I may look calm on the outside, but inside I am freaking out

We found out yesterday that there was a fatal shooting in our neigborhood early yesterday morning (3 am). We don't live in the safest of neighborhoods by any means, but I have felt pretty safe the whole time we have lived here. We generally use our "street smarts" and I don't walk around by myself late at night. Here's what's really freaking me out about this incident:
  1. The shooting occured less than 100 feet from the front door of our building at a spot that Isaac passes every day on his way to the Metro. Last night, the Fox 5 news guy was reporting from the corner at the end of our block.
  2. The shooting resulted from a dispute over a parking spot. If you don't live in the area, you have absolutely no idea how bad the drivers are here. It's almost as if they never actually learned any rules for driving - there is always double parking, people stopping at a red light and then just deciding to go through it, passing cars on the shoulder just to get ahead of them at a stop light, turning left from behind another vehicle that is waiting to turn left, no yielding, the list just goes on. And it's not just occasionally that I see drivers like this. I see someone doing something unbelievably stupid almost every day. It's not even aggressive driving, it's just stupid. The number of days I have gotten mad at someone for doing something stupid while driving easily outnumber the days that someone has willingly let me merge or done something nice for me while driving. This is the type of argument I could easily see myself getting into with someone.
  3. The man that was killed and the woman that was injured were not even involved in the argument. They were bystanders in front of the restaurant. A restaurant we walk past to get anywhere in our neighborhood.
  4. The men that did this are yet to be found. No one is even exactly sure as to what kind of vehicle they were in.
  5. Although a separate incident, apparently there was an incident at the other end of our block in January involving a dispute that started 3 blocks away. Shots were fired and a bullet is actually lodged in the exterior wall of one of the units in our building. Fortunately no one was hurt. Thankfully for us, our unit does not face the street. Again, no arrests were made in connection with this incident.
I'm not really sure why these events are bothering me so much more than the other violent crimes that occur all the time in DC. I guess the proximity of the shootings and the fact that I could easily see myself getting into a similar argument are what's doing it. Normally I consider myself pretty city smart and I usually ignore any sort of harrasment that might happen. But when a gun is involved, that's a whole different story. Especially when the shootings are happening on our block, involving our building structure and their victims (both human and inanimate) are all bystanders at the wrong place at the wrong time.

Like I said, I am freaking out.

I think between the violence and the crappy driving, it might be time for us to find a new city to call home.

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