Ever been Mugged?

In My Humble Opinion
21

I was working as junior counselor at the age of 14 when I got mugged.

I was at a park watching a bunch of six-year-olds and listening to my Walkman. Two guys approached me and asked me what I was listening to. They asked if they could listen to the Walkman and I told them no. Five minutes later, both of them punched me in the face for a little while and then asked me to give up the Walkman.

They were about to run away, but they noticed that none of the senior counselors were doing anything to help me. As they tried to ask me for some money, a mother who was swinging her toddler started yelling at them and then they ran away.

The song that was playing as I got beat down was Sweet Child o’ Mine by Guns N Roses.

Police were called and they couldn’t do anything to help. It was really embarrassing because it happened in front of most of the camp and I was crying most of the time.

Since then I haven’t been able to take anything of value out in public for about seven years. It was only a few months ago that I worked up the nerve to take an MP3 player outside. I also didn’t carry money in my pockets until I got a job that paid in cash about three years later.

I was so embarrassed that I also became more stoic after the incident. I care about very little now and haven’t cried about anything since.

22

I was mugged once in downtown Houston. A bum came up to me with a broken bottle and told me he would stab me in the eye if I didn’t give him my purse (I was a solid 20 year old dude; obviously that was his bottle). He reached in my right back pocket and pulled my money clip out. He started pushing me HARD so I pulled out a switchblade and stabbed him in the hip. He ran off with about $85 and my father’s initialed money clip so I figure we’re even. I didn’t call the cops because I didn’t want to get into hot water over the switchblade I was illegally carrying. The Star of Hope mission was just around the corner and the blade, while very sharp, was small, so I’m sure he was fine.

23

Yup, and I live around the OP’s way, too (Not meaning to scare you, though). Mine was a couple of years ago, at knifepoint, in Bernal Heights, with my boyfriend as we were getting out of a car to go to his house. It was about 9 and it was about 4 cholos. They rushed the car, pulled my side door open and jabbed the knife in, demanding money or whatever. They took my bf’s cell phone and wallet, but my purse was on my lap underneath a box of junk so they didn’t see it (and it had tons of valuable stuff in there, too). We both grabbed the knife hand to keep it out of our faces, but didn’t try to fight them off or hurt them (bf was yelling “Ok, just take it! fuck!” etc.). They ran off when they got the stuff. They’d been robbing a few people that night and the police came very quickly and tore off after them (don’t know if they were ever caught, though).

I also got accosted by a drunk guy who wanted (presumably) sex once, walking from the bus stop, but I wrestled him away and ran home.

My brother got a Tec-9 pointed at him in front of our old house (in Ingleside). A guy (black if anyone wants statistics; my bro is black/japanese but looks more or less black) was trying to mug him as he carried garbage out to his car, around 1 in the morning I think, but he literally had nothing but garbage and an empty laptop bag. The car was open and the guy might have tried to steal it, or come inside where our parents were sleeping upstairs (he started asking my bro what he had up there) but my bf and I happened to pull up at that moment (dropping me off) and he fled. I think he’d also been robbing others and the police went after him quickly too.
My bro said he stayed ludicrously calm and told the guy he could try to take something but there was nothing to take (something like that). When the guy fled, he gave bro an incredulous look and said “you could have been killed tonight”.

bro was also mugged on muni for his cd player (actually mine that he was borrowing) some years ago, but wouldn’t give it up. He realized afterward that that was the wrong thing to do, but it did work.

My mom has been robbed twice now in her store on Polk. :frowning: one at knifepoint, one where she got beaten up a bit. The knife muggers told her they were going to kill her. :frowning: After the first time she started having periodic panic attacks. I really want her to change locations - not that location will necessarily do anything, but the store setup makes it hard to see what’s going on inside.
The knife muggers were 3 transvestites. I believe they were caught and prosecuted.

After the first time (the sex guy) I lost some of my sense of freedom in the world. I’m no longer comfortable going out places at night by myself, or loitering around night streets, and I prefer driving to the bus. All three locations were one block away from bad neighborhood, one block away from great neighborhood, and we were going about our own business in our home turfs, alert, so that didn’t count for much. It’s still good to stay alert, though.

24

Almost. Some years back I was using an ATM late at night in an area with lowlife issues. As the money came out of the machine, I heard running footsteps coming up behind me. I turned around and aimed the Makarov that I already had in hand (concealed by the sleeve of my jacket) at the rather disreputable looking young man rushing towards me. He came to a sudden stop. Neither of us said anything. He ran off in one direction, I snatched my cash and ran in another.

That Makarov has saved me from problems twice now, without a shot fired. I love that gun.

25

I never have. I don’t go to places where I might be mugged that often. And I’m a pretty big man. And some people have told me I look mean. (Although I don’t think I do.)

