Also I should mention my niece was killed in the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
I was raped and beaten many times by an ex-boyfriend (we were going out then, of course) over the course of several years.
I was also mugged at gunpoint - twice. Both times the guy only got a few bucks and some change. The first time I was on my cell phone with an ex-boyfriend (not the same one who raped & beat me). He heard the entire thing. The incidents happened almost exactly a year apart.
I may have told this story before.
On my 16th birthday my Mom was waiting in line in a little storefront bank. She was at the front of the line looking through her paperwork when she noticed that things had gotten very quiet. She looked up to see a young man with a gun getting money from the tellers and another man holding a gun to her temple.
About half a minute later a lady came out of the back room and yelled out, “Hey Herb, why is the silent alarm on?”
The manager said back, “because we’re being robbed, Marge.”
Luckily that idiotic bitch didn’t get my Mom’s head blown off. The men left not too long afterwards.
Haj
I don’t believe to know know anyone who has not been the vicitm of a serious crime.
A cousin of mine was assaulted once, and once had his apartment broken into, vandalized (he’s openly gay, it was a clear hate crime), and most everything of value stolen.
The father of the family who used to live once house down from us burned their house down “accidentally” (by leaving a space heater on, stacking cans of kerosene all around it, and taking his family away from the night). About ten years later, he was found dead, single bullet in the forehead, in his pickup truck in the back parking lot of my school. Mob hit.
My dad’s car was once broken into, far before my time.
Some poor unfortunate sap once attempted to mug a tae kwon do instructor I trained under. He’s a sixth-degree black belt in hapkido, fourth in TKD. The unarmed criminal’s tough facade apparently did not last long.
My cousin was killed by a hit-and-run driver in Tucson in the 60’s. He was apparently hitch-hiking along Speedway Blvd. His father (my uncle) was literally beaten within an inch of his life with a baseball bat in the 70’s. He was in the hospital for over a month recuperating. He had all his extremities, most of his ribs, and some other bones broken, and there were internal injuries too. He has never told who beat him, or why, but has indicated that he knows who did it. I always figured he must have had it coming for some reason, to remain silent about it like that. I must remember to ask my dad if the uncle ever told him…
Some other (female) cousins were the victims of childhood sexual abuse by a different uncle. They were his step-children of his second marriage. I had no idea that it was happening at the time, but I am very grateful that he wasn’t into little boys.
None in my family.
I was severely beaten by three guys I didn’t know. I guess I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. I suffered a partially collapsed lung as a result.
Similar to ITR Champion and Cunctator, there are no crime victims in my immediate family. I don’t believe we’ve even been victims of a significant property offense.
Hmm, maybe our stuff just ain’t worth stealing.
Your post reminded me about the office armed robbery that my brother and I were victims of, the one around the corner from Police Headquarters at 11th and State in the late 70’s. He made us get down with our faces on the floor, had no mask.
But later, as we went through the mug books at Area 5 Police Headquarters, all we really could remember clearly was the gun. :mad: Boy could we ever. :eek:
Peter, Suddenly in Need of a Laugh
P.S. I am not surprised by the large number of bad stories here, it reflects my jury duty experience. But it is also important if you stumble across this thread to add a line that says, no, neither I or anyone else in my family has been a victim of violent crime, for this thread to have any kind of pseudo-representational value.
It will never be scientific mind you. But it is an interesting experiment nontheless.
