Features
May 29, 2013 at 4:00 am
How It Happened, What a Cop Said to Me After It Happened, and What Happened a Few Weeks Later When I Was Robbed Again
MIKE FREIHEIT
Comments
Please wait...
Comments are closed.
Commenting on this item is available only to members of the site. You can sign in here or create an account here.
is a proud member of the
media network
media network
All contents © Index Newspapers LLC
800 Maynard Ave S, Suite 200, Seattle, WA 98134
800 Maynard Ave S, Suite 200, Seattle, WA 98134
More Legally owned firearms creates more chances for Illegally owned and wielded firearms.
The NRA has created a self-fulfilling prophesy, and a positive feedback loop: People need guns because so many criminals have guns. This creates more opportunities for criminals to obtain guns, creating a higher urgency in scared people to obtain more guns. Lather. Rinse. Repeat.
Oh and I totally agree with your assessment of "people who insist on owning guns". I've fantasized about owning a gun but realistically, I don't think I could handle the guilt of taking anyone's life (sure don't shoot to kill... but if you miss your mark by an inch, then what happens?).
Sorry for your experience and the emasculating rage you have to reason through.
It's strange how white liberals feel to proud to symapthize with those who violate their civil rights, especially when the perps are black. I don't see black folks doing the same when mobs of whites attack them.
I walk the streets of Brooklyn, goddammit, with nothing but my confidence, wits and attitude. Been here over 20 years and no one has fucked with me on the street.
Guns are for pussies.
Pathetic.
Wow you can totally go 6 blocks from your appartment in a neighborhood full of trust fund hipsters, how dangerous.
I don't carry a gun, but maybe I should? It is hard to predict in advance if a gun would just escalate the situation or if it might save me from getting raped. Robbed, I can deal with. Raped, murdered, mutilated, those things I would like to avoid.
We ignored him and kept walking."
and you wonder why you got mugged? maybe it's because you are an asshole and no one in your neighborhood knows you. Smug gentrifying newbies who won't take the time to even acknowledge someone on the street are infinitely more likely to get mugged...fyi.
Don't really have any advice for you, except keep your eyes open when you're out at night. You can sometimes spot potential situations before it's too late, although doesn't sound like that would help in your cases.
Here's one tip - when they ask you for the time, don't ignore them as that just gives them an excuse to start following you. Just say "Sure" and make up a time.
At the very least, you'll know then whether they are really after the time or something else.
@27: You don't spend much time in the big city, do you?
2) The idea that I have to "get to know" street kids in order not to be mugged is frightening. I assume you would tell women that in order not to be raped they need to say hi to every man they meet?
People have every right not to be mugged or assaulted regardless of whether they are racist/classist assholes.
Criminal behavior doesn't form in a vacuum, it's learned, it's instilled by what happens around.
I really, really doubt the muggers were average kids with average families and average childhoods. It's even more unlikely that they were rich kids from nurturing, attentive families.
We as a society should be addressing the root causes of crime and poverty, not merely dealing reactively with the symptoms.
Never had an iphone, never will.
@33 "2) The idea that I have to "get to know" street kids in order not to be mugged is frightening. I assume you would tell women that in order not to be raped they need to say hi to every man they meet?"
hahaha, ok. I could argue with that but there is no point because it is based in no reality.
Some of us would rather die fighting with our dignity in tact than live and allow others to walk all over us. It's just a matter of values.
Its great you have the *choice* and convenience to be a pacifist and to potentially be murdered, assaulted, or raped for those beliefs.
Not everyone shares the same beliefs.
I hear they turn those iPhones into soup and suckle on the plastic leftovers for nutrition
Da'Nile is a river in Egypt for most Sloggers. For the rest of us it's the name a baby mama burped up.
If there is a next time? Depending on the circumstances, I'm pretty sure I'd grab the gun and get my body between it and the guy.
I second that. A bit too convenient for our writer's prejudices.
So, you filed a report and have this policeman's name so he can verify he said what you claim, right? At a minimum you read his name off his badge and can let us know which officer it was? Because if you didn't file a report and can't remember the officer's name, I say you're full of shit
Isn't it about time somebody at The Stranger owed you a favor?
Income inequality? If it was income these kids needed, they'd be selling drugs. Splitting $11 between the 4 of them and optionally having to fence a stolen glucometer?
What these hoods need is an education in the fucking obvious.
Easier to just not carry anything worth stealing, and savor the knowledge your stick-up kid is probably going to get his ass shot over some trifling bullshit before he turns 30.
