St Lucie County Building Department: Fill & Download for Free

Kinda.I caught a guy breaking into my house about 20 years ago.When he broke the beam on the intruder alarm at the perimeter of the property I heard the alert, then looked up to see him on the security cams running full speed toward my front door. He was a teenager but it was obvious; he wasn’t there to inquire about mowing my yard or washing my car.He noticed me about three seconds after busting through my front door. I was standing partially behind a wall about 15′ in front of him, with an H&K .45 pointed at that tiny space between his eyes.Upon seeing me, he froze in place, standing perfectly still, watching his life flash before his eyes.Ya know how the cartoons have the character lean back on their heels when they try to stop? I swear, it was just like that when he saw me. Or when he saw the .45. Not sure which. Whatever it was, his forward motion just stopped as he tried to keep his balance while simultaneously being unable to blink.I said nothing.Seconds ticked away at the speed of frozen molasses while we sized each other up. Him, out of breath, literally panting, trying to read my resolve. Me, calmly contemplating my next move, something I suddenly and urgently wished I had thought of LONG before I had someone at gunpoint in my foyer.I quickly realized, this wasn’t like the movies and there was no specific plan after getting the drop on him. My training indicated that I should dump him but I quickly overcame that urge. For one thing, he was a kid, maybe 16. He was thin, wiry and dripping in sweat. It was obvious that he had been running. To, or from what, I didn’t know.One half second after he perceived my thoughts about actually killing him, I slowly pulled the hammer back in a completely unnecessary and exaggeratedly obvious motion, just to reinforce and solidify the balance of power between us. I hated to be like that but, sometimes you just have to establish boundaries in a relationship. This was one of those times.I had already decided I wasn’t going to shoot this kid unless (or until) he gave me a really good reason to do so, but I needed him to know it was an option, just in case he was thinking about giving me a reason. I mean, other than the whole “home invasion” thing. If it had been 3AM and not 3PM, I’d have already published a book about “how to get blood stains out of tile grout.”So, there we were, settled into a perfect, but silent standoff.He was catching his breath now, but I caught myself holding mine. Controlled breathing is very important if you didn’t know; he and I did seem to have that common understanding between us.After a period of time (that seemed like weeks) a St. Lucie County Sheriff’s vehicle came creeping down my street. They had been chasing this guy through the neighborhood and he had foolishly chosen my door to bust through. As he crept by, the Deputy saw the kid frozen in place, just inside the door. Fortunately the Deputy sized up the situation quickly and radioed for backup, just before my arms got tired of holding the .45.My uninvited guest saw my eyes divert from him to the movement through the window, and he broke my gaze for an instant to glance over his shoulder. He saw the Sheriff’s Deputies silently racing toward my doorway with THEIR guns drawn.Maybe the kid thought he would fare better with a middle-aged housewife than a Sheriff’s Deputy. Maybe he thought I would hold fire, or miss, and he could run past me to the rear door that led to the pool and escape. For whatever reason, he broke and ran straight at me, covering the distance between us in about a second.The Deputies were at my door, all shouting different orders, just as the kid broke and ran. Rather than risk a stray shot, I dropped to a knee in an effort to block the kid and he literally fell over me but bounced right back up and kept on running.In an instant, the house was full of Deputies plus a redundant, ill-tempered K9 with bad breath who almost bit me. Mr. Criminal had stumbled but recovered and ran through the laundry room, into the garage, where he blocked the door with something just long enough to scramble up the pull-down attic stairs.A million hands hustled me out of the house and into the back of a squad car. There was a helicopter bobbing around overhead and half the cops in the world were on my street.And now, just before Oprah at 4 on an ordinary Thursday, there was a sweaty, out of breath juvenile delinquent in my attic.My house was a modern style, typical Florida house built in the late 1990s and it was literally brand new when I moved in. There’s a good chance this kid had thought it was still unoccupied when he chose it for a hiding place.There are no windows or other openings in the attic of a modern, newly-built home in Florida. There is nothing in the roof for the wind to get into after the building codes changed in response to Hurricane Andrew. And that means, there is no way OUT of the attic, except for the pull-down ladder into the garage.Therefore, we waited for the whole SWAT team AND the fire department to mosey on over. Even though Mr. Criminal didn’t pull the ladder up behind him, SWAT wasn’t about to climb the flimsy attic stairs to go up and get Mr. Criminal, so Fire brought ladders. Ambulances arrived. More cops came. The only thing missing was a big top, dancing girls and those poodles with ruffled collars and Tu-tus.The process to remove this kid from my attic took over five hours from the time I first met him. He had been armed when they first started chasing him but I didn’t see a weapon and I had PLENTY of time to notice. No idea if he had a weapon in his pants or whatever. (this was at the height of the “baggy pants” movement. He could have had a Toyota in his pants) Because of the possibility of a weapon, suddenly no one thought it was a great idea to go up after him only to die, one by one, at the top of the pull down attic stairs.Waco was only a few years past and still heavily on the collective minds of all involved. This was a child and the “kinder, gentler” heads prevailed. Setting off tear gas wasn’t an option due to the lack of ventilation; he could have died before they could get to him. I’m sure there were other options discussed but I wasn’t privy to the Sheriff’s entire tactical plan for “how to get a kid out of an attic.”I know they tried to talk him down. They tried to bribe him down. They sent up snacks and water. They sent up McDonalds. They stood outside the windows in every room in case he jumped through the ceiling/drywall to escape. It was summer so the temperatures were probably in the neighborhood of 125 degrees in the attic.Hours went by. At the end of the ordeal, he finally came down because he was afraid of the dark.