We got up and out this morning to water the plants and were met with a 5-0 convention in our front yard. At one time there were four unmarked cars, a crime scene van, and three marked cars. The only time I've ever seen more cops in one place was at the Dunkin Donuts on the corner of Grant & Swan when someone apparently must have tried to rob it a few weeks ago.

Anyway, there's a chop shop on the SE corner of our neighborhood and it's a bit of a diversified business because they apparently sell drugs as well. Guess where the crackheads and crankers go when they need money to get their fix. Thaaaaaaat's right Bob, into our neighborhood looking for things to steal. The carpenter next door surrendered his tools, I gave up several dollars in change, my owner's manual for the truck, and my ashtray that held the aforementioned money. The neighbor across the street had his kid's christmas toys ( a battery operated atv toy) stolen. The theif/crackhead apparently dropped his hat on the way out of the yard and while the neighbor was calling the cops, the thief sneaked back into the yard and took his hat. By the time the police came the hat was gone. Of course, there were only two of them and they stayed at the house for about 20 minutes.

The neighbor evidently found out that the brain surgeons over at the chop shop/crack emporium were somehow involved. I had been told that it was a chop shop/crackhouse by a neighbor. It's supposed to be an auto repair shop. Evidently people take their vehicles there and the "technicians" take the cars out and make drug drops with them. Heck the next door neighbor even owns an old "drop car". The gas tank is gone and it has an open hanging area for bales where the tank was. It wasn't made for carrying hay bales either.

This last theft of toys was six months ago. Well, someone shot at the crackheads last night and they told the police that it was our neighbor. I guess the cops showed up early this morning at about 4am and went through everything that they own looking for gunshot residue and a gun. I doubt that they found either one since the neighbor is a good kid and he doesn't even own a gun. He's had a bit of a checkered past, but has his stuff together now and loves his kids. The cops didn't find a thing, but he had a four year old warrant for something or other (probably parking tickets), so 5-0 had to take him in. The cops even remarked that they wish that they could shut the crackhouse down, but haven't found anything yet to hang them on. Something tells me that they soon will. The 5-0 finally took off at around 10am or so.