Have you been a victim of a crime?

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
21

Cutting back to the OP, I recently sat through voir dire on a difficult case with another 60-ish jurors. Each was asked about their brushes with the law as suspect or as victim.

It was eye-opening to me how most women had been attacked or threatened. No small amount of family abuse came to light as well. Which is still an attack, but different from stranger-attack. And how many men had been assaulted, mugged, or worse. Though far fewer men than women.

Pretty much by definition a juror pool, and especially a large one like mine, is composed of a fair cross-section of adult non-elderly residents of the county. Crime is a lot more prevalent than it appears. And other than family abuse is skewed a lot based on SES.

22

My parents hired a handyman to do some repairs around the house. Stuff started disappearing. We couldn’t prove that he was the thief, but stuff stopped disappearing after he was fired.

A guy displayed a handgun and demanded the contents of the cash register. I jumped back into the panic room. He ran off while I was calling the police.

A guy held something to my throat and demanded the contents of the cash register. I jumped back into the panic room. While I was calling the police, he broke open the cash register.

A co-worker walked into my office, demanded my wallet, bashed my skull in with a mallet, and took the money from the cash register. I woke up with a metal plate holding the pieces of my skull together.

23

I hope you filed an incident report with HR so that they could put a note in his file!

24

Born and raised in the Los Angeles area, but the victim of few crimes.

When I was in college and still living at home our house was robbed (we suspected the next door neighbors’ teenage son). I was pissed because my stereo (this was in the very early 70s) was stolen, and my Bix Beiderbecke LP was on it. It took me forever to find it back then.

Once when I was parked at a garden center someone tried to steal my car, but only succeeded in breaking the lock on the driver’s door. Pain in the butt, but not as big as losing the whole car.

Multiple instances of having to cancel credit cards due to unapproved transactions.

25

Child abuse by a parent.

Bike stolen from backyard, age 10. I loved that bike, and hated the replacement one I was given.

At 15 or so, the kind of “mild” sexual assault that is very hard to prove, at a crowded concert. I was too timid to do anything about it anyway at the time.

College, bike stolen along with roommate’s bike from a locked storage space. (No deadbolt, so easily opened.)

In the last 20 years, one sexual assault, stuff stolen from unlocked (lock didn’t work) car twice, burglary while out walking the dog – we knew who did it, but cops never did anything to pursue it, hit and run while driving, and jogging stroller taken from our front porch.

Oh yeah, and having to cancel a credit card for unauthorized charges twice in the past couple of years.

26

Oh yeah. Someone found an old Sears CC account of mine somewhere several years back , and used it to buy several hundred dollars worth of clothes. The local (St. Pete, I live in Jax) police however were already on the case and nailed them for trying it with another victim-I got their notification around the time I got the bill (Sears had already obligingly canceled the charge). They contacted me in case they needed a witness to help seal the deal, but they apparently pled down before the trial.

I actually wondered if the “cops” were part of some larger scam, but I got no further bogus charges or such, and was able to corroborate the police contact info with their precinct.

27

I was mugged once, violence was threatened (hand in jacket pocket and claiming to have a gun, but I didn’t believe him). There were two of them, and they got a cheap watch, a gold ring from a previous relationship, a pair of black nylon practice pants from my dance class (the only thing in my backpack they fancied), and a handful of change. I was not able to identify them from mug books, and despite having an inscription and being a fairly distinctive design, the ring never turned up.

The only other thing happened when I was keeping my folding money in my back pocket (like my father used to do) only I wore tight jeans instead of baggy dad trousers. So one time when I was kneeling down to tie my shoe on a street corner, some guy leaned over me to see if I was all right and then walked on. Later a $10 bill was missing, back when that meant something to me. It must have been sticking out a little.

On the whole, I’ve been very lucky on the crime front. Pardon me now while I touch wood.

28

I’ve had numerous things stolen out of my car owing to my having left it unlocked. And, also my fault, I left my wallet at a grocery store a few months ago. Someone found it, though, and started helping themselves to my debit card. And not a crime against me personally, but a bullet came thru my roof some years back. Pretty sure I wasn’t the target, I just happened to be living where the bullet came down.

