I was disturbed by helicopters flying overhead. I thought nothing of it because every so often military helicopters cross over on their way to Homestead, but today it was different.

The sound wasn’t going away, and when I looked out my kitchen window I saw it wasn’t a military helicopter and it was circling above my home. A few seconds later I hear a voice. A loud booming voice saying, in a very commanding tone, “Come out with your hands up!”

My initial reaction was to figure out what the hell was going on. Since I have no criminal record that I know of, I figured they weren’t talking to me. Plus, I didn’t have a shirt on, so I wasn’t about to go running outside with anything up.

Following the sound of the helicopter, I ran to the back of my house (luckily my patio is still missing from hurricane Wilma, otherwise I may have missed the scene).

Directly across the canal in the mobile home park, I see massive amounts of police squad cars, drug dogs, cops with weapons pulled and again, the voice from the helicopter demanding that someone come out with their hands up.

I admit it, I started panicking and upon seeing weapons, immediately dropped to the ground because my house would fall directly in the line of fire despite being separated by a not nearly wide enough canal.

WTF? When the city wanted to demolish the mobile home park to build more single family homes, I voted to let them stay. I knew they’d never be able to afford those homes.

And this is how they repay me? By doing God only knows what because they wanted to get on this week’s episode of Cops or something?

This type of thing doesn’t happen here, or at least, it shouldn’t happen here. It may not be the Hamptons, but it isn’t the ghetto.

I am finally starting to understand what my neighbors are talking about when they say the neighborhood is declining, and fast.

My new year’s resolution: move. I can still hear the helicopters and wish I could crawl into a cubby and hide. I no longer feel safe in my home.

Update: I honestly don’t know what or why, but I know who. A teenager (or at least, he looked like a teenager) was apprehended, cuffed and put in one of the squad cars. The police are gone, but I can still hear the helicopter hovering overhead (not directly over my home anymore, thank God).