Old Dude was right. How you take over a full building?

"We gon' bum rush the whole damn thing. Now if the tenants cooperate, oh, it'll be lovely; they'll be loyal customers. If they don't, fuck it, it's like Beirut- they'll become live-in hostages."

Yeah i thought they were talking about an abandoned building or something.

How did the police not do anything? I'm assuming most of them had rights to their apartments. I guess you could say they were too scared to complain but it still felt absurd to me.