• ReadMoreBooks@lemmy.zip
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      3 days ago

      unprovoked violent threat; victim so calloused to violence they still communicate simply and honestly; assailant sparing the innocent and guiding them to a safer area

      Is this an american day to day occurance?

      It’s pretty much every encounter I’ve ever had with a gang member.

      • ArtieShaw@fedia.io
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        3 days ago

        I feel like I’ve been in multiple shitty situations where I was saved by being dumb or weird and the would-be attacker being either confused or amused enough to let me be.

        Not the most exciting, but I once answered a skeezy call at 2:00am. It was a holiday, so I was one of maybe 6 people in the dormitory. It was very much a horror story setup. The caller said something unpleasant and it was 2:00am so I didn’t really get what he said. “I’m sorry, could you call back tomorrow? Be happy to talk about it then, but right now I’m super tired.”

        Probably wouldn’t have even remembered it if the young woman across the hall hadn’t gotten a call the same night. She told me about it the next day. He somehow managed to briefly convince her that he was her highschool boyfriend. They talked for a few minutes before she realized it wasn’t him.

        As for me? Dirty bastard never called me back.

        (Probably necessary context: College, early nineties, there was a campus phone book that literally gave your name, dorm, room, and phone extension. Finding a woman alone during the holiday was as easy as looking at rooms with lights on and checking the book.)

        • ericatty@infosec.pub
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          2 days ago

          OMG you triggered a memory. 1990 college girls dorm, same setup with the phone numbers. Guy would call and ask us about our fingernails. Eventually we started talking about it and older ones would warn the new ones moving in…

          • ArtieShaw@fedia.io
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            2 days ago

            Girl code at its best. That de-escalates getting that call from a horror movie situation into, “Oh - this is the fingernail creeper they’ve told us about. Bye.”

            I never heard about a repeat performance from our caller. Now I’m curious if he graduated or what.

    • shalafi@lemmy.world
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      3 days ago

      I’m 53 and I’ve never seen an armed robbery, even lived in Chicago and worked on the South Side. Also, I can hardly think of a time I saw in gun in public that wasn’t on a cop.

      I’ve been robbed at knife point, but that was on me. Not going to tell that story!

      • samus12345@lemm.ee
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        2 days ago

        I saw someone pointing a gun at someone else in Hollywood in the late 90s. Didn’t stick around to find out what was going on, but there was no gunshot, so I assume it didn’t end too badly.

        A few years back, I was carrying groceries back to my car when a guy approached me pointing at me with something obscured by his jacket pocket and said he had a gun and wanted me to take him somewhere. I paused and decided that even though he probably didn’t have one I wasn’t willing to risk it, and besides, I had time to give him a lift. Once he was in the car he said he didn’t have a gun and thought I was just going to tell him to fuck off. I said I wasn’t a risk taker. He talked about being on the run from the police and started talking about how he was in his 30s and needed to stop doing things like this. I never saw any police, so he might have just been paranoid, but who knows. He had me drop him off behind a building not too far away. A strange experience - he should have tried asking nicely instead.

      • ddplf@szmer.info
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        3 days ago

        I’ve been robbed at knife point, but that was on me. Not going to tell that story!

        You can’t just say stuff like that and refuse to elaborate!

    • AwkwardLookMonkeyPuppet@lemmy.world
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      3 days ago

      No. It’s not uncommon in rough parts of town in major cities, but it’s also not something that most people will encounter, especially if they’re not in the really bad parts of town.

      • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
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        3 days ago

        Yup, I’m kinda old and never seen anything like this. The closest I’ve seen is a dude open carrying a gun shopping at a grocery store just talking with his wife.

        Nothing ever happens to the average person…

        • AwkwardLookMonkeyPuppet@lemmy.world
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          3 days ago

          I’ve had knives pulled on me a couple times, and a gun one time. I also had a crazy Nazi tweaker threaten me with a homemade hatchet. But I grew up on the wrong side of the tracks, and continued associating with a lot of the wrong people into young adulthood. The first half of my life was very far from average. What’s interesting is that those experiences never really leave you. I live in an extremely safe area now, but I’m still hyper aware of my environment when I’m out, and I spot potential threats long before my friends are aware of anything sketchy.

    • BetaBlake@lemmy.world
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      3 days ago

      What no, is this an honest question? I’ve never seen or been a part of an armed robber nor has anyone close to me

      • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
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        3 days ago

        Closest was my dad getting pickpocketed in Rome. He loves to travel and only had that one negative experience.

        Nobody in my family has had anything like this happen in the US. Sometimes in Brazil or something, but that’s it.

    • djsoren19@yiffit.net
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      3 days ago

      Yeah. At the very least, it happens with enough regularity in the decently populated cities.