The mid 90’s, meth, and a drive-by shooting

It was around Christmas in 1995 and I was crashing at a dope house in Tacoma just off of 6th & Proctor. I was dating the girl who was living there at the time. This house was disgusting in all ways. I always cringe when I remember the entire place and all that was happening at all hours of the day and night. I cringe the most with the knowing there were kids living there. Just typing that makes me shake my head in disbelief of what I was directly involved in during that time period.

The term dope house means it was a place where you could get and use drugs. This was at the height of the meth epidemic during that time period and the unfortunate reality is Pierce County was the meth capital of the world. It was everywhere and I was full on in the entire crazy scene. This house had activity at all hours of the day and night; mostly, the night. We would literally be outside in the middle of the night messing with our cars. Not really fixing anything, just spending hours doing what is called "tweaking".  This is where you are high on meth and you spend countless hours doing five thousand different things.  Mine was spent rewiring my stereo system. Now, mind you, you never actually accomplish anything.  You actually screw everything up and spend more time trying to fix it. It was a crazy repeated cycle. 

This was happening inside and outside this house 24/7. I do remember, when I would have moments of clarity, thinking about the neighbors who were victims of all of the activity.  The constant traffic, the middle of the night noise and lights, and, the many visits by the police.  The police would be called, rightly so, by those neighbors and others.  The girl I was dating was a dealer and I was right there with her in it all. It was ugly......I actually like the word disgusting to describe it all because that's exactly what it was; disgusting.  And, it just hit my brain again, the kids.  There were two young children living in the house. 

On a December night close to Christmas, for whatever weird reason, we had decided to tone it down. Our usual behavior was to do our drugs in the upstairs of the house. I guess one small protective factor for those poor kids is they weren't allowed upstairs. A negative side of that is I am certain they were left alone downstairs a lot. Yet, on this evening, we decided to take a break. 

We decided we were going to sit in the living room, watch tv, and act like we had some normalcy in all the chaos. It was me, her, and the kids. I remember there maybe being one or two other people there.  I do remember us deciding that for this one night we weren't going to do any drugs. I don't remember the exact why, but that was what were doing on that night. Maybe we were simply out.  Maybe we had a moment of clarity.  I am not sure really, but, what followed I will never forget for the rest of my life.

As we were sitting there we heard a car pull up.  I will never forget the sound. It had a loud exhaust and it pulled up and idled.  We were expecting someone to end up coming to the door but that never happened.  Several shots rang out.

I immediately dove to the floor along with everyone except the girlfriend who started screaming and ran toward the bedroom where the kids were. Their bedroom sat in the front side of the house where the shots came from. Somehow I had the frame of mind to grab the phone and dial 911. After the volley of gunfire all I could hear was the car idling out front.  911 was doing their thing with asking me several questions. I was in a panic and honestly don't remember much from the call itself other than the operator telling me to stay where I was and to stay on the phone that officers were on their way.

The girlfriend was still screaming and was worried about her kids. I don't have a recollection of where she was in the house and at that time I didn't know if the kids were ok or not.  I was on the ground and on the phone with the operator.  I could still hear the car outside idling and was worried that at any minute someone was going to burst in the door and kill us all. 

The 911 operator said officers were arriving at the house. I told the operator I could still hear the car idling outside. She said the officers were coming up on the porch and I would hear them any moment.  I heard the footsteps and them knocking on the door.  She said I could get up and unlock the door. I was freaked out because I could still hear the car idling outside.  I opened the door and several officers were outside.  The idling car I heard wasn't there. 

The officers, who had been to the house many times before had the look. I don't blame them for the look in the least. That look of frustration with getting called to the same dope house for yet another issue. We told them what happened and they didn't seem to believe us.  Heck, at that moment, after thinking the idling car was still outside the whole time and than it not being there, I was starting to believe them myself. 

While one officer was talking to us about what happened another officer stepped back off the porch and shined his light on the upstairs portion of the house. It was riddled with bullet holes. We weren't crazy, there was a drive by shooting, and they had shot up the second floor where we almost always were. They came in the house and went upstairs to look. 

A whole new set of fears hit us. There was massive drug paraphernalia upstairs and likely a lot of drug residue. I was certain we would be going to jail after they went upstairs.  They came down after a few minutes, confirmed that the upstairs had been shot up, asked a few other questions and left. I am guessing for that night they thought us almost dying was enough for one night.

On any other night, 99% of the time, at least one or several more of us would have been upstairs.  On any other night, one or more of us would have been shot. Personally, I am not a god or higher power guy.  I do believe the universe has cause and effect. I strongly believe in karma. The idea that we get back from the world what we put out.  Why on that particular night we didn't get shot I don't know. I just don't know the answer to that one.

We realized later that it was likely a couple that had been staying there that she had told they had to leave.  Their response was to come back and try to kill us. While it seems like a pretty crazy response from someone, given the entire scene I have described it was a pretty normal response and we are all lucky to have survived. 

That entire night running up to the shooting was different. It was a real foggy night and I remember walking to the store just prior to the shooting and feeling like the whole night was just off. Our being downstairs on that one night was different. 

Looking back on this night it was a pivotal moment for me. While I didn't immediately turn to a life in recovery I did know that if something didn't change I could easily be dead if I kept it up.  It would be just a few months later that I would go back to treatment and would start engaging with everything I needed to begin my journey toward changing my world from a very dark place to the amazing life I have today. 

When I think about this time period the following resources helped me:

- Law enforcement for keeping us safe and giving us a break
- A moment of clarity that might literally have saved my life
- Olalla Treatment Center for accepting me back for second time
- My Dept of Corrections Probation officer Marco Lizrazo
- My sister for allowing me to live under roof so I could have a safe place to begin my journey toward recovery
- Friends and family who believed in me when I truly did not believe in myself

My last booking photo from Pierce County Jail in the mid 90's