29

About 12 years ago, I was parked in the parking deck for my office. I came out around 5:00 PM to find the driver’s side window broken and my Garmin GPS unit gone. Nothing else was taken. I called and reported it to the PD, giving them the model and serial number. They took the report over the phone without sending an officer out. No problem. Didn’t even try to claim it on my insurance…just bought a newer unit.

The following year, I got a call from a police detective in Washington, DC. He asked if I was the owner of such-and-such GPS. They had recovered it, which I thought was pretty amazing. However, the best part was this: The guy who stole it sold it to someone else. That person(s) drove to WV to buy drugs and bring them back to DC. They were caught and the GPS was taken into evidence. The history in the GPS was then used to find the drug sellers in WV. The detective basically just wanted me to know that my GPS was now evidence in a major drug trial. He promised me that they would return it to me after the trial (and any appeals) had finished.

I told him, “Nah, that’s OK. Sounds like cosmic justice to me.”

30

Off the top of my head, I have been stolen from, my property has been vandalized, and I have been assaulted.

31

In second grade, I put my ring on my desk. I looked away for a minute,
and the ring had disappeared.

In seventh grade, someone stole my wallet on the day I’d brought
a dollar to school to buy a cartridge pen.

When I worked alone at night in an office, a serial rapist broke in
and attacked me at gunpoint.

My parents’ elder care nurse stole numerous valuable things and vandalized my car.

32

I excluded stuff from my childhood from my list. If one would want to go that route, there’d be a whole bunch of assaults, thefts and vandalizations added.

33

Was surprised how many times when I gave it some thought last summer (June '21) when someone attempted to steal my 20 year old Chevy truck from my driveway while I slept.

Didn’t get it, but left it undriveable with hundreds of dollars damage. Cop said there were several attempts in my area in a short time span, all with no actual theft, but undriveable vehicles left behind. Amateurs.

Anyway, back when I lived at home (eons ago) had the battery stolen out of my 71 Javelin overnight. Hood could be opened right from the grill. Put a chain and padlock on it after that.

Had an 83 Caprice that was particularly unlucky. Radio stolen while at work, later license plates stolen while at work. Back window shot out by some energetic yutes who went on a spree. They were caught, but I was out a few hundred bucks.

While renovating the old homestead to sell after the folks died, had the copper lines cut off the brand new AC condenser unit. Lucky the unit was still there I guess.

And I’m not sure if I was the victim here, but years ago an attempt was made to use my credit card NUMBER to purchase gas a thousand miles away while the card itself was in my possession. I was never told how this was attempted, but Chase alerted me when the crook was denied and gave me a new number and card.

34

I’ve lived in the Los Angeles area for a couple of decades but curiously I’ve never had a problem (despite going to many questionable areas at all hours of day and night in pursuit of good photographs and the best chicken & waffles) until this year, when someone broke into my truck to steal a bag of SAR gear and smash the windshield for no goddamn reason. However, I have been otherwise the subject of an attempted mugging, attempted carjacking (twice), home robbery, a random assault at a gas station, and being shot (long story, was wearing body armor), as well as various random acts of vandalism and misdemeanor theft.

Stranger

35

The same happened to me in the early 1990s. I (stupidly) left my car unlocked. The criminal opened my door, stole my radar detector, closed the door, and then smashed my windshield for good measure.

36

Different times, different places:

Someone chopped down and stole a 10’ tall pine tree from our front lawn one Christmas Eve. What a scrooge.

Someone slashed the rag-top on my Fiat Spider to get into the glovebox. The doors were unlocked, he could have just opened the door. The only thing he got was a cut hand (I had a razor blade in the glove box. It was on the floor, bloodied when I found it).

Our back door sliding glass door was smashed and our bedrooms ransacked. They got away with jewelry, a camera and a coin collection (started by my grandfather). We suspected neighbor kids, but they were never caught.

My Kawasaki Z1 900 motorcycle was stolen from my garage. The cops caught the teen crooks. Their parents punished them greatly and made them pay the price to repair my bike (which they crashed, breaking one of the kid’s arms).

