Has anyone here ever been the victim of a crime?

[hbelkins]

Anyone ever been stolen from, burglarized, assaulted, or otherwise victimized by a lawbreaker?

[Max Rockatansky]

I've been assaulted lots of times while arresting people, but nothing really notable since 2012.  In fact the worst injuries I've ever had from a scuffle were just a couple minor cuts.   Fortunately what I do now has me pretty far removed from some of the encounters that were frequent in the past.   

Oddly the one time I was on the opposite end of a burglary I was the only one who didn't get anything stolen.  My brother parked in a bad neighborhood in Pasadena during the 05 Rose Bowl but left all the valuables in plain sight instead of the hotel.  My Dad, my brother, and my brother's girlfriend all had credit information or property stolen.  All I had in the SUV was a couple DVDs which nobody bothered to take. 

[Rothman]

I was actually robbed by bandits on a train in Russia between Volgograd and Rostov-na-Donu.

[J N Winkler]

I have never fallen victim to violent crime, but I have been stolen from on multiple occasions, including the following:

*  Tripod stolen from back seat of car while it was parked on the street (tripod was cheaply made, worth probably about $30; thief did $200 damage to car door lock)

*  Two bicycles stolen (lock stuck through frame and wheel--"locked to self"--in both cases, but otherwise not secured to a fixed object)

*  Backpack stolen when I set it down to try to gain entry to an unoccupied house through the back door (I had locked myself out)

I have come close to being physically assaulted on two occasions.  In both cases alcohol was involved.

*  I was making an ATM withdrawal and was about to enter my PIN when someone walked up, stood next to the ATM, put his eyes on the PIN pad, and said, "Go ahead."  I just looked at him until he said "F--k you" and walked off.  He was blowing beer breath at me, so I think he was drunk.

*  I was sitting at the bar at a Cajun restaurant in San Antonio on Saturday night, probably their busiest of the week.  I kept hearing a loud noise right next to my ear, which turned out to be someone shouting orders to the bartender over my shoulder.  If I was hearing him at all, with more than 90% hearing loss in both ears, he had to have been shouting at the top of his lungs.  I looked at him, he looked back, and for a brief instant I thought he might throw a punch, but apparently he thought better of it and went away.  Again, I suspect he had had too much to drink, and also felt the bar staff had too much going on to think about whether he should have been cut off or even eighty-sixed.  This incident happened right after I sat down, before I ordered.  Normally I would have had a beer with my food, but I went straight to the food order this time (crayfish étouffée) so I could get out of there ASAP.

[bandit957]

Anyone ever been stolen from, burglarized, assaulted, or otherwise victimized by a lawbreaker?

Many times, but nobody gets punished, because the perpetrators have pull with county officials and police, or because prosecuting the case would lead to someone who does.

I did file a civil suit when someone borrowed money and refused to pay it back. The main defendant claimed she had kidney cancer, but it turned out she was actually buying drugs. I tried having the suit served in the county where the other defendant worked, but the sheriff's office in that county took my service fee and then refused to serve the lawsuit, saying it was because the workplace straddled the county line. Eventually, the suit was served in another county. I won the suit and received a good portion of the money I was suing for. The reason it took so long to serve the suit is that the drugs were being purchased from people who were politically connected.

[ce929wax]

I was delivering pizza for Pizza Hut on Asheville Highway in Knoxville, TN (the restaurant has since closed, and I no longer work for that company) on December 3, 2011.  I was making a delivery on Parkview Avenue off of MLK Blvd when a guy approached me after the delivery and asked if I had free pizza.  He pistol whipped me, demanded my money and cell phone, and then told me to get the "fuck out of there, bitch."  When it took me longer than he wanted it to because I had my glasses knocked off my face and my keys knocked out of my hand, he repeated for me to "get the fuck out of here, bitch." and shot my back driver side window out.  The bullet (40 caliber) ricocheted off a bar in the drivers seat and landed on the front passenger floorboard.

