The crack of a gunshot brought a man out of his apartment in Bankers Hill, only to find a bullet hole on his balcony.
He lives in the complex as a suspected active shooter, and found himself next door to a police standoff that’s gripped San Diego.
“I heard a gunshot and went out on my balcony and there was a hole probably this big through my balcony wall,” Tom said, modeling out a hole about five inches wide with his hands. “I knew it was gunshots, so I called 911 and they told me that there’d been reports of active shooters, they told us to take cover.”
San Diego police rushed to a community north of downtown Wednesday for what they described as an active shooter inside an apartment building using a high-powered rifle.
Tom, a resident of the apartment building at 2445 Brant Street in the Bankers Hill area, described the terrifying situation to NBC7. Following the news, he went to his bathroom and hid in his bathroom for the next half hour, he said. During that time, he heard multiple gunshots ring out.
“I heard a gunshot, probably heard three more, and while I was hunkered down in the bathtub, there was probably 30 to 40 more shots fired,” Tom said.
About a half an hour later, he said, 911 called him back and told him a SWAT team was outside his door.
“They told me to open the door, there was probably six, eight officers out there, they pulled me out, took me downstairs to a safe area and then I helped them with a layout of what the unit’s floor plan is so they’d have a better idea of what the logistics would be when they go in,” Tom said.
When officers first arrived on scene, they say they immediately came under fire.
The suspect was contained in a one-bedroom apartment on the southeast side of the apartment building, Wahl said.
The entire incident was “terrifying,” he said, and he never expected something like this to happen in Bankers Hill.
“It’s been a long hour or two, it’s been scary,” Tom told NBC7.
“Yeah, it’s a really nice safe area and you don’t expect thing like this to happen here,” Tom said.
