What a sickie!
Years ago my house was broken into, twice, probably by the same person
The other time I was home when someone broke in. The less said about what happened the better.
Yeah. But at least they left him a banjo in its place.
Not too many and not too bad.
- While living in Little Rock, my truck was broken into on three separate occasions, each time while parked in my own driveway.
- In 1992, I was assaulted by three people in Texas while walking home at night for reasons which still elude me. They didn’t ask for money so robbery didn’t seem to be a motive. Was it mistaken identity? I think they might have been drunk as I ended up winning the encounter. I was in excellent physical shape at the time and they got tuckered out before I did. I just ended up walking away. I called the police but they never located my attackers.
- In Texas, again with Texas, two people were trying to force their way into my home via the sliding glass door in the kitchen, but they made a hasty retreat when I pointed a revolver at them.
- In Little Rock and Pine Bluff, known as Crime Bluff, Arkansas, I had little things stolen like a battery charger, lawn mower, and some tools. This worked in my favor once, I parked a broken lawnmower outside knowing it would be taken off my hands and it was gone the next morning.
- I always forget this one. My 1983 El Camino was stolen while I was in high school. The thief broke the steering column, but the police found it later that night in otherwise good condition.
- Oh, and another. Someone broke into my garage, my mother, hearing weird noises, went to investigate, and I was awoken around midnight to her screams. Not a good night. Dude ended up running away and I sure as hell wasn’t going to give chase.
Texas. Just…Texas.
Stranger
I bought a new bike once and I got rid of the old one by leaving it outside and unlocked overnight. A few months later I saw it again in the same neighbourhood (the Tony the Tiger bike reflector was a dead giveaway), locked up this time, so someone must have been getting use out of it.
This is kind of what happened to our family, only in the 90s. They broke in while we were all at the high school musical where I was in the band. They took all my dad’s baseball cards, my mom’s diamond ring, an old coin collection, and my brand new Airwalk shoes that I had bought with my own money.
My dad kept meticulous records of his baseball cards (from his childhood, so 50s-60s) and the insurance company made him BASICALLY whole but he pretty much hasn’t touched his cards since, as he says they “aren’t MY cards.” Can’t blame him. I was crushed about losing my shoes. My best friend and I spent a week eating lunch in the hallway at school, looking for my shoes. Never found them.
They ransacked our house, which was the worst part. I felt so terrible seeing all our stuff dumped out of drawers like that.
We didn’t move like your family did - my folks still live in the same house, and I bought a house in the neighborhood. But it shook our sense of security too. I couldn’t stay home alone for years after, until I got a dog.
-
Stupidly left my car unlocked and someone pinched my portable GPS unit from the glove box. It was old, cheap, and lacking the proprietary charge cord. So maybe he got $10 for it if he was lucky.
-
Break in while we were on holidays. Dude stole only money-including a jar of pennies and my son’s piggy bank. police told us the same person with the same MO had hit a few houses over the past weeks. He probably netted $50 in change altogether, and did not find the $800 in cash that my wife had collected for our pre-school. It was in a brown envelope in the hallway, sitting on some other mail.
I figure whoever did these was looking for money for drugs, and chances are quite high that they are not alive anymore. The life of a drug user is usually short and not very pleasant. So I actually feel sorry for them - they did not impact our lives very much at all.
The bagpipes scared 'em off.
Skipping school encounters which might have reached the criminal level, I remember the following:
-
Drunk redneck in a pickup shoved my smaller car down the road, and eventually off the side.
-
Four “youths” decided I was in violation of some unknown territorial gang bullshit (I was delivering in their neighborhood), made a bunch of threats and slammed me against the wall of a bathroom – apparently I was using “their” urinal or something.
-
Drunk driver hit us at Christmas, causing considerable disruption in our holiday and our car was towed but repairable. We were his 4th victim(s).
-
Mugged outside a restaurant, took a good hit to the head, and was treated for minor concussion
-
And… the big one. A paroled violent psychopath followed me home for some unknown reason, and I spent a few hours (thankfully alone) getting a taste of how dangerous the world really is. His original sentence was for a previous home invasion.
