A Sovereign Nation

IT HAD BEEN A MORNING OF RUNNING ERRANDS, and I was driving home to make lunch. I live on a major thoroughfare in the heart of Pittsburgh, adjoining the neighborhood of Garfield, a predominantly Black working-class neighborhood. As I turned the corner, I found the street blocked by police motorcycles and patrol cars. I was ordered to turn around. I parked nearby and then returned on foot to my street, again to be stopped by a patrol officer, who demanded to know where I was going. When I pointed to my house, he asked for my ID and then told me to go ahead to my house but “No farther; we are in the midst of an active shooter situation.” The neighborhood was in lockdown.

I waited inside, but I could see the police presence steadily building in the street. The shooting was three blocks away. My son, who also lives in the neighborhood, called and asked if I was safe. “Are you okay, Pop? I got out of the shower to go to work, and I heard hundreds of gunshots. What the fuck is going on?! Police are everywhere. They let me through to go to work. Don't leave the house until this is over.”

Some of our neighbors ventured outside, and word came from one that a heavily armed man had barricaded himself inside a house and was firing at the police. He had been squatting in this house he did not own, and the sheriff had come to serve an eviction notice. He started firing, and all hell broke loose. Nearby residents were being evacuated, and the police cordoned off several blocks. A heavily armed SWAT team was now in front of our house.

Slowly, as we gathered apprehensively in the street, a story unfolded from bits and pieces of what neighbors had known or had been gossiped about. The man, Bill, barricaded inside, had a few years earlier declared himself “a sovereign nation,” accountable to no one. His life had been collapsing for several years. His younger brother, Big Joey, who had owned the house and was much loved in the neighborhood, had died. Bill had expe