Krist already did a post about last night’s gunfight in greenwich village, but I think it’s worth revisiting because I was there.

After seeing Yimou Zhang’s “Raise the Red Lantern” at Film Forum, I was craving chinese food. So we were close to my old neighborhood and I suggested Suzie’s on Bleeker. We sit down and moments later two gunshots are heard, cops are running, then a burst of up to 15 more shots, pedestrian’s ducking into every open door on the block, more shots and we’re jumping under our table. Within the next 5 minutes, more cops than I’ve ever seen in one place at a time were swarming the village, crowds were ushered away and every person had a story or different take on the tragic event.

I walked outside and a tall man walking away from the scene said something to the effect of “I dunno what happened, but somebody is dead.” Back in the restaurant I overheard conflicting stories from an elderly patron and the kindly proprietor of Suzie’s suggested multiple gunmen and the title “robbers”. A call to my bartender friend nearby gave me the chilling idea that the gunman hadn’t been apprehended yet and as we talked he asked me how many shots I heard and I said about 10. He said yeah, that’s what I thought too, but someone came in saying there were 40 shots.

Even after the proverbial dust had settled and dim-sum and moo shoo had been ordered, the three of us at the table couldn’t decide whether there had been 2 bursts of shots or 3. Whether we saw cops before the shots were fired or after. At what point did people start ducking for cover inside Suzie’s.

What I can say, is that it’s really sad and senseless. There were two cops who died and they were 28 and 19 years old. A guy my age (26) was shot and killed in the pizzeria. It really shook us up. You can feel your own mortality more closely than normal. Our conversation went from asian concubines to previous encounters with death surprisingly fast.

Finally, I gave an “eye-witness” account to a reporter from the Times, but I didn’t make the article. Oh well…

Check it out anyway (NYTimes)

My friends and companions last night blogged about it too over at A Brooklyn Life.

Ok, back to our regularly scheduled program of music and snarky-ness.