Our Philly apartment was broken into while my roommate and I were taking our dog for a walk (the dog we bought specifically to guard our apartment which was in a rough neighborhood). The crook was in the apartment when we returned through the backdoor. He was holding my portable TV. We ran after him, but he escaped through the front door after dropping (and breaking) my TV.

Almost a victim my first week in Miami: cops were in pursuit of a fugitive at my apartment complex. The perp tried to get into my apartment, but the door was locked. I looked out the window as he was trying to get into my neighbor’s apartment. He drew a gun on the cops and was killed when they returned fire.

Falsely accused of a crime: after a party at our house, my inebriated [now ex] wife called 911, telling them I murdered her friend Doug and buried him in the backyard. While I was on the other line explaining to the dispatcher that my wife was drunk and I did not in fact murder anyone, three squad cars, with sirens blaring at 3am, pulled up. My wife ran out the front door, our schnoodle dog Daisy followed her, and I followed Daisy, with the phone in my hand. Thinking the phone was a gun, the cops drew their guns and ordered me to drop to the ground (our sprinklers were on, the lawn was very wet). My wife got in trouble for calling in a false report. Doug was sound asleep under our upstairs billiard table. [old commercial] My wife…I think I’ll divorce her. [/old commercial].

37

Lessee, I’ve had two bicycles and recently a seventy dollar utility cart stolen.

Had a hundred dollars stolen by a fast talking asshole my dad let into the house.

I’m not counting groping or other sexually harassing behavior, far too many to count.

Been pushed or shoved a couple of times by angry strangers, which is a weird feeling.

That’s all I can think of. Not bad for a six decade life.

38

I had an old ragtop convertible, drove up to NY from Philly for a night out, parked the open convertible in the village and went off doing villagy things. When I went back, the car was gone. I don’t know what I did overnight, but I reported the theft to the police and took a train home. A few weeks (and a half dozen parking tickets later, the police to let me know the car had been found, abandoned somewhere and our of gas. Back on a train to NY, got some gas, drove home. A few weeks later the tickets arrived in the mail. I explained and they never pursued it. Kids out for a joy ride.

In Amsterdam, someone broke a window and stole a couple of suitcases. Aside from some random clothes, the thing I regretted losing most was a very unusual bracelet I had bought for my wife in Avignon. I have never found anything like it since. I did get some insurance money.

My wife had her wallet stolen in a Montreal Metro. She realized it as soon as we got off and called the credit card company immediately. The thieves bought two fur coats within 15 minutes (the sales people weren’t suspicious?), took maybe $100 from her wallet and dropped it into a trash can. Someone retrieved it and turned it into the police who called her to come get it. When she did, the cop asked if she had lost any money. When she told him, he said he would never allow his wife to carry $100. The bank waived all charges since she reported it so quickly. And I wonder whether the store that sold the coats so quickly ever got paid.

Once I was on a Paris Metro and someone lifted my wallet from my back pocket, but finding no money in it (that was in a clip in my front pocket) dropped it on the floor and then (or someone) pointed it out to me. They were not interested in the CCs.

39

When we were away for the weekend our house was burgled. This was back in the 70s and we had no alarm or camera. They took all of the electronics in the house and went through our drawers and found my FIL’s coin collection my wife had “hidden” in her underwear drawer.

Almost all the stuff we lost could be replaced, and we had insurance, but it shook our sense of security and we quickly sold the house and bought a nice townhouse in an upscale area. Never had a problem after that incident.

40

I’ve had an FN C1 7.62 rifle aimed at me by a whacked out enlisted guy while I was in my early days in the military.

I had my car broken into and stereo stolen in the mid '80s in my apartment building’s underground garage.

I had my car license plate stolen by (I suspect a visiting USN sailor) from the Halifax naval Dockyard parking lot in the mid '80s.

Those were all small potatoes, however. A super mega piss-off was when some fucking ass-fuck stole both wheels off of my bike.

In 2006-ish some moron scanned my debit card data and tried to buy a shit-load of motorcycle stuff. As it turned out the bank noticed that my typical debit purchase rarely exceeded $100, typically on food and drink and books and magazines etc. So, fortunately the bank saw a deviation from my normal spending patterns (I have never owned a motorcycle) and wasn’t held responsible for that.