What, pray tell, makes it impossible for the author to be sexually assaulted? Does he not have a body?
What makes sexual assault so much worse than having a gun shoved in your face by some local savages (accompanied by death threats)? What part of this wasn't bad enough that your personal rape fantasy deserved a special call-out in the comments?
Get the fuck over yourself. You're no more victim than anyone else.
be a hipster because only stupid hipsters go to Chinatown to sing at Bush Garden AND take the bus at night. Do you also go to that pinball place and hookah lounge?
You are courting danger and you probably have
no clue where you are at. After dark, you are
walking in one of the most dangerous areas of the city. Can't call a cab?
You probably were walking up on King or Jackson
to 12th, probably King since it is closer to
Maynard. You are walking in crack fucking central and all of the homeless drug addicts.
King county and Seattle releases all of those
formerly incarcerated folks in that area.
There are over 1000 registered and unregistered
sex offenders in the west precinct. You have
the Jungle nearby. You have the homeless shelters nearby. You have the mental cases nearby. AND, you are talking about guns and
income inequality?????
Fucking go back to school and demand a fucking refund.
Here is a free lesson:
http://www.stratfor.com/weekly/practical…
But it's awfully convenient that the author would find a member of the 0.001% right here in Seattle, in the middle of the big city, who'd make such an utterly insane statement at just the wrong time, but that fit perfectly into this narrative.
The whole story smells. And that was a good point about the police report. If this is true, then our lying friend Tobias ought to post the police report. And if he won't do it, then the Stranger's editors should demand it. Of course, that would require that they have a single shred of ethics. Which they don't.
So exactly at what point would you stop being a victim and stand up for yourself?
The Stranger Thought Police( a subsidiary of Gay Gentrification LLLLLC) might haul me in for re-education!!!!! They control the Art & Music scene here and everywhere-just a matter of time before we all kowtow to their dirty butts!!!!
Total and utter bullshit. Calling Mike Daisy.
Some thoughts:
1) Cultivate awareness of who is on the street around you.
2) Carrying pepper spay or a baton type weapon allow you to repel attackers without killing.
3) Avoid areas with young punks. Use different routes home depending on circumstances.
Only my opinion, but if you don't adapt to the threats around you, your luck will eventually run out. Stay alert.
Sure getting robbed/assaulted sucks and it sure would be great if we could get poor teen males to mellow out but who thinks that's going to happen soon. Know the situation.
Facts are stubborn things, here are a few:
-- you are clearly over employed slinging plates, your logic skills are zip and street sweeping sounds more fitting
-- the silly dream that more legal guns is a bad idea is not demonstrated by any facts on this planet. Check the stats for the disarmed in Australia and England. Gun ownership is up in the past 20 years, violent crime is down. Look it f'ing up. Demonstrate the intelligence to stay over employed as a plate slinger.
-- reducing income inequality and increasing access to public transit late at night— HUH? Communism (income equality) and Socialism (mass transit) have been failures every time. There is almost 50% of our transportation dollars going to mass transit which provides THREE percent of all daily trips. Please keep your distance from my sphincter, WSDOT et al have been working it way too hard for years.
-- in short, killing low life petty thieves may not be the answer but I can guarantee you would feel better after that than you will the next time someone makes you a vuh-jay-jay AGAIN.
However, I don't think you've interpreted these muggings correctly. Both times, you were threatened with a disparity of force. A group, and a gun. You left yourself to the mercy of a thug and mob mentality. You hoped for a good outcome. Without the will or the means to fight back all you could do was hope. Hope that your $11 will make them happy. Hope that your iphone will make them go away. In case your missing the point, hope is longing for a future condition over which you have no agency.
If you're solution for personal safety and looking out for the safety of friends and family is to hope you'll never get mugged or be the victim of crime; then I wish you all the best.
Let me know how that impotent feeling of victimization is working out for you.
No sensible person craves violence or wants to hurt people, but self-defense is a human right.
If I'm walking by myself on Beacon Hill, I take my chances. If I'm with my wife and 2 young children, you can bet your hipster backside than I'm using my concealed carry permit and packing a piece that I've spent time training with - not because I'm Charlie Bronson, but because I love my family and I value their lives too much to late some punk make the decisions about whether or not he feels like raping my wife or hurting my children.
