The War Zone, Butta Boom Summary

Joe Viola, a television writer, says he was terrified for the first time in his life when he was caught in the riots. He was standing in front of a store when a kid with a nine-millimeter gun pointed it in his general direction and told him he was going to kill him. Viola says he just sat down on the corner out of shock.

Then he heard screams and began to cross the street when he saw a teenage girl hit a man in the head with a two-by-four. The man was young, carrying a briefcase, and it was about one-thirty in the afternoon. When he was hit, he dropped his case and with blood on his face walked toward the car from which the girl had come. People on the street were screaming...