26

My GF and I are in Prague back in 93, shopping in Wenceslaus Square. Ann finds something she likes and is in the process of counting out bills to pay the vendor. At that moment a well dressed guy, about my age, casually inserts himself between us, gesturing that he would like to look at the merchandise. Since he seems polite, I back away and give him some space. After a few moments a second guy steps in, further increasing the distance between Ann and myself. The first fellow turns to get my attention, and starts pointing at some of the items on the rack in front of us. I shrug and gesture that I can’t understand him. At that moment, I notice that the other guy has his coat draped over his forearm, which is in the process of moving stealthily toward Ann’s handbag. “Ann!” I shout, “your bag!” She instantly clutches at the bag and holds it close to herself. I shove my way through the two guys and stand between them and Ann. “Get back” I snarl, doing my best to look tough. Mind you, I’m the size and heft of a linebacker, haven’t shaved in 4 months, and am wearing a heavy sweater, trenchcoat, and combat boots. So I probably did project some level of menace (for once in my teddy bearish existence). The two guys shrug in an over-the-top display of innocence. When this fails to quash my aggressive posturing, their body language shifts into something I can only describe this way: “okay, you caught us fair and square…but just watch how cool and casual we’re going to look as we back off.” They step back, projecting an image of two fashionable dandies who couldn’t believe how close they had come to having their clothes befouled by brushing up against a couple of filthy Americans. Then one of them attempts to grab the money pouch belonging to the stall’s owner, who had been watching the whole exchange. The vendor shrieks out what I can only imagine is a streak of pure invective and the would-be bandits, twice unsuccessful, beat a hasty retreat.

27

From now on, if I’m asked for the time by a seedy character, I’m going to say, “No, I just got robbed and they stole my cell phone, watch and wallet, sorry”.

28

Constantly.

About this time of year.

By Revenue Canada.

Apart from that, no. And I’ve never known anyone who has.

29

Yes, while studying abroad in Spain back in the days when people actually used traveler’s checks. It was Easter week and I was planning to travel from Valencia to Santiago de Compostela, which is more or less as far away as you can get and still be in the same country. I cashed my last $300 in travelers’ checks, bought a railway ticket for the equivalent of $75 or so, and walked back to my host mother’s place, the long way. I’m wandering down a not-very-busy street in a perfectly safe neighborhood in broad daylight when this guy grabs me, shoves me into a doorway, and says “Dame la pasta” (“Give me your money.”)

I was so startled that I actually said no (perhaps not the smartest move, but luckily the guy wasn’t armed). A brief struggle ensued, during which the strap on my purse broke and the guy grabbed it. I ran after him, a couple of other people got in on the chase, and somebody ended up taking me to the police station, where I filed a report. They found the purse in a trash can with everything in it except the money, so I guess things worked out as well as could be expected (actually, a hell of a lot better than I had any right to expect, given that my passport was in the purse). The railway even let me return the train ticket for cash, so I wasn’t completely broke, but it was definitely a cheap Easter vacation, and I didn’t get to travel any farther than the city beach.

I did make it to Santiago eventually, but not until my next trip to Spain four years later. I’ve never carried that much cash again.

30

Never mugged, but I once walked into a Blockbuster in the middle of an armed robbery. I posted about it right after because I didn’t want to tell my parents, because it would freak them out, but I had to tell somebody and nobody else picked up their phone! It’s probably long gone, now - maybe in 2002? When it was happening it wasn’t scary at all - felt just like a movie, you know? But that night I heard noises in the living room and crept downstairs and almost stabbed my dog with my dressmakers’ shears. As far as I know they never caught the guys. A guy I worked with at the time who used to manage a Blockbusters says they probably got two grand or so. They did get the safe.

What was so interesting was how it showed so clearly the unreliability of eyewitnesses. One of the clerks was sure it was a ski mask, and I was sure it was a baseball hat, or vice versa, I don’t remember.

ETA - heh, I found the thread - It’s weird, I feel so much older than the girl who wrote that!

31

Back when I was a long-hauler I would occasionally pick up a "trailer’ who would attempt to follow me out the door of the truck stop. Or, I would see someone out there among the rigs “angling in” on me as I walked to my truck. Always at night. I always managed to give them the slip, by doubling back or whatever. I wore a heavy leather bomber jacket with a .38 Colt Cobra in the front pocket. In the summer I carried a .25 Raven.

32

Mugged twice, I have a small knife scar from one of them; also an attempted pickpocketing that turned into a fight when I caught the kid trying it; and an assault by a girlfriend’s ex-boyfriend that ended up with me needing 70 stitches.

All in Washington, DC.

33

About 1989 I was stopped putting gas in my truck during daylight hours (maybe 4pm). I had just gotten off work and cashed my paycheck (back in the days before direct deposit). I had maybe $400 in my wallet. This kid, maybe 16, walks up and says, “Nice truck, can I have a ride?” I said no and went about trying to ignore him. He walks close and puts a knife in my side and asks again for a ride. I agree this time. He directs me to a bad neighborhood and I begin to think that this is the new way to thumb a ride.

