the screaming is coming from?"

I gave him my address and was describing what the building across the street looked like when the woman screamed again.

"Oh my God! Did you hear her scream?"

"Yes." He said. "Hold on a minute."

He gave the patrol cars the building description and told them about the scream he'd heard.

"I want you to stay on the phone until the patrol cars arrive."

"No problem."

"Can you hear anything going on?"

I didn't have to strain to hear this time. The woman was moaning, "Oh God! Oh God! No!" Then, she let out the loudest, blood curdling scream of them all, and fell silent.

I related all of that to the 911 operator. He couldn't hear the words she'd moaned, but he'd definitely heard the scream and relayed that information to the patrol cars who were at that moment racing down my street with their lights flashing.

Five police cars arrived, and the policemen entered the garage with their guns drawn. They searched for half an hour but came up empty handed. My phone rang near the end of their search. It was the 911 operator asking me if I'd mind talking with the officers.

I stepped out the front door and found my own building's night security guard standing outside watching the police as they checked out the garage across the street.

While I waited on the police chat with me, I learned that my own security guard had heard the screaming, along with a woman who was sitting on her second floor balcony, working on her lap-top. Neither one of them had reported the screams to the police. They'd just hung around listening to the screaming and yelling. They had chalked it up to a drunken argument and let it go.

I had heard the terror in that woman's voice. The uncontrolled anger in the man's. I knew that this was something more than a drunken argument or a lover's quarrel.

I told the police the same things I'd told the 911 operator, and the patrol cars left.

Half an hour later, three patrol cars came back. One of them stayed, sitting at the end of the apartment building with only his parking lights on. I'm guessing so he could see the entire building and both of its gated garages to watch who came and went.

I wonder what happened to that woman. Was she knocked out and stuffed into the trunk of one of the cars? Forced to be quiet and taken to one of the apartments? Where did that couple disappear to so quickly and quietly.

Once again, my gut tells me that she wouldn't want to be alone with that man. She was much too terrorized.

It's a scary thought that someone could scream like that, and nobody will call 911. How desensitized can a person get, living in a big city, that they can ignore someone who is in danger and screaming for help?

If anything ever happens to me like that, I'm going to take the advice I heard in a casual conversation at work the other day. The woman was discussing being raped and said that the rape center teaches that you should never yell, "Help" when you are in danger of physical violence. You should yell, "Fire!"

I thought that advice was silly at the time, but I bet if the woman in the garage had yelled fire, the security guard from my building might just have reported it to emergency services.

On a lighter note, today we are attending a birthday party 98 miles away for a family member I've never met. It turns out that my dead uncle's wife, and her children - my cousins, live in California. I've never met that side of the family and they are excited to meet us. So, we are attending a 7 year-old's birthday party at a pizza joint to meet everyone, followed by dinner at one of the relative's homes.

My kids have never gone to another child's birthday party, so this should be fun and interesting for them. I'm hoping they will give the little boy his birthday presents without screaming and crying about having to give wrapped gifts away. Possession is 10 tenths of the law in the mind of a 4-year old.

Hmmm. I'll probably have to buy them each a present too if I want to make the 'present-giving' transaction go smoothly.

That's it from West Hollywood today. Tune in next time for what I'm sure will be more exciting adventures!