some call it the slums, some call it niceAt approximately 0416 HRS this (early) morning, both Nailz and I were startled awake by two successive loud bangs that shook the building and flashed yellow-orange. Both of us were up like shots, me scrambling for pants and instinctively the light. Something BIG was going on - I just knew it.
After a few expletive-filled exclamations, both of us were in Nailz's room peeking through the blinds to see what was what. There was smoke billowing from the first floor and two SWAT team guys (a third a bit farther back) ready with weapons pointed at the windows. Even further back were members of the local PD.
A lot seemed to happen all at once and next thing we know we're going to look out the front window. I lost count, but eventually 7 or 8 people were led out of the building with their hands cuffed behind them. I thought there was just one at first and was satisfied that finally some of the riff-raff (to put it kindly) would be gone from our building. Then, in quicker succession they brought the others out (to include two females), put them in the back of squad cars and drove off. One of the arrestees (heh) was hurt from the flash-bangs the SWAT team had used, so an ambulance showed up which completed the scene nicely, as the fire department had shown up 10 minutes prior to clear the smoke from the building and reset the apartment's smoke alarm.
This morning I went down to look at the door of the apartment that everything had happened in. There were three very distinct battering ram marks on the door and it was ajar. From the outside of the building, you could see where the windows had been broken and the flash-bangs fired through. I hope the cost of the repairs that our landlord will have to make will teach him a lesson about letting just anyone live here. I overheard one of the female officers last night saying that they'd had a warrant out for one of the guys arrested for a long time. Guess our landlord doesn't mind being a slum-lord.