I was seriously unimpressed with Knoxville PD, because a few weeks later they called me to look at a lineup, which I could not make a positive identification because he had knocked my glasses off and it was dark, and the detective tells me that "next time I should do my paperwork somewhere else, because that is a bad neighborhood" like the incident was my fault and it was a hassle for him to do his job, which I pay him to do as a taxpayer.  If I could've gotten away with it without going to jail or picking up charges, I would have throttled the detective, I was that pissed off.

[MNHighwayMan]

I had my bike stolen when I was seven years old.

[Beltway]

Robbed at gunpoint at a motel in a small town in South Carolina in 1991.  I notified the police and they came and left and kept watch over the motel.  The guy was dumb enough to come back and try to rob others, and the police caught him.  The fact that he was using a 22 rifle helped as it could not be concealed.  He went to prison for at least 3 years.

[abefroman329]

Attempted mugging, but I don't know if the perpetrator was really bad at it, or just didn't think it through, or what. It was in the lobby of our building, I told him to fuck off, and he left. It was the strangest thing. I've lived in several not-great neighborhoods rife with petty theft and walked home drunk and/or in the middle of the night and that's been it.

Oh, I did have my car stolen once. Unfortunately by then I was sick of owning one, and it was recovered one day before the insurance company would have declared it unrecoverable and just cut me a check.

[dvferyance]

I have been a victim of a victimless crime if that counts.

[MantyMadTown]

I've had money stolen from me numerous times, mostly when I lost my wallet, but the most notable occasion I can think of was when I was working at Walmart a couple weeks before I left my job two years ago. When I was working at one of the registers, this lady came to my register and short-changed me when she asked me to make change for a bunch of bills, and then asked me to do it again with the bills I just gave her. She was intentionally talking really softly so I wouldn't be able to understand her. Lost over $200 from the register that day. After that there were rules in place making sure nobody would ever fall into a scam like that again.

Fuck Walmart, but still, I wouldn't want to lose that kind of money whether it was mine or I was working with it as part of a job.

[LM117]

I had my bike stolen when I was seven years old.

Same, only I was 10.

But I did get my bike back the following day.

[abefroman329]

I have been a victim of a victimless crime if that counts.

You were punched in the dark?

[formulanone]

Two car break-ins (both over 20 years ago) and identity theft.

The latter is a far greater pain than it sounds, because your spare time for the next two weeks is vaporized, fixing the credit marks takes a lot of phone calls, and you don't trust anyone with your information.

Granted, there's a lot of information about each one of us if you know how to construct it all together. But at least my bank account info isn't one of them.

[Big John]

My residences have been burglarized twice.  Mostly electronics have been taken and never recovered. I wasn't home either time.

[Takumi]

I've had a bike stolen, and credit card info stolen (despite not using the card anywhere out of the ordinary).

[corco]

My car was stolen when I lived down in Tucson - it was 2011 and I had a 4WD 2002 Jeep Liberty - with 4WD vehicles being popular targets for thieves.

I worked the overnight shift at the time, and went outside at 9:30 PM to go to work and my car was gone. That sucked balls. They found it 10 days later in the desert outside of Sierra Vista - the initial thought was that it was folks heading to Mexico, but it turned out just to be joyriders who thought they'd have a good time off road. It took two tow trucks to get it out and the car got a good case of Arizona pinstriping as well as several minor scratches. The main mechanical damage was a brake line failure - it seems like that happened not too long after they took it out. But then to be vindictive they shattered the roof of the sunroof and stole the stock radio. They also destroyed the steering column to get it started, so it was a pretty expensive repair.

A few months later, my bike was stolen at the same apartment complex. I moved shortly thereafter.

[adventurernumber1]

I have not, but my parents have. When my parents were younger and newly married (before I was born), they lived in an apartment, and it got robbed by somebody. They lost a good bit of stuff, IIRC, including a special piece of jewelry my mother was given that had been owned by her grandmother or great-grandmother. There may have been more than one robbery that happened to them while they lived in that apartment, but I can't remember. In more recent history, my parents have had people try to jack around with their credit card, but those incidents have been resolved.

