Quickly Losing Faith In Humanity

\ Aug 30, 2007

3 min read

In the past two months I have witnessed two shooting incidents and hopefully the most shocking road-rage episode I will ever see in my life.

On July 3rd, while standing outside a crowded downtown bar, a car drove by and discharged what everyone thought at first was fireworks… that is, until we starting hearing bullets whizzing overhead. Someone in a tented-out black Caddy had just emptied-out a handgun above a crowd of innocent people. The cops never showed up. In fact, I don’t know if they were ever called. Luckly, no one was hit but there was multiple bullet holes in the stucco, just feet above where we were just standing.

On August 10th at four o’clock in the afternoon I was working in a 6th-floor office above Central Ave. when some commotion broke out on the streets. A group of youths, all of which were wearing all red … red hats, shorts, shoes and red shirts, converged on a vehicle which had stopped in the middle of the street.

After some yelling back and fourth between the kids on the street and the kids in the SUV, a guy reached out of the window with a handgun and unloaded his weapon in the direction of the youths, who quickly took cover. Again, no one was hit, the car got away and within minutes people were walking down the sidewalk, oblivious to what had just transpired in their city.

Last night I was stuck in traffic on 1-40 for almost an hour. There was an accident that had completely shut down the highway. I finally got off and headed to Central Ave. which was no better due to loads of exiting cars and yet another accident. So I headed to Lomas and was heading east on Lomas when I saw a large, lifted and beat-up black 70’s Ford pickup tailgating a minivan at a dangerously close distance. The minivan seemed to be going slower and slower, perhaps to take a left hand turn. To my astonishment, as the minivan applied it’s brakes again, the large truck barreled into the van ON PURPOSE!

The van came to a stop after being rammed, the pickup truck driver, with his truck butted-up against the rear of the van, then proceed to stomp on his gas pedal, screeching his 40+ inch tires and slowly pushing the van forward, (the van was apparently applying brakes). After a few seconds, the truck driver then put his vehicle in reverse, backed-up about 50-100 feet and lit up his tires in a fit of extreme road rage, did a burnout, and again slammed into the back of the minivan with incredible force! As I sat in my car watching other motorists pass by this spectacle , some terrified, some tickled, some cautious and most oblivious, I could not believe it when the truck rammed the van five more times before disappearing on the residential streets north of Lomas between Eubank and Tramway.

Witnessing such un-evolved acts has me wondering what is wrong with people in the world today? Is it just Albuquerque or is the entire human race turning back into cavemen?