I Got Mugged (Like You Didn't See This One Coming) Part 2
After asking why I was calling ("I was robbed!"), the 911 dispatcher wanted my location and descriptions of the six boys: their ages, races, heights, body types, clothing, and hairstyles. Six times. I had actually managed to recognize the printed design on two of their hoodies and I had an estimate of their ages and heights, but I was largely at a loss for the rest of these categories. And by my third description of a black teenager with a hooded sweatshirt and baggy jeans, I felt like Susan Smith or any of those people who commits a crime and then blames some nondescript male minority.
What's funny is that I couldn't really remember their races. I knew that the boy I smiled at was black and the one who took my iPod was black. His friend who stayed beside him was Latino. I guessed that the other three were white. (Not to ruin the story, but it turned out that five were black and one was Latino.)
Anyway, around my third description, I was so angry with myself and annoyed with the procedure that I finally just yelled into the phone, "They looked like fucking punk kids!" It was around this time that an officer arrived and I asked the dispatcher if I should hang up and talk to him. She said yes, and I went through the whole description ordeal again.
After a moment of this, he excused himself and got on his radio, while I called Leon, who was playing badminton. Crying, I told him what had happened and then told him goodbye when the officer came back to me. Leon's friends advised him to head home to see what had happened.
It seemed like less than a minute of talking to the officer before three or four police cars rushed by, two of which had their sirens on. My officer directed them where to go. Another police car pulled up, and a female officer got out and started to patrol the area on foot. At first, it seemed impossible that this much commotion would be caused over one iPod, but soon I began to gather that all of this effort was, in fact, for my case.
…Well, it helped that I wasn't the only one to have my iPod swiped. A jogger just three blocks away had been approached with a knife by the same boy who took my iPod. He told her that if she yelled for help, he would fucking kill her. After he took her iPod nano, she ran for help and her call came in only a minute before mine.
Police swarmed the area (Leon counted eleven cop cars), and soon my police officer was telling me that they had the kids--all six of them.
He instructed me to get into his police car (front seat!), and he drove me two blocks away to a street that had been completely blocked off by police cruisers. He said that they had the boys in custody and that I needed to identify them and that it was perfectly okay if I couldn't, plus they may have changed their clothing since then (blah, blah, blah).
I figured that I would hop out of the car and point out the kids I recognized, and I was so filled with adrenaline from riding in the Front! Seat! of a police car that I was ready to get to work. I suppose this was considered too dangerous, although the kids obviously knew who I was and could see me through the police car window.
Anyway, they formed a lineup of the six teenage boys, all handcuffed, in the middle of the street. You can imagine the amount of spectators this drew. My police officer drove towards them and asked if I recognized any of them.
Yes, I did. That one there in the white hoodie was the kid I smiled at. And the little one on the end is the one who took my iPod. And the one standing next to him, I think, is the second one who approached me but I wouldn't say that on record.
And that was that.
The jogging girl identified the same boy that I did as the one who threatened her with a knife and took her iPod, and soon we were presented with a full stash of those ubiquitous mp3 players that had been taken off of the boys when frisked. Mine wasn't there (dammit), but was recovered minutes later by a cop who saw it in nearby bushes.
After this, I went to the police station to make a statement. This took close to an hour, largely because my police officer was trying extremely hard to get a lot of minute details just right.
By the time we were finished, it was dark outside, and he escorted me outside to let me through the gate. He offered to give me a ride home but, since it was only a few blocks away, I said I was okay.
As we were leaving, another police officer asked me what had happened in my particular case, questioning, "Did he have a knife or a screwdriver or something?"
"No," I said. "I was just stupid enough to pull my iPod out so he could 'see it.'" This led me to say to my police officer, as we left the station, "You know, people always tell me that I'm too nice and too naïve…" and he sort of agreed with me, saying, "Yeah, you should have just ignored them" or "Yeah, why'd you take it out?"
And that's the question that I'll struggle with for a while. Would he have pulled the knife on me if I'd ignored him? If I'd resisted? Should I have done something differently?
With me unhurt, my iPod back in my possession, and that kid in juvenile hall (only the one who took the iPods was arrested--he was 12, with no prior arrests--while the other kids' parents were called for them to take them home), it's somewhat hard to argue that I did the wrong thing. But I'm not really at peace with that.
I called Leon as I walked home in the dark from the police station. It was the first time in the entire two hours of the ordeal that I felt scared. As an unfit, unarmed chick, alone in the dark, I was vulnerable. I am always vulnerable, but I really felt it then.
As I got closer to my apartment, I approached the street where the police had made their impromptu lineup. There were still police cars on the scene, and I peeked into the backseats. A couple of the kids were still there, waiting for their parents to come and claim them.
If it was possible for me to feel more vulnerable at that point, I did. I didn't want those boys to see where I was headed or where I lived. Even though I figure that five of those boys have no reason to want to retaliate against me, I also figured that smiling at them would, at the very least, make them not want to say rude things as I passed. And certainly keep them from robbing me.
You'd think there's no end to my naïveté.