But by far the most strange, eerie, and scary incident was the fact that we may have barely missed being part of a crime several months ago when we were in San Francisco. We ended up in a bad part of town when we were trying to look for a fast-food restaurant to eat dinner at, and it was night. Even though we hadn't found one yet, I think my dad had to use the restroom really, really, really bad, and it couldn't wait (when you gotta go, you gotta go), so we stopped at a liquor store (I think that's what it was), even though we were still in a bad part of the city. Nothing happened while we were there, and after the pit-stop, we continued driving around, though trying to get out of the area. Since we were slightly lost, we ended up back at the same spot accidentally around 10 or 20 minutes later, and this is what we saw: if I recall correctly, there was an ambulance(s) and police car(s) at the exact same store my dad had stopped at earlier. I guess that means it is possible that some crime happened there after we left, and that we barely escaped possibly being a part of it. That was scary and strange as hell, and we definitely made sure to get out of there as quickly as possible after that.

[Throckmorton]

   
I was working in a small grocery/convenience store. I had worked there before, quit and went back to work again about a year and a half later. My first hour on the job of the second gig this guy, Curtis was his name, tried to rob me. I had been warned about him because he had robbed the place a couple of times before. The employee who was working the store at that time was so afraid of Curtis that he would practically throw money at him as soon as he came in. Curtis was about half my size and he stuck his hand in his pocket like he had a gun and said, "Open the register." I looked at him in disbelief. Not at the fact that  he was trying to hold me up but at the "gun in the pocket" thing. I couldn't believe anyone would think that would work.      
   
The store manager, Gary, saw all this and was hiding near the exit with the intent of grabbing Curtis before he could leave. But Gary lost the element of surprise because he started laughing when I told Curtis to, "Get the fuck out of my store."   
   
Curtis shouted at me to open the register a couple more times so I maced him and he decided that was enough. Gary tried to grab him and they wrestled around knocking over a display of two liter pop. Bottles were bouncing all over the place and 7 Up was spraying from some of them.   
   
Anyway, Curtis got away. But about thirty minutes later he pulled the same shit at another store in the area and the guy he tried to rob did have a gun. Curtis was arrested. I picked him out of a line up and testified against him in court.
   
   

[Bruce]

My house was broken into a few years ago while I was in school. They took an Xbox and two of the family's laptops (including my own, but I had decent backups at least). Insurance covered enough for me to get my current desktop PC (which is harder to move).

I've also been punched in the face by someone who didn't like the fact that I dared to use the crosswalk in front of their car. Really bizarre and I haven't heard anything back from the police department since.

Also have been kicked in the shin for trying to take pictures of a train sign by someone who thought I was photographing them. And was nearly mugged at knifepoint on the Ringbahn train in Berlin while an entire carriage of people sat without doing anything. People are really stupid.

[OracleUsr]

Got broken into twice.  Didn't know the lock on my kitchen outside door was useless and they jimmied it and took my TV, laptop, cell phone and GPS, and who knows what else.  I have an alarm system now.

[bandit957]

I was a victim of a series of home invasions in 2009-10, and the response was always, "Move to a neighborhood where this doesn't happen."

[abefroman329]

I was a victim of a series of home invasions in 2009-10, and the response was always, "Move to a neighborhood where this doesn't happen."

Pioneers get the arrows; settlers get the land.

[jeffandnicole]

(I tried being brief...it didn't work...)

I was the victim of identity theft. But whenever it happens to me, of course it's not normal.  For most people, their credit card info was hacked, or maybe they broke into their bank account.

For me, they managed to buy a brand new, $70,000 Ford F-150!