I know The Stranger is a pro-human rights paper... I'm surprised more honesty about the issues of guns and self-defense aren't being addressed. Google "Pink Pistols .org" if you really want to know wassup. Or go to:
http://www.pinkpistols.org/
Its a good thing you arent one of these scared sheeple who walks around with a gun. Pulling a gun in this situation would likely end with the wannabb gangsters shooting you then taking your shit. Life ain't as simple as some gun toting teabagger fantasy where you just pull a gun shoot everyone whenever you feel like it.
More like because you are paranoid and stupid. Just sayin.
Yeah killing someone over a phone and some pocket change makes sense, dipshit.
http://jezebel.com/dude-wants-to-shoot-h…
There are so many things wrong with this journaslit I almost don't no where to start at. I'm going to start first by laughing at the fact that he is bewildered by the fact that no body stoped to help him.... OK, so since your not willing to stand up for yourself a person driving by should stop and stand up for you? IDIOT! Of course if they had stoped to help they were just suppose to say "HEY STOP THAT'S NOT RIGHT"? Because as he pointed out when a police officer told him to arm himself that that was just stupid. Soooo let me get this right they should stop and help you when you have a small "mob" of teenagers asaulting you... But they should only use words, you can't arm/defend yourself. "MORONIC" I also love that he says that's just how people in Seattle are, we just stand by and watch people get robbed. Well idiot I don't know where you're from but here we don't feel the need to put our lives on the line for someone who wont even stand up for themself. If the roles were reversed your saying that you would stop and help that person. let me guess you would be the first person to jump in and save the day by brokering some sort of peace deal is that it. I really want to go on & on about what an idiot you are and what selfish, self centered, arogant people you and those who think like you are but I'm not. Because there is no way of reasoning with a crazy person. I say that becuase in your head you live in this utopian world were everyone gets along and there is no crime or wars to worry about. When in reality those are things we have to come face to face with and deal with them. Honestly go back to school so that you can become even more educated & end up becoming this countries verison of a "WMD". It needs to be a law that if you haven't been a resident of washington for 7 years your not allowed to vote. Know what the difference between liberals from out of state and the one's that are from here is? The one's that grew up here have brains and are actually in touch with reality (for the most part). SERIOUSLY it's journalists like you that are the real Weapons of Mass Destruction and are going to be the one's who rip this country apart by writting about fear and creating mass hystaria. Sorry if this isn't written in perfect english I only have a high school education.
Damn. Were you looking in a mirror when you wrote that?
Sorry, not buying it. You can choose to leave yourself at the mercy of thugs and criminals, I will chose to exercise the option to defend myself as my judgement sees fit.
Thankfully, the United States Supreme Court agrees with me, and we live in a nation of laws.
Sincerely,
Seattle resident and concealed pistol license holder.
Oh look a new yorker who is all talk.
You shitheads seem to flap your lips anytime they are not wrapped around nanny bloombergs titty. I have yet to meet one with a spine to match his mouth.
I agree that it´s just news because of the ´race card´. You´re also correct in diagnosing the deliberate sheltering of the mainstream sensibility from facts about conditions and behaviors in underclass ghettos. I think you should think patiently about whether the lack of coverage of black on black violence is meant to protect the reputations of black men, though. They´re certainly policed and imprisoned very aggressively. When I see those sorts of stats I wonder whether those policies are effective. To me it seems like liberals say ¨education¨ and conservatives say ¨prison¨ and both miss the point.
Also, I think lots of black victims of gun violence own(ed) guns.
Enjoy your paranoia, shithead, you evidently love it, and your bravado, more than life itself.
What you find paralyzingly fearful, is just a little everyday texture to those of us who know how to live in the real world.
As for Bloomberg, he's not so bad. He's held down taxes, cut way down on corruption, and ushered in a building boom like we haven't seen in ages. Giuliani with all his cronyism and egocentricity did little for this city other than make it feel like a police state for a few years. You don't even live here, so I have no idea what you think you're bitching about, bitch, but I can tell you we're going to miss Bloomberg when his term is up. Even though I'm a Democrat, I don't expect much from our next mayor, even if he or she is a Democrat.
I fully expect him to be killed by another mugging within a few years-- By having the shit kicked out of him after he asks for his stuff back.
Firearms were not referred to as the great equilizer for nothing. On the streets, it's not always the civilized utopia you wish Seattle to be, and it never will be.
Always bet on the guy who has character, even if he weighs half as much as the scared guy with the weapon.
I too, would love to have your magical ability to tell people's true character through internet shit talk... but I think you are mistaking political sameness with strength of character... a critical mistake amigo!
PS: Real tough guys have cauliflower ears and don't talk shit places where no one can get punched. Like the internet.