It wasn’t a great day for an unnamed firefighter in Oakland, California. He wasn’t expecting something he saw in the afternoon would lead to death threats by evening. Nobody expects gun runners in the wooded hills.
Firefighter brings trouble
He was on his way to work at his fire station in the Oakland hills on Thursday, September 30, when the firefighter saw something strange. It would soon affect the whole unit.
According to Zac Unger, president of the International Association of Firefighters Local 55, “it’s unfortunate when violence or threats come home to us in the firehouse.”
While cruising along in his personal truck, the hose wrangler “saw two men dumping something in a spot off Skyline Boulevard near Grass Valley Road.”
They noticed they had been spotted. As soon as they caught his eye, they “got into a car, and started chasing him. They tailgated the man’s vehicle and pulled alongside him. The firefighter slammed on his brakes, and the car drove off.” He thought that would be the end of it, but it wasn’t.
The firefighter drove back to where he had the initial encounter to investigate what the men had been doing there. He soon discovered “a backpack with two loaded guns inside. Both were 9mm semiautomatic Glock handguns with extended magazines.”
He took them back to the station. The men showed up there too and “began threatening him and other firefighters.”
Kill their families
Touching that backpack was a big mistake the thugs declared. They made sure to take photos of every plate on the personal vehicles. They were convinced they would soon find out where every single firefighter in the station lived and “would kill them and their families.” They appeared to be telling the truth.
Oakland Fire Chief Reginald Freeman notes “some of the firefighters locked themselves inside the fire station.” Darn skippy. “The firefighters, they protected themselves, went inside the firehouse, made sure the firehouse was secure, called law enforcement.” Standard procedure for death threats.
The heavy’s new better than stick around and were long gone by the time police showed up. One by one the each firefighter came out “shaken, but unhurt.” They were still ready to put out fires though.
“Nothing or no one’s going to scare them from executing their sworn duties as firefighters for our great city.” Chief Freeman promises. “They were real brave to hold their ground and still keep the guns and stuff,” Gentry Eagleton of Oakland notes.
That brave firefighter and his fellow heroes “took some guns off the street, and that is a credit to them, and a credit to their bravery, and it’s a shame that that resulted in threats made to them.”
Nobody has been arrested for anything yet. Nobody takes the threats lightly and the homes will be closely watched for security.
