caretaker

There was a gang shoot-out in the Walmart parking lot in St Petersburg, (the greeter got a bullet-hole in his car), and my sister wouldn't go there for months.

mrken30

In Florida? I thought that was a nicer part of the Tampa area.

caretaker

Clearwater and Largo are nicer, but she couldn't afford the prices. If you walk a couple of blocks out of the trailer park it's sort of a crack oriented neighbourhood. There are a lot of bail-bond agencies with cube vans... I live in North Central Regina and I wasn't comfortable walking around. Fishermen I talked to said they take a Glock in the tacklebox if they're going night fishing.

Pulaski

"Nicer" is relative - Tampa is in Florida!

mrken30

Something we both agree on

anotherlimey

West side amateurs. East Florida would have done it in a Target parking lot.

zzrmark

Keeping the Tampa theme going (Buying gas on MLKjr in St Pete after dark ranks right up there as an 'experience', one not to be be repeated!!) more Florida WTFery, stupid... but funny, that junction is a lot busier than the impression given by the footage.

scrubbedexpat097

Continuing the my Walmart is weirder than your Walmart theme, the Walmart not far from where my daughter lives in Houston had two guys ride in through the doors on their horses last week. Apparently they filmed it and posted it on FB so now the cops know who they are but if Walmart don't make an official complaint then they won't be charged.

I win

caretaker

I was right across MLK Boulevard from Lake Maggiore, (full of alligators). Skyway Jack's is worth going to for breakfast if you aren't too picky about real clean dishes.... I recommend the hash. The bad neighbourhood thing is almost certainly founded partly on lack of understanding. When I was walking down the street and the gang of yoofs was shouting Yo, yo you, you yo something something and I didn't understand what they were saying, it was disconcerting, but I can't help feeling that they were objecting to my presence. Late at night there was a tv show with mug shots of everyone who had been released from the local prison that day, with their crime, sentence, and home address. It went for a long time, like an hour, and there were a lot of drug and assault, robbery, breach of conditions, mostly low level crimes, and they were all close.

RICH

I hadn't heard of, or remembered this shootout, but you were in the 'hood. A very small and notoriously dangerous part of the wonderful Tampa Bay area!

zzrmark

I don't suppose it helped at the time that the two folks dressed for the opera had just pulled up to the 'service at pump only' station in a fairly new HD F150. There were four or five beggars on the forecourt pestering for funds. This was followed by an 'Englishman's shortcut' driving around the cobbled roads just behind MLK in what would best be described as a 'lively' neighbourhood... some time after 11pm!!

caretaker

Gang violence is a problem where I live, with an increasing amount of gun crime and more handguns on the street than previously, and there are robberies, but it's where I live, and I'm used to it. I feel relatively safe here. It isn't the first neighbourhood I've lived in where I could hear the shooting at night either, but when you're away from home it's always different. It isn't my hood. There are differences of course, Sweetbay Grocery has a lady with a .357 keeping robbers away, and we don't see that at home.

Pulaski

I can only hope that this was some sort of computer error and that the Tennessee State Highways Dept didn't know the girl had died. Whatever the explanation though, it's pretty shocking.

mrken30

I wonder how many of those terminals are installed around the country. How would we know?

zzrmark

There's f**ked up and then there's Florida (again)...

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