Every once in a while, Bogart will wake up in the middle of the night and start barking for no apparent reason. Perhaps he heard someone walk by our window or maybe the house creaked and he got spooked. Either way, it’s usually innocuous.

At a little past 4:00am on the Sunday before last, the barking began once again. I awoke to see Bogart barking at the window which was glowing with an alternating pattern of blue and white lights.

“Put your hands on the Dashboard, where I can see them” boomed a deep voice from the darkness. At this point, I had realized that for once, Bogart was actually alerting us to possible danger rather than the loud rumble of the garbage truck.

I stumbled out into the living room to try to see what was going on, half-asleep with the dog barking incessantly. Peering out the window, I could see a woman in the passenger seat of a white SUV with her hands on the dashboard seated next to another man doing the same in the driver’s seat. About 20 feet in front of the SUV, I could see a police officer standing next to his cruiser that was pointed head-on towards the suspects vehicle.

I close the blinds and pick up the dog from barking and wake up Miss Possible and told her to come into the living room to see the commotion. Just at that moment, the booming voice spoke again “Please step back inside the vehicle!” Which was immediately followed by a slamming door and the voice dispatching a message on his radio: “We have a suspect on foot, I repeat, a suspect on foot!” I ran back to the window, to see someone running from the back seat of the car towards the fenced in parking area directly adjacent to the stopped car.

At this point, you could make out the sound of sirens in the distance, and no more than 30 seconds later did I see a second cop car come tearing down the drive and fly into the parking area. I saw the cop car turn left into the parking area but I had seen the escaping suspect take a left. Just then another officer, this time on foot, went running into the parking area and went the same way as his fellow police officer. I wanted to help them out, but I was not about to yell out the window “Hey, he went the other way!” — so I kept quiet and stealthy peeked through our blinds.

Miss Possible is now looking out the window next to me as we watch the arrest go down. There were two cops, with their guns drawn and laser sites aimed at the two people remaining in the vehicle. Like something right out of the movies, we heard:

“Driver, Please slowly step out of the vehicle.”
“Driver, place your hands behind your head and turn around and face the other direction.”
“Driver, get down on the ground, slowly.”
“Passenger, please slowly step out of the vehicle.”
“Passeneger, place your hands behind your head and turn around and face the other direction.”
“Passenger, slowly walk backwards towards us.”
“That’s enough. Please slowly get down on the ground and don’t make any sudden movements.”

The police then proceeded to handcuff and arrest the two suspects, with at least one police officer’s gun pointed at each one them the entire time. The excitement was too much to take. We knew we shouldn’t be next to the window — but it was too compelling not to bear witness. So while watching this whole episode take place no more than 15 feet from our apartment, we were crouching below the window sill and peeking through the bottom slat in our living room blinds. To be honest, though, it was safer in the living room than in our bedroom where we were much more likely to be hit by a stray bullet being directly behind the suspects who had the guns pointed at them — practically “behind the line of fire.”

Once the two were in custody, Miss Possible and I went back to bed as the excitement was pretty much over. The police were now searching the white SUV and talking to the live-in superintendent. The next day, we couldn’t stop thinking or talking about the event with each other and our co-workers.. trying to speculate as to what these three people could have possibly been doing that warranted being arrested at gun point in our apartment complex.

A few days later, I had noticed a sign on the fitness center that read:

“Dear Tenants,
All of the complex facilities are closed until further notice including the fitness center, club house and cinema lounge while we resolve some accessibility issues.

Thanks,
The Management”

I had then noticed that the four large flat screen TV’s that hung in the fitness center were no longer there. The next morning, I ran into the building manager and asked her if the note(s) had anything to do with the arrest I had witnessed the other evening. She was surprised to hear that we had actually seen the event and I told recounted what Miss Possible and I had seen. She explained that three people had broken into the cinema lounge and club house and stole the flat screen and plasma TVs. They had left and come back and broke into the fitness center to steal the remaining 4 flat screens and it was at this point that the silent alarm went off. The superintendent went down to see what was going on and had scared the three people away. Just as they were leaving, the cops had arrived and stopped them in their tracks. It must have been at this point that we had been disturbed.

So, while this event did shake us up a little bit.. everything is back to normal. There really hasn’t been any formal information as to what happened for most of the tenants so I’m not sure who knows the extent to what actually happened. The apartment manager was told by the police that “…people like that look for nice places to rob. This is a nice apartment complex, so you just have to be careful. Nobody wants to rob a dumpy apartment.” We’ve been assured that they have taken new measures to step up security and are working with the police to catch the third suspect that escaped on foot.

All this happened the weekend after I arrived back in California from our holidays in Massachusetts. What a way to end a vacation!