The first sign of trouble was getting an insurance policy for the vehicle from an insurance company I don't have any policies with.  I called them up and explained the situation.  I gave them the policy number and my name and address.  Then they asked for other identifying info, such as birthdate, last 4 of SS, etc.  Nothing was matching up.  So they couldn't talk to me about "my" policy. Eventually I asked to talk to their fraud department.  After waiting about 15 seconds I could tell I wasn't put on hold.  I said something, and they said they couldn't transfer me because I couldn't identify "my" account!  I finally was able to talk to a supervisor who said they probably just input info wrong and I'd get a call back in a few days (I never did get that call back).

A few days later, I get a Mastercard in the mail for Dicks Sporting Goods. Then I knew there was an issue.  I called the credit card company up and told them I think this was opened without authorization.  The phone rep looked it up, noted that no purchases were made on it, and closed it.  He even told me where it was opened - in NYC somewhere.  Other than a letter confirming the card was closed, that was the end of that issue.

But then I look at my credit report, and that's when I found the Ford Motor Credit loan for the Ford F-150!  It's been a year now so I forget the exact details, but I did find out it was purchased at McCafferty Ford in Langhorne, PA.  I called them up and told the receptionist about the issue.  I was transferred to the sales manager.  I explained that a Ford F-150 was bought by "me", but it wasn't me because I was never there.  I'm pretty sure I heard his jaw hit the floor on the phone.  He basically said that was impossible.  During our conversation I was able to get a phone number from him that was used (that turned out to be useless, at least for me). 

After that, I went to the State Police barricks nearby, just because of the type of crime it was. I had no clue how the guy was going to use this vehicle, such as in a crime, and my name is all over it.  The State Trooper looked up the VIN number and said nothing was known about it, but to file a report I would need to go to my township police department.

When I did that, at first the officer wasn't terribly interested in the issue.  But I pressed I needed a police report. He took my info. 

Back at home, I did a little more research and saw that another account of mine wasn't mine - from a motorcycle/watercraft dealership.  I called them up and told them the situation.  The rep noted there was nothing purchased.  We're talking for another minute or so when he suddenly says "uh-oh"...and noted that there was a $8,000 pending charge on the account!  My heart sank again!

The next day I get a call from a detective at the police dept, and I give him all the info I know.  I could tell he wasn't completely believing my story here, never hearing of such a case.

A few days later I call back the CC company of the motorcycle dealership, as I wound up receiving that credit card in the mail.  The rep said, no problem, the account was closed and there was no balance on the account.  I asked about the pending charge and he said nope, it was declined. Thank goodness!  I eventually learned here that the person trying to buy something came back without the credit card, trying to buy something with the drivers license as ID.  The staff/manager was a bit suspicious, and he appearntly just walked out!  Thank goodness!!

But back to the truck - so, what I learned: The person had a license made with my name and address, but everything else was faked - DL number, birthdate, etc.  The picture was of the criminal - a different race than mine.  He was able to purchase the vehicle without registering it, and apparently never did. The insurance policy was purchased using another credit card - not one of mine or anything in my name - and the minimal policy was purchased.  Oh, and there were no cameras at the dealership!

After what turned out to be a brief investigation, it was quickly determined it wasn't me.  That was a lifesavor - I had received the first statement in the mail, for $1,100 or so for the truck.  Talked to Ford Motor Credit, and did what I had to do to resolve that. 

The detective ultimately did a lot of great work, talked with a few other police agencies around the state who had similar cases, but in the end the county didn't want to pursue the case.  I'm thinking, probably because in the end I was out very little money - mostly mailings for the credit reporting agencies.   Eventually, my credit never took a hit for any of this, because of how quick everything happened and was ultimately resolved. 

As for the guy - he was known to have done this in a few other occasions, including some active cases.  He had already been caught previously and was in jail for it.  He got out and apparently continued to do it.  As for the vehicle, I've never heard about it.  As someone told me, hopefully it was put on a ship and sent out of the country before anyone knew what happened.  Just a month or two after this, someone used a Home Depot truck to run over some bicycling tourists in NYC.  That was my fear that the truck would be used in a crime like this!

[TheHighwayMan3561]

I've been murdered three times. It sucked.