Ever Been the Victim of a Crime? Or observed a Crime? Or saw criminals get busted?

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Weedygarden

Weedygarden

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Stories! I have been the victim of a few crimes.
One story that keeps coming up for me lately is the story of a young couple who were accosted a little after midnight, when they were coming home. This happened close to 30 years ago. A couple guys decided they were going to beat the carp out of them before they even got out of their car. The husband died as a result of the assault and the wife had serious brain injury and remembers nothing. One of the criminals dropped his ID in the car and didn't realize it.
One Sunday afternoon, I was out working in my front garden and I see a small newer car park in front of my neighbor's home with two men sitting in, wearing suits. Two young men come walking down the street. They cross the street just before the car. The two men in the car take the two young men into custody, and cop cars show up and take them away. Well, what just happened there?

Later, in a news story, I read the address of the man who dropped his ID in the car. It was less than two blocks from me, and I saw those two men who committed that crime get arrested.

The young couple who was beaten owned a clothing store called Fashion Nation that sold Doc Martin shoes, and other clothing for younger people. The store got moved. I drove by it the other day, on my way to somewhere else. I always wondered how that woman is doing. She must be around 50 now.

While I was not happy about what happened to that couple, it was very interesting to see that arrest go down and then to find out what that was all about.
 
I've seen drug deals go down in parking lots.
Many times.
I'll bet most people don't realize how often this happens, or even what to look for.
And no, I did not alert authorities. I minded my own business.
 
Yes, I was the victim of crime on a few occasions. The one that annoyed me the most was 2 teenage boys ripping the Christmas lights out of the tree in the front yard, the old style with the large glass bulbs, so they could have fun breaking the bulbs. I caught them in the act but they just held on tight and ran away ripping the string of lights off the branches. I knew the Las Vegas cops wouldn't do anything, if an officer eventually showed up, so I didn't call them and I didn't chase and catch them for the same reason.

Aside from that, I have witnessed thousands of crimes and had many thousands of first hand experience arresting criminals. It is usually more fun to watch when you are not the arresting officer. :dunno: After I completed training and was on my own on patrol I stopped having any interest in watching the TV show COPS and any other police or court related TV show. The real world is nothing like they show it on TV, even with the so called reality cop shows.

Good thread though, I may get some entertainment out of the stories shared here.
 
I used to work graveyard and we were robbed a number of times, usually just took the car make/model and license as we called it in. We were 3 blocks down from the police station/court house so response times were good. I think that most of them were caught within 24 hours...

I have had 1 UNINVITED person in my home, they were escorted away by the sheriff, that was a much longer wait. I am a big believer in Castle Doctrine, now.
 
Knock on wood, I have never been a victim, and have never seen an arrest. I certainly don't want to be a victim, and I really don't know how interested I would be in seeing an arrest. If I saw a crime being committed, I think I could turn into a vigilante pretty quickly.
 
I've told the story a few times here of waking up in the middle of the night with a man in my house. He brought a ladder to climb through an open second story window. I heard something, got up, and walked down the hall. Stopped just short of my daughter's bedroom. I don't know why. I looked and there he was in the doorway. I asked him who he was. Shock makes you stupid. He cussed at me, headed up the hallway and out the window he came in through. Daughter's television was gone, so he had to have made a couple trips in. Daughter was in bed with me. Three weeks later he broke into a home 2 blocks from me and raped a 12 year old girl, same age as my daughter. I don't know if her was ever arrested for that. A few years later, he was caught driving the car of a woman who had been murdered a couple days before. I hope he is gone for good. I went and bought a pistol shortly after he was in my home.
 
Yes to all three. One of the reasons I moved away from other people.
 
Victim of robbery, several times
Also was stalked.
A long time ago when I was in college and working at a waterskiing summer camp, one of my campers was Polly Klaas’s step sister who had been sleeping next to her the night she was abducted.
Used to frequent lake berryessa where the zodiac killer would take victims.
 
Growing up our house was broken into 4 or 5 times, once before we moved in. They stole the doors and a generator that time.

After wife and I got married we were living in Louisville, Ky in a not so great area but best we could afford. There was a string of auto break in's around the apartment area we were in. One particular night in February wife woke me up and said someone is breaking in cars again. I jumped up, put pants and shoes on and grabbed a ball bat and headed downstairs. Met one neighbor who heard it to, I went out the door and started scanning the parking lot. Saw movement inside another neighbors work van and started moving that way slowly keeping an eye out for someone else. The guy who had the van caught up with me at the van and we opened it up and grabbed the little punk out. Cops had already been called. He was begging us to let him go, said he had to feed his family. Turned out he was an ex from a girl that lived in another building, just a drugged out loser. He never tried to get away from us. But when the cops showed up he got cocky and started fighting them. 2 of them ended up breaking their nightsticks over his head. Just taunting them. Finally got him cuffed and loaded him in the paddy wagon when it showed up. He started rocking it and they maced him. He started cryin for mama then.
Funniest part of the whole thing, when me and the neighbor had him out in the open, my wife came over and started chewing him a new one. She had her radio stole about 2 weeks before. She called him a punk and he got all fired up, I thought I was gonna get to pop him with the bat. Best part was the next day when I got home from work, several neighbors were outside talking about the previous night. One of them told me he was proud of my daughter for getting him told off. I busted out laughing and he looked at me puzzled,, had to tell him that was my wife and we had no kids. :cool::cool:
 
