Welcome to the Neighborhood!

I should preface this blog by saying I love my new neighborhood (Atwater Village), and think it's a great area--beautiful houses, very residential, quiet. We live just short of a street called Chevy Chase, and beyond that things don't look so great. I don't know how they ARE, but that's just what I see.

So the other day I woke up around 4:30AM and heard a chopper circling near the new apartment. I only think "that's weird [for this area]" a couple times and then go back to sleep.

Next day I'm chillin in the nice new kitchen, all the windows open enjoying the cool breeze. The chopper's there, still pretty close. It circles for a while until I hear "This is the Los Angeles Police Department. Come out with your hands up. Residents, stay in your homes. I repeat--" ...grrreeat. This is why I left South Central fool! No more of this shit.

Well I left for work a few hours later and saw a ton of LAPD cars still parked up the street. I searched about it later and found a great Atwater Village blog that gave me the lowdown. There's a gang bangin in Atwater that has been here for (apparently) 60 years, but had their heyday in the 90s and early 2000s. LAPD and the Sheriff's Dept busted a bunch of them, and have been parked with SWAT tanks near their usual hangouts. They did some similar action in an area called Glassell Park and it broke the gang scene wide open.

So welcome to the neighborhood! I guess we moved in at the right time.