Thanks to all who have shared so far.[COLOR=Red] :mad:
I was once held hostage by a guy lit on angel dust. I went to a NA meeting* with a friend and this guy shows up with a .357, a .45 and a shotgun. He walked in the door and fired a round from the shotgun. I took me a couple seconds to realize that this was no a joke and drop to the ground like everyone else. The guy walked around the room and ended up directly on my left, about 30 feet away. He kept pointing the shotgun at me. I couldn’t figure out why as I didn’t know the guy. He was going off on how his life sucked and he was going to kill his fiancee and then kill himself. He shot the roof over my head. He shot the piano, which made a really cool sound (BANG! PLINK, plink, Plink, PLONK!, Plink, plink). He shot some other stuff. I was in there for a little over an hour and 45 minutes. At that point he said everyone could leave but his ex-wife. Everyone but his ex and a couple people who knew him left. I got out of there with my friend, gave the police my name and number, the place was surrounded at that point, and went home. I was 17 and my parents were pissed because I got home late. I explained that I had been held hostage. My parents did not believe me until they turned on the news and saw them reporting from the scene. Hey, I was 17, I can understand why they didn’t believe me.
I found out the next day that the guy kept shooting my way because I was directly in front of his ex-wife. I had no idea. The lady was hiding behind me. At the time I wasn’t sure if I should be mad at the lady or not. Looking back I am glad she did because if he had a clear shot at her he probably would have shot her. The guy eventaully gave up and no one was hurt. He ended up pleading and getting like 13 months in prison.
Another time my sister had just dumped her boyfriend. The guy was a total ass. To prove it he showed up at the house we were both living in with his gun. He was ranting about how he was going to kill her and himself and that I and my Dad were conspiring to turn my sister away from him. I was in my bedroom and heard all this going on. He really had a thing about me, blaming me for all his troubles. Since I was the one he was focused on I decided it probably wasn’t a good idea to show my face. So I crawled out the window and went to the neighbors house. The problem with this is that we lived in the mountains in New Mexico. My jacket, keys and boots were in the front hall. I was in the back bedroom. There was like 3 feet of snow on the ground. The closest house was about a half mile away. So I ran to the neighbors house without a jacket or shoes in January in three feet of snow. That sucked. I got there and we called the police. Just as the police were showing up the ex-boyfriend took off in his truck. He ended up getting caught and put on probation. My sister got a restaining order. No one got hurt though I was pretty pissed at my sister for a while as everyone told her not to start dating his guy because we all knew he was a nut job. At the time I kind of felt like a wimp/loser/jerk/whatever for leaving my sister to go to the neighbors house but I knew that showing my face would just get the guy that more pissed off. Turns out to be a decent choice and my sister totally understood so all is cool.
Slee
*In NAs history there have been like two major violent episodes. Of coarse, with my luck, I end up being at one.
I’ve had three home burglaries (different places) when I wasn’t home, one home intruder when I was home (the dog went after him and he ran), two car breakins/vandalism, and a couple of purse thefts.
Mom was held up at gunpoint three times while she was working at a mini mart.
Brother was held up at gunpoint while working at a video store. He was also accosted while walking by three men with knives; they ran when brother grabbed a bottle off the ground, broke it, and threatened them with it.
Sister-in-law was knocked to the ground while walking; the guy grabbed her purse and ran.
Three cousins were killed by a drunk driver.
A young female cousin was sexually molested when her stupid mother left the kid locked in the car at the mall. The child unlocked the car door for the guy because he told her he needed her help to find his kitten.
My brother was one of the luckier victims of a current death row inmate who has shot and killed at least 7 people.
My brother was shot at point blank range by the perp with a handgun and nearly died, he lost a kidney and several feet of large intestine. He is ok today but has health problems.
Been the victim of burglary once. They were still in the house when my girlfriend and i got home. I unlocked the front door and went to open it, but it was on the security chain. This was odd, as i knew that no-one else was supposed to be home. It took about 10-15 seconds for me to figure out what was going on. When i did, i sprinted around to the back alley and into the back yard, but by then they had all dived into their car and were just peeling out of the other end of the alley. They got about 250 CDs, a VCR, and some assorted crap. They didn’t get to my $3000 camera system, which was under my bed upstairs.
