The Tampa Police Department is together with Hyundai and Kia handing out free wheel locks to prevent car theft.
Peter asked me to go to the police to get one. I went to the nearest police which was the HQ which is downtown. I wasn’t really looking forward to it as I had to find the police AND a parking spot fairly close. Downtown has a lot of one way streets which makes you forced to think five steps ahead.
Well – of course when I found the HQ and then a parking spot at a nice walking distance they didn’t have any locks. I was told to go to District 3 because they still had some.
As I hadn’t had any lunch yet I pop in at the nearest cafe to grab something before I headed north. I saw on the map that it was north of Ybor and I was debating if I should go or not. I’m not that busy and couldn’t come up with any good excuses to not go 🤪
One thing’s for sure – I saw a part of Tampa I’ve never seen before. The area closest to the police station was nice with well kept houses. Going from Franklin Str to Ybor was also normal. But between Ybor and the police station it was a different Tampa.
The houses were in bad shape and so was a lot of the people I saw as well. It’s the poorest area I’ve seen. I saw a man who probably lived in his car getting changed outside of his car, a lot of homeless people with their carts and I think I also saw a drug deal go down. The way they acted was just like you see in the movies.
A eventually got the wheel lock and now I hope the car is safe. With the people I saw it is a different case and I feel so sorry for them.