Sometimes I try to imagine what a panic looks like over at FrontBurner. Does Wick throw off his D baseball cap, scoop up his emergency stash of collectable Gone With the Wind porcelain (currency of the future) and head for the Park Cities? Do the fashionistas head for cover in NorthPark Center, only to escalate the frenzy when they can't decide whether to hunker down in Barney's or Neiman's? Does new guy (and former Observer associate editor) Eric Celeste throw off his guilty white, liberal skin and go postal with a semi-automatic? Well, maybe.
A fellow Junius Heights resident, Eric was as freaked out as I was to learn of the dead body found in a portable toilet Tuesday afternoon in the 5700 blook of Tremont, a stone's throw from both our houses (attention, creepy media stalkers!). In a post yesterday afternoon, Eric lamented: "Can I still be a flaming liberal and go gun-shopping this weekend?"
I'd asked a similar question of my man o' the hour when I learned of the body's discovery the night before. (His response: Not so much.) But I've got good -- well, kind of...well, not so much -- news for Eric, me and the rest of Junius Heights folk: We're not talking homicide, here. We're talking suicide.
That's what a DPD spokesman told me yesterday afternoon when I called to check up on the situation. Some unlucky gentleman tried to use the portable toilet sometime early Tuesday, but found it locked. When he came back hours later and the door was still locked, the police were called. Inside, an adult male was found dead from a gunshot wound to the head. A semi-automatic gun rested at his side. Police have not yet released his name, pending notification of family. --Andrea Grimes