The only other time i’ve come close to serious crime was when i was a kid. I was eight years old, and we were living on a farm in the hills outside the town of Mullumbimby, in northern New South Wales, Australia. One morning, five police cars full of cops descended on the farm, arrested my parents, and turned the place upside down. Turned out my stepfather and a few friends had a massive marijuana crop growing in one of the paddocks, under the cover of trees and netting. My mother, being scared of snakes and never venturing far from the house, didn’t even know about it.
He got 8 years, and did about two and a half before being paroled. We went to visit him in Sydney’s Long Bay Jail every Saturday. He and my mother divorced a couple of years after he got out. He stayed clean for about 7 years, but then just disappeared. About a month later the drug squad turned up and interviewed me, asking when i’d last seen him and whether i knew where he was. I answered that i hadn’t seen him for a few weeks, and that i didn’t know where he was. It seems he was wanted again for another big grass crop. That was about 18 years ago, and i haven’t seen or heard from him since. My mother got married again, this time to a cop.
Just want to add my sympathies to all those who’ve been the victims, or known the victims, of violent crimes like rape, assault and murder. So far, i’ve been lucky enough not to have to deal with anything like that.
I was robbed two times when I was a clerk at a convenience store. The first time wasn’t so bad- it was an older guy teaching a younger guy (it seemed) how to do it and they were very business like and professional. The second robber was a single man, but he was very nervous and shouting which made me nervous. My boss told me later that he liked to have women on the night shift because robbers only rape them, not kill them (insert big-eyed not-very-smiley here).
Once, a man crawled through my bathroom window. I heard a noise in there and when I went to see what was up, he was three quarters of the way in with one foot on the toilet and one out the window. I yelled “I’m going to scream” and ran out the front. Oddly, when the police and I looked later, he had closed the window on his way out.
My best friend lost a family member to a drunk hit and run driver. He was caught and did very little time (I feel).
I have other less interesting experiences too like pickpockets, burgularies, etc.
I forgot about my other uncle who was killed by an escaped convict. He was on a fishing trip, in California where he lived. The convict took his car, and my uncle’s body was found by a team searching for the escapee. I remember that the police were upset that my uncle had a pistol in the glove compartment – so the escapee was armed when they caught up to him.
I can think of four murders in my extended family.
My dad’s cousin was killed in some kind of love triangle thing in the 50’s, before I was born.
A cousin’s son was stabbed to death in Minneapolis in the 90’s
My dad’s cousin’s daughter was killed in her front yard. An intinerant sheepshearer having a fight next door came out of the house with a shotgun. My cousin was killed when the guy was shooting at someone else.
My mom’s cousin’s daughter was a manager at a TGIFridays in the Omaha area. Late one night after closing she was taking some trash out to the dumpster when she was killed by a disgruntled former employee.
That does seem like a lot of murder victims, but I should say that there are ~250 people in my family tree.
I got mugged while locking the door to the coffee shop I worked at. In retrospect, I was really lucky. The guy tore my purse off my shoulder, and when I turned around and he was just standing there, staring at me. So I screamed at him, and chased him for several blocks, screaming my head off (I’m a short, young woman, btw). I was actually to a point of negotiation with the mugger, when a rent-a-cop pulled up and proceeded to do nothing while the guy ran away.
Then the police brought a suspect to my house! Yay! They parked outside my house and knocked on my door, then had me look at a guy in the squad car. It wasn’t the guy, but, hey, at least the police tried.
A couple of weeks ago my cousin was the victim of a hate crime. A car followed her into a gas station, and the occupants got out and started screaming at her, then one of the guys punched her in the face several times, calling her a white bitch. Irony is that technically she’s not white, and if anyone were to look at her for one second before they beat her up, they’d be able to tell that she was biracial.
ZJ
What the fuck were those morons thinking? You should have reported them and complained to the police brass.
I don’t know what that was about, but it didn’t occur to me until later that it was a really weird thing to do. It was like the time I woke up from getting my wisdom teeth taken out to find my bra unhooked; I was too freaked out at the time to realize that it wasn’t normal.
ZJ