have you ever been mugged?

I was fine really, I got my simcard cancelled and I was on my way out clubbing so to hell with the silly phone. I was distracted easily. I guess now I have a much worse phone as a result, but I can live with that.

I remember once in Dublin some scumbag tried to mug this man ahead of me on the street. And the man was like yeah just a second and then pulled a hammer out of the toolbag thing he had with him and threatened the assailant with it. It was great. I was thinking of tabloid headlines if he killed the guy. Hammer Hero Haemmorages Hoodlum.

I had a very strange mugging experience at the Chapeltown carnival in Leeds once, but I don't wish to discuss it.

Another time in London I was walking down Great Denmark Street when some knack approached me and demanded I sell him heroin. When I pointed out that I am not a heroin dealer he asked me to reconsider, demonstrating i) that he had the requisite money and ii) that he had traintracks. He followed me into Forbidden Planet and took ages to go away. I hid in FP for around an hour for fear he'd be waiting for me outside.

Neither of these were muggings as such, but they were both very traumatic. I think it was weeks before I even mentioned the first to anyone. The second has made me quake with fear whenever I am in the vicinity of Tottenham Court Road tube station.

'Is that all you've fucking got?’

Yes look you can even have this …handing over some loose change. Without really thinking about it I then raised my hand to get my bag back (with passport, CD walkman inside etc). Inexplicably he handed it over, then paused with a ‘why did I just do that?’ look before running off.

I was very shaken. It turned out some guy had observed the entire incident from a distance but, thankfully, hadn’t intervened. He came up to me Hey, you, why didn’t you fight him eh, you’ve got to fight back. Stupid sod, Risking a bottle in my face for 25 guilders!

(2) punched in the face by a glue sniffer in Karangahape Rd for like no reason walking around drunk. they didnt steal any money tho so i guess it doesnt count.

(3) in San Francisco we said to these guys (approx paraphrase) Hi we're stupid foreigners with drugs & money, would you like to rob us , & they said (approx paraphrase) OK cool wait here & we'll come back with our mates & take all your money, which they did.

I have never been so fucking scared in my life, and it did affect me for a few months afterwards, but to be honest it only took about seven or eight months before I was back into my old walking home pissed and alone tricks.

Not entirely true. ;-) My dad's a Naval Academy grad.

Frightening.

no permanent damage, but i never let a bag sit freely on my knee again.

Fucke muggers for making me feel vunerable in the "safest city in england"

the bat to the head still kinda hurts tho

i appreciate the concern, but it really only is a bump to the head (i ducked at the right moment). if it still hurts tomrroow i'll pop to the docs, if only to get an afternoon off work.

I got mugged last November, will be appearing in court in a couple of weeks. More terrified at this prospect than I was at the time I think.

being naive tourists we were then very very nervous visiting the watts towers.

I was at the cashpoint by the tube station when this beggar sitting next to it said I'd dropped a fiver on the ground, I knew I hadn't but when I turned to say it's not mine these 3 Turkish guys had surrounded me and taken my card out of the machine. Luckily I had presence of mind to wait til my money came out and grabbed it and stuck it in my pocket. Then I went "give me my fucking card back" to the guy who took it, and to my surprise, he chucked it on the floor and they walked off. I guess they were after the cash out of the machine and didn't feel like beating it out of me in the middle of the street (not that anyone would likely have intervened if they had).

I've been mugged twice: Denmark drunk and hit over head with bottle fucking repeatedly, it didn't break but it was full so my head was killing me for days after(nothing like the carabinieri in Florence but that's a whole other story of police brutality). Second time was in Dublin, on driveway to Kilmainham Art Museum, basically he went for notes and as we were all poor student scum I think he got 20 quid. We had loads of bar shrapnel on us from the night before so he'da done better on coins methinks!

