* * * * * Hearing of its stealth and success - the SMPD Detectives jumped right on the Sky Sentinel - to “test it” on a junkie-burglary ring working out of Venice, which they’d gotten a tip on. So here I was at 9:A.M. on the 27th of September, 1972, setting up our stakeout on a tired apartment building at San Juan Court and 6 th , in Venice Beach, not too far from Santa Monica’s southern border. This was decades before Venice experienced its face-lift and renaissance – when its decayed infrastructure offered refuge to all manner of criminals. Fabulous Pacific Ocean Park (POP), next door to Venice, in ruins at this time. I flew a five-mile box, at 3,000 feet, around the apartment building, while ...