A Whole Town Affected

Tuesday, I ran out of milk. It was at lunch and I had enough to give to the kids but I figured after they got done we'd head out to Dillon's. (a Kroger Store) For some reason I changed my mind and decided I wanted Damien down for his nap time of 1 so I put him in bed. I figured since nothing was going on, we'd just go to Dillon's later after Daddy came home. After putting him in bed, I flipped on the TV to watch One Life To Live. At the bottom of the screen though it reported a hostage situation was going on at the exact store that is about 5 miles from us that I was going to take the kids too.

I didn't know what to think! I can't say I was soaring with happiness that I didn't go because we know 4 people who work there that we went to high school with! I called Dave and he unfortunately didn't have Todd's cell phone number to call and see what was going on in the store. We had no idea if Todd, Damita, Ibn, or Jaimie were working. (Jaimie's picture of her bawling was in the paper so I know she was now!) So I was glued to the news hoping to grasp some sense of what was going on. It seemed whoever held the 120 people hostage was in the store but he was on the phone with the manager demanding money to be wired to Portugal or he'd blow the place up. He ordered everyone to give the manager their cell phones and strip out of their clothes and he seemed to know if they were or not!

Finally after 5 hours the police started leading people out 2 at a time. I'm not sure how the phone call ended but they got everyone out safely. The next day it's discovered this actually was happening all over the US, not just here in our little town of 40,000. One incident that happened earlier in the morning was in Prescott, AZ. Only about 2-3 stores gave in and wired money to Portugal. As far as the person seeing what was going on, they are sure he hacked online into the store security camera system but can't be 100% certain. He tried again yesterday morning at another Dillon's store in town they evacuated and the police took over from there. Two copycats tried at other stores and were immediately busted.

So I never got my milk Tuesday but went last night by myself. It was a bit weird and I was freaked out. You could tell things were back to normal but people obviously were not. There were undercover cops walking around with handcuffs in the back belt, the employees looked uptight. I just wanted to get my crap and get out. I could imagine people up at the front desk crying and stripping out of their clothes and the manager there on the phone chatting with this sick individual. Hopefully now that 12 different FBI agencies are involved there will be enough knowledge to realize there is no bombs, there is hostage taker and the idiot will be caught picking up his money from Western Union. Not only has it freaked out our town, I think the biggest thing on everyone's mind is, "why here?"

Here are a few of the other stores hit around the same time as ours....
Prescott, AZ
McAllen, TX
Orem, UT
Vista, CA
Newport, RI
Buchanan, MI
Boulder, CO
Millinocket, ME
Boise, ID
Salem,VA
Sandy, OR

Edit: i had to correct this after I realized today is not Friday, it's Thursday. Duh! Staying at home you really do lose track of the days.