I drove to work yesterday because I didn't want to be alone on the streets (kind of stupid, I know). I walked today, but I felt a bit jumpy, like everyone who passed by me had sinister motives. I don't like this feeling of vulnerability and this lack of trust. But I figure it's something I will wear for quite some time.
What's funny is that I couldn't really remember their races. I knew that the boy I smiled at was black and the one who took my iPod was black. His friend who stayed beside him was Latino. I guessed that the other three were white. (Not to ruin the story, but it turned out that five were black and one was Latino.)
Anyway, around my third description, I was so angry with myself and annoyed with the procedure that I finally just yelled into the phone, "They looked like fucking punk kids!" It was around this time that an officer arrived and I asked the dispatcher if I should hang up and talk to him. She said yes, and I went through the whole description ordeal again.
After a moment of this, he excused himself and got on his radio, while I called Leon, who was playing badminton. Crying, I told him what had happened and then told him goodbye when the officer came back to me. Leon's friends advised him to head home to see what had happened.
It seemed like less than a minute of talking to the officer before three or four police cars rushed by, two of which had their sirens on. My officer directed them where to go. Another police car pulled up, and a female officer got out and started to patrol the area on foot. At first, it seemed impossible that this much commotion would be caused over one iPod, but soon I began to gather that all of this effort was, in fact, for my case.
…Well, it helped that I wasn't the only one to have my iPod swiped. A jogger just three blocks away had been approached with a knife by the same boy who took my iPod. He told her that if she yelled for help, he would fucking kill her. After he took her iPod nano, she ran for help and her call came in only a minute before mine.
Police swarmed the area (Leon counted eleven cop cars), and soon my police officer was telling me that they had the kids--all six of them.
He instructed me to get into his police car (front seat!), and he drove me two blocks away to a street that had been completely blocked off by police cruisers. He said that they had the boys in custody and that I needed to identify them and that it was perfectly okay if I couldn't, plus they may have changed their clothing since then (blah, blah, blah).
I figured that I would hop out of the car and point out the kids I recognized, and I was so filled with adrenaline from riding in the Front! Seat! of a police car that I was ready to get to work. I suppose this was considered too dangerous, although the kids obviously knew who I was and could see me through the police car window.
Anyway, they formed a lineup of the six teenage boys, all handcuffed, in the middle of the street. You can imagine the amount of spectators this drew. My police officer drove towards them and asked if I recognized any of them.
Yes, I did. That one there in the white hoodie was the kid I smiled at. And the little one on the end is the one who took my iPod. And the one standing next to him, I think, is the second one who approached me but I wouldn't say that on record.
And that was that.
The jogging girl identified the same boy that I did as the one who threatened her with a knife and took her iPod, and soon we were presented with a full stash of those ubiquitous mp3 players that had been taken off of the boys when frisked. Mine wasn't there (dammit), but was recovered minutes later by a cop who saw it in nearby bushes.
After this, I went to the police station to make a statement. This took close to an hour, largely because my police officer was trying extremely hard to get a lot of minute details just right.
By the time we were finished, it was dark outside, and he escorted me outside to let me through the gate. He offered to give me a ride home but, since it was only a few blocks away, I said I was okay.
As we were leaving, another police officer asked me what had happened in my particular case, questioning, "Did he have a knife or a screwdriver or something?"
"No," I said. "I was just stupid enough to pull my iPod out so he could 'see it.'" This led me to say to my police officer, as we left the station, "You know, people always tell me that I'm too nice and too naïve…" and he sort of agreed with me, saying, "Yeah, you should have just ignored them" or "Yeah, why'd you take it out?"
And that's the question that I'll struggle with for a while. Would he have pulled the knife on me if I'd ignored him? If I'd resisted? Should I have done something differently?
With me unhurt, my iPod back in my possession, and that kid in juvenile hall (only the one who took the iPods was arrested--he was 12, with no prior arrests--while the other kids' parents were called for them to take them home), it's somewhat hard to argue that I did the wrong thing. But I'm not really at peace with that.
I called Leon as I walked home in the dark from the police station. It was the first time in the entire two hours of the ordeal that I felt scared. As an unfit, unarmed chick, alone in the dark, I was vulnerable. I am always vulnerable, but I really felt it then.
As I got closer to my apartment, I approached the street where the police had made their impromptu lineup. There were still police cars on the scene, and I peeked into the backseats. A couple of the kids were still there, waiting for their parents to come and claim them.
If it was possible for me to feel more vulnerable at that point, I did. I didn't want those boys to see where I was headed or where I lived. Even though I figure that five of those boys have no reason to want to retaliate against me, I also figured that smiling at them would, at the very least, make them not want to say rude things as I passed. And certainly keep them from robbing me.
You'd think there's no end to my naïveté.
I drove to work yesterday because I didn't want to be alone on the streets (kind of stupid, I know). I walked today, but I felt a bit jumpy, like everyone who passed by me had sinister motives. I don't like this feeling of vulnerability and this lack of trust. But I figure it's something I will wear for quite some time.