Code Red Alert!!!

The SWAT team in my daughter's condo complex. What is this world coming to?

The main entrance to the condos. No you can not drive into it. Initially, they let people out but now they are alll stuck. Naomi left a half hour after the incident occurred and could not go home

Are they invading Poland? This was used at the end of the siege to go through the front door. I kid you not.

This is the drama unfolding here. Someone is holding someone hostage with a gun in one of the condos in the complex where we bought a condo for Naomi and Maya to live. Such irony! We bought it so they would have a safe place to live. Meanwhile Don'tae has returned to the hellhole complex that they used to live in though it presumably has been fixed up and they are selecting their tenants more carefully.

Naomi can not enter the driveway to go to her unit. Numerous ambulances, police car, SWAT vehicles. Men with assault rifles surrounding the one unit a few blocks away from hers. Some are on the roof. We got an automated message that we are not to leave our house due to safety concerns. I walked over to see if I could extract any info from the officers stationed in the main entrance. Nothing though Facebook is abuzz...seems like a domestic dispute. Hopefully no kids are involved.

 Crazy, revengeful people with guns....not good.

Update: It is now almost 11 hours since this thing has begun and still the entrance is cordonned off. Naomi spent most of the day here but now is staying with one of her friends who has a baby Taya who is a 2 months younger than Maya. Seems like overkill especially the tank pictured above. The current news is that there are no hostages, just one pissed off person who said he has guns. Still not clear if he lives there. He is 42. Naomi is Facebook friends with the neighbor who insists that this is very overblown and that there are no guns. There must be at least 30 personnel of all sorts here.

So I biked some today. It was 16 when I woke up but a toasty 32  and sunny when I got around to riding. Didn't get far. I swear I saw an indigo bunting. Must see if they are year round birds. But I saw a glimpse of intense blue on a finch sized body.

Further update: It is all over. We heard a series of booms that did not sound like a gun. More like fireworks, like a loud thud. We heard they were flash grenades, impressive to those who saw them. They used that tank pictured above to break through the fence and the front door. We saw the ambulance that took a guy away. He was visiting his mother and upset that he wasn't allowed to see his kids. He said he would shoot himself and anyone who came near him, thus the tank I guess. He presumably has a history of mental illness and refusal to take his drugs. Nearly 14 hours from the start of this, we get the automated call from the city saying we were free to leave our house now. I had already told Naomi she could come back. She had been allowed to go home all this time but she would not be able to drive there due to the police blockade. She was free to walk a mile long path through the back way. Hard with a toddler, groceries and the cold.

It is not clear that the person ever had a gun. He said he had one and he was going to use it. Between the firemen, the SWAT team, the sheriffs, the EMTs, the police: there were clearly 50 personnel there. And then the news trucks came parked near my house. Quite the scene!

Later an elderly couple were observed in the condo crying while being questioned by a police officer. Those poor parents! Still having to clean up messes of a 42 year old!