I know a gunshot when I hear it…

I am a very light sleeper. I wake up at the slightest noise. BUT when I woke up with a BOOM! in the wee hours of May 24, I knew that I had just heard a gun shot. My cats were sitting on the end of the bed and staring at me with wide eyes, too. It woke all of us up.

I sat in bed holding my breath for a few seconds. My first thought was… any second now I will hear the police sirens start up OR I will hear another gun shot. I kept running the sound over in my mind. Yep… it definitely was a gun shot. Then… nothing. No police sirens. No further sounds of gun shots. I KNEW I hadn’t imagined it. My cats heard it, too. They could not settle down.

So – dummy me… the one thing that I didn’t think to do was get up and look out my front bedroom window. DOH!!! I didn’t hear any police sirens cuz the police were the ones that shot the gun. AND… it was at my neighbor’s house! Across the street and down about 4 houses. It only took four weeks for me to find out that I wasn’t losing my marbles. Here is the story from the San Leandro Times.

Nightmare On Beatrice Street – Police Storm House – Shoot Dog – Due To Anonymous Phone Call
By : Jim Knowles : 6/18/09

A couple woke up in the wee hours of the morning of May 24 to police knocking on the door. The police said that somebody called 911.

“We said, not from here,” said Matthew Hoy, who was staying at the house with his girlfriend, Barbara Silva.

What happened next was a nightmare, and the result of what police describe as “swatting,” a dirty trick of calling 911 anonymously because of a grudge.

The call came from a pay telephone on Lewelling Boulevard in the unincorporated area. Neither the residents of the house nor the police know who made the call. The anonymous caller said that somebody was having a drug overdose at the house at 632 Beatrice St. in San Leandro.

Matthew Hoy said he was asleep at the time with his girlfriend, Barbara Silva, at the house on Beatrice. The couple were renting a room at the time in the house that belongs to a friend, Bruce Hemphill.

According to Hoy and Silva, the police asked if everything was all right and they answered that they were fine. The next thing they knew, the police were storming the house with guns pointed at them.

“We all talked to them and told them that we were fine,” said Silva. “The next think I knew somebody was hopping the fence. I heard somebody yelling, Matthew, come out!”

Hoy said he came out of the bedroom to the living room as his girlfriend’s dog, Boo Boo, followed him. The dog, a pit-bull mix, was right behind him, he says, when police yelled at him to put his hands up.

Hoy said he put one hand in the air and still had a hand down to keep the dog behind him.

“I heard a Boom!” Hoy says. “I said, no! They said, ‘Put both hands up or we’ll shoot you!” The wounded dog ran back to the bedroom and into the arms of Silva.

“I could see Boo Boo’s tail in the hallway the whole time,” Silva said. “He came running back and his blood was pouring all over me.

“Then there were five cops with guns pointed at me,” Silva continued. “I was holding Boo Boo. I said, ‘What the hell’s going on?’ They said, ‘We got a 911 call. I said, ‘That’s what you already said at the front door.’”

Hoy and Silva said the police took them outside and let them go after about a half an hour. When they got back inside, Silva said that her dog was on the bed in a pool of blood from the gunshot wound to his face. Police took the dog to the vets but the dog passed away.

Hoy and Silva now live in San Lorenzo where Hoy grew up and attended Arroyo High. He manages rental properties, and Silva works at a car parts company in Hayward.

The couple say the dog should have been treated sooner. “If he had medical attention right away he would have lived,” Hoy said. “Hell, if he wasn’t shot he would have lived.” Silva says her dog had a nice disposition and “wouldn’t hurt a flea.”

But the police report says that when they arrived “a large dog, possibly a pit bull, was growling, barking and pushing at the screen door.”

The report goes on to say that the owner of the house was “nervous, agitated and made it clear he would not cooperate with the police.” And that he would not let the police check on the welfare of the female in the house.

Silva disagrees with the report and says she did talk to the police. “There’s not one thing in that report that is real,” she says.

But the report goes on to say that the owner of the house, Hemphill, “started to tense his muscles and pull away,” so they arrested him for resisting arrest.

Tough decisions have to be made on the spot in cases like this, says Lt. Pete Ballew of the San Leandro police. “As the police department, we have the obligation to check on someone’s welfare,” Ballew said.

“He didn’t seem cooperative,” Ballew said. “When we feel that somebody is in jeopardy we have an obligation. What if somebody was hurt in there? Most of the time what happens is driven by the residents.”

Ballew continued, “Our job is to weigh the intrusiveness against our duty to protect life. It’s a split-second decision to protect a life. We made sure everything was okay and we were out of there.”

The policeman who shot the dog says in the police report that he “heard a growl and saw a large pit bull running out of the hallway in a full sprint. The dog was baring its teeth as it ran directly toward me. The dog got to within 5 feet of me and I fired my .40 Glock handgun once…”

Ballew said the last thing a policeman wants to do is shoot a pet. “No matter what, nobody goes to work and says, ‘I’m going to shoot a dog today,’” Ballew said. “That’s just not something anybody wants to do.”

It’s still a mystery who made the anonymous phone call. Ballew said that “swatting,” as it’s called, is a new trend faced by police, and some unfortunate citizens.

“This is a new trend that’s going on when someone has a beef with someone,” Ballew said. “They call 911 and they know that the police have an obligation to check.”

To Hoy and Silva, it’s a night that’s hard to forget. “My girlfriend is still shaking,” Hoy said.

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