this is why The Shield was such a great show:

I worked on the Shield for the last two seasons and I can tell you 100% some of the locations we shot in were so sketch we were told by the police we had to be out by 10pm because even they wouldn't stay past that time. During my time on the show, our camera truck was shot, we were robbed, equipment was stolen, knives and guns were pulled on crew, and our location manager had a pit bull set on him resulting in a trip to the ER and multiple stitches (remember, I was only therr for 2 seasons....there were so many other wild stories that happened before too, but I can only speak to the ones I was actually involved in). We were regularly told not to wear certain colors in some locations because of potential gang contact (don't wear the opposing gang's colors). I also spent a season on SOA, and there were lots of similar rules and incidents (like the time we accidentally had Hells Angels and Mongols on the same day...oops.) One Shield story: During the last season, we were shooting on a location that had a basketball court. We were scheduled to shoot two days at that location. On day 2 we had to delay shooting because at some point in the night, someone had come in and spray painted F*ck the Police in huge letters on the basketball court for the cops in the police helicopters to see as they flew overhead at night. Because of that, we had to get the paint cleaned up before we could keep shooting so it wouldn't ruin continuity.

On the flip side, some of the kindest people I met were from the roughest areas.