-
An attempted break in at our house. A rear door was pried and damaged, with much of the frame torn away, the steel door torqued and bent inwards, and the lock/strikeplates nearly wrenched from the structure. But the door held, and the criminal(s) didn’t get in.
35 years in Fresno…where to begin…
1990 Car break in
1992 Apartment burglary. Various computers and electronics. Never solved.
1993 Attempted mugging in apartment parking lot. Kid with a ski mask and a baseball bat He might have been 14. It ended very badly for him. I never called 911 because i half assumed the beating I gave him would probably land me in a cell next to him
1994 A departing g/f stole a bunch of items of mine. Ended up getting them back several years later.
1996 Was in a robbery at a restaurant I worked at.
2000 Home burglary handful of small valuables taken.
2002 Home burglary Nothing taken we could find, just broken door and various items displaced.
2005 Car stolen by friend of stepdaughter and wrecked.
2009 Car break-in
2010 Computer Shop break-in about a dozen customer laptops and a variety of other tools/equipment.
2012 Computer shop break-in only a few things stolen.
2014 Car break-in
2015 Laptop stolen from my computer shop by a woman I was dating. Arrested, recovered, convicted.
2020 Assaulted in the process of evicting squatters from friends home I eventually moved into.
2020 Discovered a break in in progress at same home, police called, suspects caught and convicted.
2020 Homeless person found camping in my detached garage.
2021 Attempted forced entry to my house by individual armed with machete. Ran when confronted by me with gun.
2021 Another forced entry attempt to my house by person with a gun. Little more dramatic, but backed down because I was already drawn down on him.
There are probably a few more car break ins and or petty thefts I don’t recall specifics of.
Preferably by making a beeline for the nearest on ramp to State Route 99 and heading whichever direction is most expedient until you either get past Bakersfield or Modesto. If you run out of gas just abandon the vehicle and hitch.
Stranger
I had a sweet dog named Zoe who was always getting into mischief. Sadly, she had a lot of tumors and passed away at an early age.
We had her cremated and I kept some of her ashes in a jewelry box.
But I guess the guy who broke into my apartment must have thought there was jewelry in the jewelry box. We like to imagine the look on his face when he broke it open and found ashes. We call it “Zoe’s last prank.”
Fresno is a punchline in this house, owing to its frequent depiction on crime shows.
Someplace has to give Florida Man a run for his money. Why not Fresno?
I definitely have now crossed off Fresno as a retirement possibility.
When I was in private practice, an unhappy former client threatened my life and that of the senior partner, to our faces. (He may have been at least a little drunk). He ran away; the police immediately caught him and gave him a stern talking-to. We didn’t press charges and never heard from him again.
Looking back, it really wasn’t all that big a deal, but I was very upset and scared for a few days afterwards.
I was held up three times at the West Texas convenience store I worked in right after high school.
In my first apartment in Hawaii, I was burgled while I was in the shower. The burglar removed a jalousie from the front window and reached in to unlock the front door. He fled when he heard me turn off the shower, and I heard the front door closing. I had just moved here from Albuquerque, where locks frequently were of the kind where you needed a key to unlock even from the inside. When I asked the property manager about installing one, that’s when I found out those are illegal in Hawaii, because you could become trapped in case of fire.
So four times.
I’m on a small island in Puget sound now. So…i couldn’t go much further north without applying for Canadian citizenship.
Fresno jokes are like Chuck Norris jokes for crime, minus the exaggeration.
I didn’t even count the dozens of scuffles with combative patients in my EMT days. A couple years of working security at a small amusement park yielded more than a few interesting incidents as well.
I wonder what it is about the smallish “big city” of a large rural catchment area that makes it so … low-life colorful.
At 500K+ population, Fresno is one of the bigger such places in the US, but many other states have their major urban center(s) then one or more other good-sized (~100K+) town-cities somewhere out in the hinterlands. Which places seem uniquely able to breed plenty of scum and villainy. Or do they attract it magnetically?