The problem is that many of the properties are likely in legal limbo through foreclosure, bank ownership, and auctions. Once a new true owner finally takes over it might have been years since the last real owner. That's when squaters rights start to come into play.
In most cities, this sort of thing (major police operation, shots exchanged between police and armed member of public, street closures, etc.) would have been big news; that night, none of the local news broadcasts even mentioned it (one traffic report that afternoon did mention the closure of Jefferson, but didn't go into details). No headlines in the paper the next day, either.[2] My point here is that this sort of thing was apparently commonplace enough that it wasn't considered to be a newsworthy event, and none of my Detroit relatives seemed particularly surprised or concerned.
1. Notably, the particular chunk of neighborhood in question was at least half-abandoned (judging from the amount of ivy covering every second house).
2. Technically, by "the paper the next day," I mean the Detroit Free Press's website. At that point in time the DFP wasn't printing week-day paper editions.
To each his own, but I will never live in the middle of the country and will always either need to be near the beach or mountains (I did the mountains the last couple years and am again near the beach).