Post by Admin on Dec 17, 2014 0:04:37 GMT -5
Hi all. I don't know why I'm taking so long to talk about this but I do feel like I need to warn my neighbors. One weeknight last week, I was returning from the gym and having a cigarette (yes, I know) when I came across two guys arguing loudly and violently on the front steps of the house on Chancellor (the one right next to Club Philadelphia). I wasn't really threatened by it because I was standing at the corner of Camac & Chancellor just finishing my cigarette.
Suddenly, one of the two guys was coming toward me. I looked up because he was demanding loudly "What are you doing? Having a cigarette?" I figured he wanted one. I held up my cigarette, basically to say 'Yes, that's what I'm doing.' Then he started yelling, telling me to go smoke my cigarette somewhere else. Not even a full second passed before he screamed at me "I said go somewhere else. I don't ask twice!" Well, in truth he didn't "ask" once. But that was beside the point because at around this time, he pulled out a telescoping police baton, threw it open, and whipped it against the sidewalk. I immediately turned and walked away. I hadn't said a word and hadn't provoked him. As I walked away from this obvious drug addict...who was holding what is clearly an illegal weapon...which he had just used to threaten me, he decided to yell after me "Fat ass bitch."
"Fat ass bitch." That is one classy drug addict. (Just for added flavor: I'm 6'1", 170 lbs, and have a 31" waist. The verdict may be out on whether I'm a bitch but I hardly qualify as a fat ass.)
When I got back into our building, reeling from the fact that I had in fact just been threatened with a deadly weapon, I thought about the irony. There are cameras in that alley. It's a special kind of meth head who is so stupid he takes out an illegal weapon and loudly threatens an innocent bystander without thinking to check for security cameras. I thought about calling the police but I could see from my apartment that he and the other guy (who he was also threatening but not with a weapon) had disappeared--I assume into that house next to Club Philadelphia.
I also thought about how I often think about getting a handgun for protection. I hate the idea of guns but I was mugged a few years ago by a man with a gun and now this event has happened. If I'd had a gun with me at that moment, I would have probably shot him dead on the spot. Of course, I know there are cameras there. But I also know he had pulled an illegal weapon and was threatening me with it from a distance of four or five feet. He could have hit me with that weapon from where he was standing. The cops would have watched the video and seen that I'd shot him to death in self defense. That drug addict scumbag would be dead and I'd have walked away scott-free. My conscience would maybe bother me a bit. Well, maybe it would if he hadn't had to add the "fat ass bitch" comment.
Anyway, I wrote all of this as a sort of catharsis but the point of it is really to let you all know to be careful. Security cameras are great but they don't help much if violent criminals are too stupid to know they're there.
Suddenly, one of the two guys was coming toward me. I looked up because he was demanding loudly "What are you doing? Having a cigarette?" I figured he wanted one. I held up my cigarette, basically to say 'Yes, that's what I'm doing.' Then he started yelling, telling me to go smoke my cigarette somewhere else. Not even a full second passed before he screamed at me "I said go somewhere else. I don't ask twice!" Well, in truth he didn't "ask" once. But that was beside the point because at around this time, he pulled out a telescoping police baton, threw it open, and whipped it against the sidewalk. I immediately turned and walked away. I hadn't said a word and hadn't provoked him. As I walked away from this obvious drug addict...who was holding what is clearly an illegal weapon...which he had just used to threaten me, he decided to yell after me "Fat ass bitch."
"Fat ass bitch." That is one classy drug addict. (Just for added flavor: I'm 6'1", 170 lbs, and have a 31" waist. The verdict may be out on whether I'm a bitch but I hardly qualify as a fat ass.)
When I got back into our building, reeling from the fact that I had in fact just been threatened with a deadly weapon, I thought about the irony. There are cameras in that alley. It's a special kind of meth head who is so stupid he takes out an illegal weapon and loudly threatens an innocent bystander without thinking to check for security cameras. I thought about calling the police but I could see from my apartment that he and the other guy (who he was also threatening but not with a weapon) had disappeared--I assume into that house next to Club Philadelphia.
I also thought about how I often think about getting a handgun for protection. I hate the idea of guns but I was mugged a few years ago by a man with a gun and now this event has happened. If I'd had a gun with me at that moment, I would have probably shot him dead on the spot. Of course, I know there are cameras there. But I also know he had pulled an illegal weapon and was threatening me with it from a distance of four or five feet. He could have hit me with that weapon from where he was standing. The cops would have watched the video and seen that I'd shot him to death in self defense. That drug addict scumbag would be dead and I'd have walked away scott-free. My conscience would maybe bother me a bit. Well, maybe it would if he hadn't had to add the "fat ass bitch" comment.
Anyway, I wrote all of this as a sort of catharsis but the point of it is really to let you all know to be careful. Security cameras are great but they don't help much if violent criminals are too stupid to know they're there.
