What's the deal with Uptown?

[Lookout Kid]

In our eight years in Uptown we generally felt safe, but in the end we did have a few incidents that were "too close for comfort"--including a daylight shooting at the end of our block just as our condo was under contract for sale. But I also realize that my comfort levels went down once I was pushing a stroller around the neighborhood. A homeless person harassing me alone would just be annoying, but a homeless person messing with a child angers me to the point of wanting to bash his face in. A homeless person peeing in the park becomes a homeless person exposing himself to your kids at the playground. And it's really unnerving to have a shooting happen at an intersection you were just in an hour earlier with your children. The shootings just north of the huge Buena Park Trick-or-Treating event a few years ago really freaked out a lot of area parents.