Yes, there are different shades of darkness in skin. How un-racist of you to point out how offended you were to be asked that question though! Keep fighting the good fight!
When my bag got snatched they used my phone to download ringtones. Weird.
Yeah, “how black was he?” seems like a pretty obvious question to be asked if you’re giving a description of a criminal. I don’t see the comedy or the outrage in such a question.
Jeez, I’m sorry that happened to you, dalej42. I too wonder what thieves do with stolen iPhones. Maybe they’re just hoping that their victim won’t report the theft or shut the phone off? Or maybe there is some value in the parts, or maybe they are just idiots. Glad you weren’t hurt. And FTR, I don’t think that “being more aware of your surroundings” would have done a damn bit of good, unless you have the psychic capability to sense an approaching car that has a phone thief in it. I mean, seriously?
Very interesting - how do you know this? I’m not the most technically minded, but if you could know this, could you also know the thief’s location? I seem to recall that there might be a feature on the iPhone that would allow you to locate it (if lost).
Anyone know if you can activate that feature and have the police find the phone/arrest the person? Does this happen often?
I’m trying to wrap my head around what happened here. Do I have this right:
You are in a cab and a group of ruffians open the door, you mace them and run out of the cab, and they attack the driver? Also, what was with the gasoline can? The frightening thought that they were going to douse you/cab in gas crossed my mind.
Do I have it right or am I misreading you?
I think the deal with the phones is the ESN (electronic serial number) which can’t easily be changed. I heard that it is possible to reactivate the phone on a different carrier, or just use it without the phone like you would an iPad Touch (this info has a high probabilty of being incorrect).
Glad you’re okay.
What my friend said to me when my phone was stolen: “I will leave my iPhone on the bar counter and turn away and B. will always remind me that it is really just a small computer, more than it’s a phone.” I have heard that the city where my phone was stolen has now been more proactive working with hotels around warning tourists about this problem. It’s a drag because the city needs to boost their local economy and crime like this makes people not want to go there.
The phone that was stolen from me was the iPhone 2. At that time, the tracking feature was not free, and only worked if you’d activated it–which I had not. The location, when identified, is somewhat general and police have tracked down stolen phones there when they are traced to a park or school. The problem is, if the phone is brought to a densely populated area like an apartment building or a municipal parking lot. Needle in the haystack.
I dunno. I had never heard that question asked as a descriptor (usually just skin color–but not degrees of such), and wasn’t sure how to answer? I found it odd, because to me, unless you have a mutually agreed upon reference point “Michael Jackson vs Samuel Jackson?” it is subjective about defining “how black was he?” Even then, it seemed odd to me. Maybe you would not have felt that way, but it was just something I was aware of at that moment. Shrug
As for your second statement, sadly, this is a problem is lot of cities now. Should people have to leave their smartphones and tablets at home? No. Are they risking theft whenever they have their device in public eyesight? Yes. The kid who stole my phone was following me for a couple blocks (he ran up behind me, jumped up, grabbed my phone out of my hands and kept running; it was all caught on the city cameras). Knowing now what I do, I would rethink bringing my phone out like I did. Texting, taking pictures, listening to music, etc. are all things that thieves look for when getting ready to pounce, because people are distracted. It sucks, and the amount of hassle I had to go through after my phone was taken is something I wouldn’t wish upon anyone. Like I said in my first statement–it’s a hard lesson. And it sucks. I hope it never happens to you. 
Fair enough. I guess I have a little bit of a knee-jerk reaction to people who respond to threads like this with, “Well, it was your own fault for .” Especially when prefaced by, “that wasn’t really a mugging.” Would it kill people to express a little sympathy before launching into “your terminology is incorrect and also it’s your own fault you got robbed”?
And back atcha, re. “fair enough.” I felt the same way when the police implied that I should have known better; not only did I grow up in a town where people didn’t lock their front doors, but I don’t tend to go into situations assuming that people can’t be trusted. I hate having to think this way. Hate it. 
