Today I am grateful for my safety. 

Last night around 3:30am we were woken by the sound of loud sirens and a car screeching down our street.  For those of you who have never been to our house we live right in front of a street that turns into a court- a dead end.  There are trails right over the fence and plenty of swamplands that surround us.  A good place to try and hide.  We quickly jumped out of bed since our bathroom was lighting up with blue and red.  These were not your typical sirens.  We ran to Ellie and Jeffs room which faces the street.  Ellie was screaming "Oh my God they are going to let him get away!"  A man in a grey sweatshirt and black ski mask had bolted past 3 cop cars up the street.  He was running so fast that his feet couldn't keep up because he completely ate shit in front of the house straight ahead of us.  Still, the cops did not catch him. 

We yelled "he went that way" to the officer that was asking if we saw where the other guy had gone.  Two of the cop cars raced up both ends of our street.  Our initial thought was that our neighbors were being robbed.  We hesistantly went outside to see what was going on.  There was a Uhaul van, that we now know was rented in Emeryville, that had plowed up on our neighbors lawn obviously realizing it was a dead end.  They had robbed a store, supposedly Hobby Town, and began their high speed chase that ended in front of our house.  One of the two hopped our neighbors fence and headed for the trails, the other bolted up our street and quickly disappeared. 

We were all pumping on pure adreneline wondering how the heck something like this was happening right in the middle of suburbia.  Now it was 4:00 in the morning and none of us could go back to sleep.  They were searching back yards and brought in the K-9's yelling "we have brought in the dogs so just stay where you are!"  As if they were still even around, by now they were LONG gone. 

From what I understand they have yet to find them and probably never will.  Makes you realize that no matter how safe you think your neighborhood is, that the freaks come out at night!