I went to a kind of warehouse party last weekend that was being held in an old mental hospital near didsbury. All was well until I separated from my friends. I walked down a corridor past a few young lads who pushed me against a wall and asked where my drugs were. I told them I didn’t have any so they punched me in the ribs and went through my pockets taking my wallet & phone; they then give me a bit of a kicking which didn’t seem to last more than 30 seconds. I got up feeling furious, so I (having thought about this since have realised it wasn’t wise) followed them shouting at them to give me my stuff back. This seemed to make them awkward as they told me to f off or I’d get my head kicked in. I paused and thought f it. I kept following them asking for my wallet back and my sim card from my phone, they threw the phone at me & gave me my wallet back minus the £40 inside. Apart from the cracked rib & cut on head, I think it could’ve been worse.

good news was that i had my hand on the money already so that guy didn't actually get anything at all!

If I have something important on my person I will follow Warhol's Law and whack it into a beaten-up carrier bag. Sex pests can be dealt with using the equal and opposite Solanas' Law where you tell them that cocktail sausage they're carrying will probably get bitten off.

I am much harder than I look; I'm shouty if challenged. Also the pretend-mad strategy of Bark and Growl Like A Small Dog does make the average Asbo Boy quite confused. Complete strangers *already* think I'm crazy so no damage or loss there if I choose that as part of my exit strategy.

next day I went back to the condo and said "fuck you assholes."

for a month after I'd keep thinking I recognized my mugger on the street and freak out in a cold sweat. this story has no moral.

Godwin, I'm an atheist so fate is something I consider silly - although it has to be said, you make your own luck.

!

I very rarely use cash machines at night in quiet, shady areas though. Also I don't have a wallet, I just stuff notes in my Oyster card and never have more than just a couple in there. I worry that a mugger wouldn't accept that I don't carry a wallet and get nasty. The OC is always in my trouser pocket, as is my phone in another. The only thing I ever carry in my bag of any real value is mp3 player/mini hard disk but it's a clunky obscure model and not an alluring 'STEAL ME' iPod.

I'm not sure how Clapton compares to Stratford re petty street crime but I expect they will be about the same, and I've never witnessed anything in the latter the whole time I've been here (a year) the times I've been walking to and from home at night.

*inserts lame TV show-related gag here*

It's high time I got mugged/punched/robbed really - I must've used up all my luck chips by now. In seven years of living in Bethnal Green/Hackney/Mile End/Bow, the worst I had was a carful of lads yelling (fairly misplaced) homophobic stuff, and waking up upstairs on the N253, surrounded by lads, one of whom had his hand *inside* my jacket.

They all scarpered like ants when they realised I was awake - although that didn't stop one of them, for sport, following me down the stairs and lunging for my wallet just as I stepped off the bus! I dodged him, having anticipated his move, and when I looked back he was just grinning, like it was all just a game. Which it may well be.

?

Making your own luck = not walking home very drunk, have a stashed £10 for getting home late so no lone late-night cashpoint scenes, travelling light or just being aware of your surroundings and the various types of people that are around at any given time. Personal safety is pretty important to me but I am secure in my knowledge of self-defense and am a fairly capable sprinter.

What’s the difference?

that does not sound very homophobic, to me.

However, this happened to us in Springfield (form another thread):
Me and the Mrs were mugged when we lived in Ohio. We were at a drive-thru ATM and a guy came up and stuck a massive knife through the window, right at Sarah's throat. For months after that, I could never get into a car at night without constantly looking over my shoulder. The depressing thing is that there is not always anything you can "learn" from these experiences, but the feeling will dissipate with time and your paranoia will cease.

I think I have 'learned' in a way, in that I am very aware of everyone around me at all times. But there is quite a fine line between awareness and screaming anxiety/paranoia and I am way over it some of the time.

Yeah, pretty much.

(How come crime is so bad in Europe/UK?)

I dunno, but the closest I've come to a mugging was in the UK. In Manchester, not far from the Arnstein center, broad daylight, I'd just turned off a crowded street onto a side street to take a shortcut, and somehow suddenly there were two young, hard-looking guys in front of me and another behind. One of them smiled and said, "See the thing is, me and my mates need to get the bus." There was some ridiculous story about why it was important for them to get the bus, and they were presenting it in a do-us-a-favor vein, but there was a clear unspoken threat behind it. I didn't have much on me (I working as a bartender, ffs, I never had much on me), so they settled for a couple of pounds. They grumbled, but I think they figured they weren't gonna get any more out of me. It didn't feel like panhandling, though, it felt like extortion.