This stuff touches a nerve for me, for a lot of reasons. I spent years working with kids exactly like the one who stole my phone, and as I said a million times since–the kid isn’t the problem. The problem is the problem. IMO, the city where my phone was stolen (New Orleans) is like the city where I worked (Springfield, MA) and where dale’s phone was stolen (Chicago) in that many young black males are caught in this awful feedback loop where they feel crime is their only option and ultimately, incarceration is usually the reality…which then reinforces the lack of options, stereotypes, etc.
I hate telling people where my phone was stolen (even here, I avoided it) because I feel like the last thing that NOLA needs is less tourism and more shared knowledge of stereotyped crime while the first thing they need is more of an economy to provide more healthy and safe options for these kids. It did bother me that I had to even say out loud that my thief was a young black male–not in an overly dramatic way, but in the same way that I hate when my white female friends cross to the other side of the street when a young black male walks towards them on the sidewalk. And when the police grabbed a kid for questioning, and I had to inspect his iPhone, I was mortified. I felt like I was racial profiling, even though this poor kid was supposedly there with his uncle to do post-Katrina construction. Again, this is my issue and I own it and I know I digressed. Probably for similar reasons, I pounced on semantics of the crime descriptor. I would never want to minimize this stuff on anyone but at the same time, I really just hate the bigger issue. Ok, off my soapbox. 
dale4j2:
I live in Chicago and was just talking to some friends a couple of nights ago and they told a story of getting their iPhone stolen. The CPD has an officer on the force who’s basically made it his mission to retrieve stolen iPhones, and he was able to get theirs back to them within a very short time. He told them that he has something like an 80% success rate in finding phones.
So hopefully they’ll find yours.
Glad **you’re **OK, dalej42. In the end, it’s just stuff. You, however, are probably irreplaceable. 
Wow! :eek: That’s great! Did he say what the attraction to stealing them is? I am not a total techie, but it always seemed strange to me that someone would want to steal something that needed to then be activated again, drawing attention to it as a stolen object.
Did it also bother you that he mentioned the color of the car?
So how black was he? Café au lait? Hershey bar? Ace of spades?
Yes. Because everyone knows only white people like the Duke boys drive red cars. :rolleyes:
I asked him why he mentioned it and commented on its relevancy to the story without saying why. I didn’t attack him, and I didn’t judge him. I am always interested in this stuff and I just find it cool to talk about. I am of Southern Italian descent and my best friend is of Irish descent. Our skin tone is radically different yet I don’t know that if one of us committed a crime and was described as “white,” a police officer in New Orleans would ask “how white is she?” Maybe they would–I don’t know. But it is interesting to me to think about.
Although I later explained why I am “bothered” I also fully owned that it’s my issue and provided a thorough explanation as to why.
Are you sure it wasn’t a white person with shoe polish on their face? It’s racist to assume this person was black without first looking at other possibilities.
Like how do you answer that (especially when I never saw the face of the kid who stole my phone)? “Well, lighter than my ex’s VW Rabbit but darker than my Old Navy faded yoga pants.”
I can’t even imagine the discussions around the within-group differences among Asians. :smack:
ETA clever use of cafe au lait given my crime was in NOLA.
I saw my guy from behind. I think the shoe polish may have sweated off him when I chased him for two blocks on foot. 
NOTE: that was one of the stupidest things I have ever done and I am lucky I am safe. I don’t recommend it as a response. Especially in Birks.
Sorry to hear about the loss. Hopefully the insurance comes through and this turns into an opportunity to upgrade with minimal financial cost to you. The deployment of a
blacklist for stolen phones in the US might, over time, reduce the rate of phone thefts. Once a phone’s IMEI number is on the blacklist it is not able to be used with any carrier, and the phone is near worthless. Except that many phones can be hacked to change their IMEI…
Mostly I wanted to post to remind dalej42 to change the password for anything to which his phone can login automatically. For example, if the phone can check gmail and facebook without requiring a password, then the password for those sites should be changed so the thief no longer has access to them. If you have the phone set to automatically upload pictures to the Apple cloud or something, then maybe leave that ability, so that you can laugh at (and forward to the police) any pictures they take.