We were driving home from the Las Vegas 51s baseball game on Thursday night when, at about 11 PM, we were stopped at the light at Koval and Harmon, about to make a right turn to cross The Strip, which was about 2,500 feet to our west.
A man in his 50s, also headed west, crossed in front us and bumped into a couple crossing in the other direction. It looked like he did it on purpose. Our first thought was “pickpocket.” He jawed at the male half of the couple as he made his way to the corner. He then turned around and started fishing something out of his pocket. Our next thought was “gun.”
Wrong again. It was a 9-inch chef’s knife with a black handle.
Another pedestrian, a man in his 20s, engaged the man who was now brandishing the knife at the couple as they hustled on their way. Our light turned green, we made the turn and The Male Half (at the urging of The Female Half, who was our designated drive– it was Dollar Beer Night at Cashman Field!) dialed 9-1-1 and gave a detailed description of the perp.
Uh… Yeah… there’s an African-American male on the northwest corner of Koval and Harmon brandishing a knife at pedestrians, a 9-inch chefs knife…he’s about 5-foot-six, blue plaid shirt, khaki pants…
As we made our way through the traffic and eventually crossed the strip, we imagined that a couple black-and-whites would roll up and disarm the knife-wielding man and scoop him into a backseat and he’d be treated to an evening in the slammer.
A couple hours later, we learned, through searches on Twitter and then Google, that he stabbed four people in the minutes just after our 9-1-1 call and was eventually apprehended without incident at a fastfood joint on the strip.
Of course, we posted about it on Facebook. And The Female Half tweeted about it. And the feedback we got was positive and mostly along the lines of “you guys are heroes!” and “You guys saved lives!” Of course, all of that is nice, but it’s probably an exaggeration. The Female Half was distraught. It’s an unsettling thing to witness the preface to a violent crime. Especially such an ugly crime as a stabbing. It never occurred to us to not call it in.
The next morning, The Female Half found an interview request in her inbox from the news operation at the local ABC affiliate. We never responded. Our work was done. No good could come of any such interview.
In a way, it’s a metaphor for what do here at SHECKYmagazine.com. We see attacks on standup comedy– by the media, by fellow comics, by critics, by the usual gang of busybodies and “interest groups”– and we report them. When we do, we have no idea how the whole scenario might unfold, but we think it’s important to let folks know that danger might be approaching.
Of course, we’re being somewhat facetious here. But only somewhat. We can’t compare any potential harm from the rantings of anti-standup goofballs to the horrific damage done to Thursday night’s stabbing victims, whose wounds were, thankfully, “non-life-threatening.”
But we see parallels!
We’re often accused of being paranoid. We like to think that we’re just being cautious. And, we’re certainly not heroes– we’re just trying to be good comedy citizens. Of course, the big fat difference between Thursday night’s incident and SHECKYmagazine.com is we will NEVER turn down a media request for an interview when it comes to talking about standup!
“Danny Glover” stars in “Not-So-Lethal Weapon!”