Home sweet home

It's been said you can never really know your neighbors.
This past Monday morning, Eric Ocasio, 27, of Buffalo, a sheet metal worker apparently going through a divorce, took a gun and barricaded his Trinity place house.
At 10:45 a.m., police were called. SWAT teams and hostage negotiators arrived soon after.
Both access points to Trinity were sealed off during the situation as well as the surrounding West Tupper, Edward and Virginia streets, and both Delaware and South Elmwood Avenues.
During the ensuing four-hour standoff, several dozen shots were fired. The situation ended with Ocasio dead and Detective John Garcia of the Buffalo Police Department injured. Garcia suffered pellet wounds to his face and chest and was rushed to Erie County Medical Center.
Then on Friday, the day of his funeral, Eric's brother Jason showed up at the Buffalo Police Station at Franklin and Church Streets with a gun. After pulling it on an officer, he fled the scene, which culminated in a car chase that ended at the same place on Trinity where his brother died. He is now incarcerated.
This turn of events would be shocking to anyone.
It's a bit more disconcerting when you live across from the scene of the crime.
I moved onto Trinity Place this past August. My friend was graduating and needed someone to take her room. I needed roommates and had a desire to get out of University Heights, so I packed my books and loaded up my car. Three or four trips later, I was settled downtown.
From the beginning I loved the neighborhood, the arts scene, and the new face of Buffalo that I was seeing. Taking the train to school was the only visible setback.
From all outside points of view and reputation, Trinity is a quiet residential street, far enough away from the constant bustling of Elmwood and the debauchery of Allen to provide peace and quiet, but not too far to travel to for entertainment.
And now, in the span of a week, two dozen fired shots have turned that around.
This Monday I was feeling exceptionally lazy and wanted to skip class and sleep in. Due to reasons I can no longer remember, I dragged myself out of bed and was out of the house by 9 a.m., a little later than usual.
You can imagine my surprise when I was told the news of the shooting later that day.
It really is something to come home from school and see that police officers are monitoring the house across from you. I could see the fluorescent crime scene tape across the front of the house from my bedroom window.
This is not the first time I've been associated with scenes of violence in proximity to my living quarters. The night I moved into Trinity last fall was the same night UB alumnus Javon Jackson was shot and killed outside of my University Heights apartment.
I had hoped to escape from some of that this year. The drama of the Ocasio family would seem to have reached a boiling point just as the minutiae of my average middle class life was reaching equilibrium.
The question: where do we go from here?
I learned a long time ago how ridiculous it is to live your life in fear. Fear is one of the most crippling, irrationally unsettling emotions of the human psyche. It's like a pimple on the normally fresh face of a bride – small, but with the right amount of hysteria, it can reach epic proportions.
That being said, I will continue to live across the street from the proverbial scene of the crime. I will pray for the soul of Eric and for Jason Ocasio to get the help he needs. I will keep good thoughts for their family in my heart.
And as for Buffalo, I'm not going to let our final months together leave me as a quivering, fearfully complacent victim – far too many trials before this one have tried to do that. You'll still find me carousing at the various locales of Elmwood and Allen. It's all we can really do.
Graduation and the future is looming, as is the end of my lease. Let's make these last few months count.

E-mail: shane.fallon@ubspectrum.com