Last night, there was a flurry of shootings on the city's east side. I drove to one shooting scene at N. Lakewood Ave. and Jefferson St., then turned the corner and went a few blocks to another on N. Linwood.

As I drove back home, traffic was stopped near Hopkins, and in the distance I could see police car after police car after police car - must've been 40 of them - making the turn towards the Hopkins emergency room with lights and sirens blaring. "Uh oh," I thought. With that kind of response, it had to be something awful. A police officer critically wounded? They were driving slow - probably the icy roads, I thought.

I wasn't the only one who saw this and got that sinking feeling. From Twitter:

@erintangerine: About 25 cop cars driving slowly, sirens blaring down Calvert near Chase in B-more. What's going on?!?!

And emails:

"I live Downtown at Pratt and Greene. Last night, my fiancee and I observed a line of maybe 30 to 40 police vehicles (City and State) with sirens blaring turning west onto Lombard from Greene. About 10 to 20 minutes later, we observed that very same police line heading east on Pratt. Most of the vehicles were marked cruisers but a few were unmarked SUVs and blue vans with shields on them. Do you have any idea what was going on? I see nothing on the Sun website."

As it turned out, what these most of folks were seeing was likely part of a multi-agency holiday toy drive sponsored by Channel 2. I can't say that for certain, since I'm not sure what the route for this motorcade was. And that may be the problem.

I was relieved when I pulled over, talked to some officers and learned that this was a positive, holiday event. But how many people who didnt tweet or send an email to me are thinking right now that their neighborhood was under siege last night?  They wouldn't be foolish in thinking that, since there were at least four shootings last night, including a 15 year old girl who was shot in the head. I remember as a kid hearing firetrucks blare through my neighborhood in Anne Arundel County, running outside, and seeing Santa on the firetruck, throwing candy canes on our front yards as the truck crawled at 10 miles an hour. It was fun because after our initial shock - every year, even though we should have known it was coming - we figured out that it was all in holiday fun. But there's quite a few who weren't able to figure out that this was an organized effort and not a response to the latest shooting. And before you call me a Scrooge, no, I'm not advocating for an end to this positive event. But my email inbox and Twitter indicates that perhaps they can find a way to better signal their purpose.