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Rumor has it, we live in the second safest city in the nation of like size. It doesn't seem quite that way to us, or maybe it has achieved this title because the crime simply goes unreported. Here are just a few of our experiences living in one of the safest cities in the nation while in our apartment complex, Villa La Paz.

1) There is a small alley (maybe just a few feet wide) between the back of our apartment and a fence. It is very common to see men walking back there, almost exclusively wearing black oddly enough. It isn't like the alley leads to anything. On one end is a street, then it goes along the back of our apartment complex, and leads to a wash built for flash flooding. However, if you notice Jessica Hoch's comment under the California Rains entry, some people like to hang out in the wash. It seems like it is a good place to get your morning hit.

2) Sadly, there was a young man at our apartment complex who passed away in his car a few summers ago. He was parked on the street and apparently been assaulted. Several people had noticed that he was in his car with the windows up during the summer heat and didn't look good, so they had called the cops. After several hours, the police made it out.

3) But when the police do show up, they show up in mass numbers. Several times we have witnessed on our street many police cars surrounding someone with all their guns drawn. You know, just reinforcing that whole image of the second safest city in the nation.

4) Andy has foiled mutliple car robberies at our apartment complex single-handedly. When going to school, it wasn't uncommon for him to get up around 4 am. He'd start the day usually by looking out the window as he was trying to wake up, and a few times he would see men trying to break into one of neighbor's cars, inside our gated complex. Needless to say, those gates weren't helping much. He yelled out the window at them, waking me up and scaring me to death, but they left!

5) Andy would go out and start my car for me so it would warm up before I had to go to work. One day, Andy went out to find an intoxicated Latino man laying in the carport by our car. Apparently he had just tried to steal one of our bikes that was hanging by a hook, locked up, above our cars. Andy could tell this because the man had used a large plastic container containing old oil from our car as a step stool. His "step stool" had busted open, spilling the black oil everywhere, and the man, in his oh-so-clear state of mind, had fallen in it, covering himself. The man proceeded to tell Andy that he came into our, once again, gated complex to get away from a fight he was in. Then, the guy pulled out his knife to show Andy that he had used in the fight. The man then asked for cigarettes and water. My mercy husband gave the guy water, but you know, we keep our cigarettes for ourselves. :)

6) There is a large amount of illegal immigrants that live on our street because it is the cheapest area around. It is very common to see large groups of latino men waiting on street corners for someone to give them some work. This obivously isn't a big, violent situation, but it just goes to show that the city isn't so good about inforcing all of its laws.

So these are a few situations that we, including the Hochs, Gilchers, and in the past the Jarms and Nareshs, have been able to experience. You can ask them for their individual stories. But... if you really want to hear some whoppers, talk to the Sanchez family. They lived in an area of town that was so bad that the city cut out a big chunk of its border to exclude that part of town so they could maintain their coveted "second safest city in the nation" status.