The only time in recent memory it wasn't cops, yeah. You get way better deals on illicit shit in red cities/towns,
and shit happens there. I'm kind of a bargains-slut and I have an adventurous heart. Also the food is mostly garbage, and there's a chance you get shot trying to buy it, though that time in Lancaster is the only time I've been shot at somewhere food was being sold. For an idea how red that part of town was: it was a farmers market roughly bounded on two sides by a mural of a b2 flying over generic idyllic farmland and a portrait mural of chuck Jaeger in front of a jet of some kind. On two other sides by a sheriff station and some other cop thing.

Cops just do that. Kinda what they're for.

Edit: I think either ice or USMC fired off some shots last year, but I couldn't tell where and it might've just been in the air-which is still dangerous as hell but wasn't 'at me' I don't think. Might have been around the corner.