UPDATE 2/EDIT: I had thought the original article I read said the shooting happening around 3-4am, but I misquoted that & the shooting actually happened at 11am, so I saw them together 10 hrs before the shooting not 3-4 hrs. My apologies for the misquote on that I was in a pretty fucked up mental state when reading the news article & discovering who I got a ride home with 🥴🥴

UPDATE: I will be talking to the police about what I know, I didn't really realize I could technically be considered a "witness" till now, since I didn't actually witness the crime & only saw the people who committed the crime *10 hours before they committed the crime & didn't find out about the actual crime till 2 days after the fact. When I found out about the guys that gave me the ride being involved in the shooting at the hospital it was from a news article saying the shooter was dead & interviewing the get away driver. So the police had ready caught/knew what they looked like when I found out they were involved in the crime after the fact.

Obligatory this actually happened 2 weeks ago & not today. This is a long one so buckle up!

So a little bit of background: I'm a 28F, I work 2nd shift security downtown getting off work at 11pm & have to take the train/public transit home every night.

Well about a 1/3rd of the way home, we get told we all had to get off the train because there was an accident on the tracks up ahead & there likely wouldn't be anymore trains for the rest of the night. So we all get off the train & start walking, grumbling to fellow passengers about how far the places we have to get to are when two other guys in security uniforms who had been on the train with me, said their car was just a few blocks over & were headed towards my neighborhood & offered me a ride if I wanted it. At this point due to all the delays on the train from the accident it was already almost midnight & I wasn't even halfway home yet, so I said "sure!"

Now before you start yelling how stupid it was to accept a ride, I KNOW! As a small female I would normally NEVER take a ride with two males I didn't know. But they were also fellow security guards & where I live security guards all have a sorta comradery of looking out for each other regardless of what company we work for. So I figured that these guys being two fellow security people were probably just trying to help out another security person, you know?

As we started walking towards the car, I noticed one of the guys was acting kinda weird & possibly drunk which had me a little concerned but I was like "well he's not the one driving & the other guys seems ok so I should be fine right?"

I was wrong, I was sooooooo wrong 😭😭😭

We get to the "car" & it wasn't a "car" at all but rather a van that one of the guys was apparently actually living out of. Sketchy as fuck & I even said to myself internally "holy fuck this looks like a murder's van 😳" (Little did I know how right that assessment would actually turn out to be.....)

Here's where I fucked up & fucked up HARD. Instead of being a sane & rational human being & immediately running away upon seeing what I had literally already dubbed in my head as a "murder van", I got in the van. It was one of those moments of social conditioning that so many women experience of being afraid to say or do something for fear of "offending" others or causing a scene. Which is stupid I know because they're literal strangers so who cares if you offend them right? But that social conditioning that women experience to not make a scene is SO STRONG, especially when you're scared & afraid of what the person might do when you try to leave. So while yes it was incredibly stupid of me to not immediately run away, it was definitely a combination of social conditioning & one of those "fear freeze" moments.

So anyways my stupid ass gets in & the drunk guy who weirded me out while walking to the van just keeps getting worse. Talking about how he wants Trump to be president again/all the good he's done, talking about race riots, just all kinds of fun CRAZY shit & utter none sense. The whole time I'm sitting in the front seat with my phone open rapidly messaging my partner that I have made a HORRIBLE decision & I am honestly scared that I might not make it home that night.

Probably the only smart thing I did that night was not tell them directly where I lived, I had them stop a few streets over from my house & took a weird backway home even cutting through bushes & someones yard just to be safe.

Well 2 days later I'm at work, looking at the news only to see that at approximately *11am (edited to correct to 11am not 3am, I misquoted that) the day after my "wild ride home", another fellow security guard had been shot & killed in the labor & delivery ward over at the hospital by my house. Who was the shooter you might ask? Well I think you can tell where this is going......

Yeah.... The shooter ended up being the crazy guy in the backseat that had me terrified & the guy who actually drove me home ended up being the guys get away driver away from the shooting.

I started hyperventilating terrified upon reading that because that could have been me! So let this story of my stupidity be a lesson to all you: NEVER GET A RIDE HOME FROM STRANGERS!!!!

TLDR: TIFU when I got a ride home with some strangers in what I at the time jokingly called a "murderer van" only to find out 2 days later that the guy really was a murderer & I could have actually died that night 😳😳😬😬