Had a primo Powerlite Cruiser ripped off from the beach in Coronado... made the mistake of locking it up, you just can't do that with a nice bike. It was locked in tandem with a friend's Schwinn Cruiser, and we were only 100 yards away on the sand, but we were with a couple of gals from San Rafael, real cuties too, so we weren't paying attention to the bikes. Thieves cut both locks and threw the bikes into a van... witnesses said the thieves were Mexicans. I put a lot of money and effort into building that bike, it was the best ultra-light park-and-pool-riding bike I ever built, and I NEVER should've locked it and left it... locks are for honest people, thieves have bolt cutters. :confused:

Another time, we actually caught a would-be burglar... my bro Pete surprised him with a 12-gauge, and the guy took off running. Friend Wade & I pulled up on Wade's thumper a minute later; as soon as my bro gave a description, I turned to Wade and said, "That's the guy we just saw running into the park." Spreckels Park, a block from my house. I told Pete to call the cops and have 'em meet us down there, then Wade & I rode down to the park, and sure enough, there was our perp sitting on the bandstand steps and trying to blend in with all the actual park visitors, lol. We got off the bike and headed toward him from his blind side... :mad:

I won't lie to ya, I was in the best shape of my life and I was ready for a scrap, just to teach this punk NEVER to bother us again... and Wade was that burly paratrooper I told y'all about in other posts, he was even bigger and his attitude (like mine) wasn't so hot toward perps. I walked up to this guy and was literally reaching for him to sock him up, and a cycle cop came skidding to a halt right there next to us... the cop had ridden across the grassy park to forestall the beatdown, lol. Probably saw us heading for the guy and knew what was about to happen. Anyway, the perp got thrown in the back of a squad car and taken to my house, where my bro Pete identified him. Off to jail went the perp, never saw him again... :rolleyes:

Weirdest part of this whole burglar saga: the same guy had broken into a home several blocks away, and that home belonged to friends of my family, go figure. The guy had grabbed a suitcase from a closet and filled it with stuff, but then my friend's mom (older English lady) pulled up in the driveway, and as she entered the front door the perp fled via another exit. So my friend's mom finds this suitcase lying in the hallway... "HUH?" And then the perp wanders through the hood until he sees MY mom leaving the house in my bro's pickup... I guess he figured our home was empty, even though Pete (who worked graveyard at the time) was just going to sleep in his room. Talk about some weird coincidence... :oops:

P.S. I always hoped that the thief who wound up with my primo Powerlite Cruiser got hit by a truck, lol... that bike was awesome, all tricked-out with Bullseye hubs, stainless steel spokes, anodized Araya rims, Specialized tires, Haro levers, alloy seat post & other alloy components, stylin' grips, etc. You could lift it with one finger, that's how light it was... friends who borrowed it used to tell me it was the fastest bike they'd ever ridden, and it only had one gear, being a free wheel set up for vertical riding. Dang, to this day I miss that bike, it was so much fun in parks and pools, just cruising at high speed. Parts were of better quality back then too, this was the mid-'80s and I spared no expense in tricking out that bike. :(
 
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Right after I was married we lived in Millington, TN. Being a new E3 and making $63 every two weeks we lived in an off base housing area. It was cheap and full of Sailors and Marines going to electronics school.
There were a lot of young newly married women living there and it became a magnet for peeping toms. One night several of us were playing card. I got up to let the dog in and noticed a guy peeping into a window next door. We all ran out and he took off, after he pulled his pants up.
As I rounded the corner a the Marine that lived there ran out with a shotgun and yelled halt. The guy kept running and he pulled the trigger, it didn't fire because his wife had removed the shells.
He said you go that way. We had him caught between us behind a building. It was pitch black and I figure the Marine would just beat the hell out of the first guy he caught so I stayed in the light. The cops caught a guy but none of us could say 100% it was him so they let him go
He got caught a few weeks later and he was beaten severely.
A year later in Imperial Beach, CA some kid stashed a stolen bike on my patio. The kid tried to get in the apartment but my wife jumped out of bed and slammed the door on his head.
She told him to come back that evening when I was home.
The idiot actually came back. He got his butt kicked.
I found the owner of the bike and pointed out the kid. The second beating he got was much worse.
 
With the modern criminal justice system, which I fed continuously for 18 years, is a sick joke.
The only real justice is street justice. If anyone gets caught touching my property they will be hurt, if anyone gets caught hurting my family they will be hoping the cops show up in time.
 
If you live long enough and live in populated areas, you'll be the victim of a crime. Thieves absconded with stereo equipment and other items from my car, and twice I've had my apartment robbed and been completely cleaned out of everything. This took place back in the 1980's and the cops back then told me not to expect to get anything back or that they'd even actively work these cases.

I imagine things have gotten worse since then.
 
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