He tells me to stop in front of a house and honk the horn. Another kid, maybe 18 comes out. He gets in the truck and I am told where to drive. As I am driving I begin to reach into my wallet and try to slide all the contents behind the seat. The kid tells me to stop at the end of a dead end road. I am preparing myself to fight a kid with a knife and maybe one with a gun. Who knows what the second kid brought to the fight. Kid two says give me your wallet. I do, as they get out I put the truck in reverse and hauled ass out of there.

I carry a gun now. Never any problems since.

SSG Schwartz

34

The closest I ever had was in the Times Square subway station, of all places. I was entering the station and this guy looks at me and goes “Hey! Dude! Man, yo, what’s up?!”

I immediately recognize this as some sort of panhandler schtick and promptly avert my eyes to ignore him. For 99% of all subway nuisances, this is sufficient, and they immediately move onto their next mark. But not this guy.

He came right up to me and got in my face, trying to put his hand on my shoulder and get all up in my business. “Hey dude!” I was so shocked and perplexed by this curious chain of events that all I could come up with was “What the fuck? Who are you?”

His ingenious reply was direct and succinct: “I’m…uhh, your friend! From Manhattan!”

At that point I shoved the dude off of me and went on my way through the turnstile. The whole encounter lasted less than ten seconds. I don’t know if that guy was just new to the whole grifting thing and hadn’t quite figured out the etiquette yet, or if he was really going to try to start some shit in a brightly lit subway station entrance which is always crawling with about eleventy billion cops, and sometimes National Guardsmen with M-fucking-16’s.

Weird.

35

No (knock wood), despite living in an area where muggings at gunpoint are reasonably common. There are usually a few muggings a week in the neighborhoods around where i live, and last summer there were three in a space of two months within 100 yards of our front door.

We live on a quiet little street, only a block long. It’s a lovely street, but one of its benefits is also a drawback. There are quite a few large trees on the street, and during the summer the foliage tends to block the light from the streetlights, leaving the street and the sidewalk in the dark. It’s very easy to hide in the shadows, and that’s what the muggers do.

Two of the muggings occurred almost right outside our door, and in each case it involved a person arriving home, parking their car on the street, and having a gun shoved in their face as they walked from the car to their front door. In one case, the victim started screaming as the guy ran off with her purse, and i heard it from where i was sitting in front of the computer. I sprinted outside, as did a bunch of other neighbors, but the guy was gone into the back alleys.

The other incident occurred right around the corner, and actually involved another student in my grad program. She was shaken, but unhurt.

Based on these incidents, and on the crime reports issued by our university security office, it seems that if you get mugged around here it’s very unlikely that you will get hurt, as long as you hand over your wallet or purse without trying anything stupid. And there’s no way i would try anything stupid with a gun in my face.

During my first year in Baltimore, i saw a different type of mugging. I heard a noise outside (it was summer and the windows were open), and when i opened the curtain i saw a guy on the ground being punched and kicked by a group of five teenagers. I ran out of my apartment and out the front door of the building, but the kids were gone by the time i got there. The victim was not badly hurt—a few bruises and a bloody nose—but was very shaken.

He said they had asked him for money, and when he declined had followed him down the street and jumped him. They picked a pretty easy target; the guy was about 5’8" and can’t have weighed more than about 150 pounds.

36

Never.

37

Almost once. I was in Chicago on my way to the dearly departed Annoyance Theatre with a group of friends and as we were ambling down the street a homeless guy stepped out of an alley and pulled a knife. My buddy Pete did this nifty leg sweep/head push thing that gonged the guy’s head off of the building and knocked him cold. He ended up taking the guys shoes as retribution (we were only 20 or so) and throwing them in a dumpster a few blocks down.

38

Years ago. At knife-point, by two guys at 3 in the morning. They took some money and a bag of records off me. I couldn’t care less about the money but I’m still pissed that they took the records, since I’m convinced they dumped them somewhere.

39

Once, after drinking with a few fellow Dopers, I decided to call it a night at about 3am. I left their hotel (at ~5th & Market) and proceeded to walk up Market toward my car (16th/Church). I came across a 7-11 and, still drunk used the ATM on the sidewalk to get cab fare. I still marvel at the fact that I didn’t get mugged that night.

I was “mugged” once, but I think I was 11 and my friend was 9, and the 13-year-old mugger got about seventy-two cents.

I’m pretty hyper-sensitive of my surroundings, though I wouldn’t say I’m worried about getting mugged. I’m fairly large and tend to look grumpy naturally, and if I’m walking alone at night, I look very pissed off (as I listen to Avril Lavigne on my iPod).

Also, if I happen to be walking behind someone down the same street, I always make sure to shuffle my feet or jingle my keys or whatever so they can tell I’m not coming up on them or anything.

40

Don’t mess with that guy - he crazy!
:smiley:

I scare women like this a lot.

No, I don’t want to mug you - I am just parked in the same row as you.

Regards,
Shodan