I love Swansea....
....this QOTW is depressing. Since living in Swansea I have;
1-witnessed more car-crime than most people, including going through a phase where a car was torched behind my house every other day for 6 months.
2-been mugged when I was 8. My dad did catch the bastard and give him a right tuning too bless.
3-found out that an old class-mate who I bought an Atari 2600 off was actually a hunted and later convicted serial rapist.
4-had an old next-door neighbor who'se son was involved in the Danny Dyke murder (big case in the 80's, look it up).
5-been setup for mass theft by an ex-boss, who was later found out to be the bastard who did it (a previous QOTW entry).
6-had a work colleague get beaten to death because of an argument outside a kebab house.
7-been attacked by a pitbull while the owner uselessly shouted orders from 50 yards away.
8-had a gun stuck in my face in a pub I used to work in.
9-lost a few friends to drugs and street crime when they had the potential to make something of their lives.
10-attacked by a bloke while I was on my way home from a friends. I shook the attack off, and 3 weeks later the same guy murdered his girlfriend.

Christ. There are others, alot more others actually. I'm moving somewhere safer, like Iran or something.
( Jeccius Steam Borderlands 2 junkie, Sat 16 Feb 2008, 19:06, 3 replies)

...and another car related story.
Me and me mate are waiting by a bus stop on the way for some jars at teh pub, when we see a small white transit van speeding down the road adjacent to the road we were standing on. We hear a loud bang as one of the tires blows under the pressure, and the van skids to a halt. With that, 6 chav midget kids bounce out of all the doors and run like fuck in all directions.

Me and me mate are stunned by this, then after 2 minutes we decide "Awww fuck, we're going to have to call this in." We start walking to a phonebox just up the road when we see something different. The chavs have returned, and are looking in the back of the little van. They come out with the SPARE TIRE AND JACK, and change the fucking tire right in front of us. Once done, they hop back in and burn rubber into the distance.

I never did make that call.
( Jeccius Steam Borderlands 2 junkie, Sat 16 Feb 2008, 18:55, Reply)

Bad Driving and Granny Bullying
Me and a friend were wondering down a road in Swansea on the way to get a bus to teh pub, when as we are passing some shops we hear some cars screeching. We glance up the road and see two cars; a dark green Volvo with an old couple driving it and a red Cortina right up it's arse trying to overtake them. As they reach the shops, the Cortina overtakes them ON THE LEFT, using the shop parking spaces to undertake and colliding with the wing of the Volvo and bringing both cars to a halt right besides us.

A giant of a man gets out of the Cortina, looking quite angry and walks up to the elderly woman driver, who'se looking quite obviously shaken up by the whole thing.

"Sorry love, didn't mean it, but I've gotta go, we'll sort insurance out later." With this he spins on his heel and goes to get back into his car.
"Sorry, but I need your insurance details now sir" says the madam, who'se still absorbing what's happening.
With this, he turns back around and menacingly walks up to her, sticking his chest out and looking more taller and threatening than he already did.
"Why, what the fuck are you going to do about it if I don't?" says the thug.
"Me, nothing. But my husband is a Police Officer, and I'm sure he can find something to do..." With this, the elderly man gets out of the car holding his Police I.D., the thug is holding his jaw just off the floor and I'm holding my sides pissing myself laughing.

Awesome :D
( Jeccius Steam Borderlands 2 junkie, Sat 16 Feb 2008, 18:41, 1 reply)

In a very similar story to shegetz one
I was Mugged in Nottingham... sorta.

I was drunk; incredibly so- the type where you lean against a wall, loll your head about and laugh at your own reflection in the mirror- and I had my phone out texting some girl I had met earlier (probably with "secks pls" or some other derivative.)

Tall, black very gangsta looking dude walks up to me. He's a living sterotype, he looks like one of the cosby kids- so I laugh at him.

"Give me ya phone!" he says

"naaah" I say

"Nah you don't understand mate... give me ya fuckin phone!" he replied, getting pretty angry

drunkenly I entered a giggling fit- "YOU give me YOUR phone! Hehehehehe!"





"...N-no?" He said, actually looking hurt.


"WELL then," I say, and stumbled off

About twenty seconds later I realised he was trying to mug me, and cried.
( KernKraft Gosh, there isn't much noise outside today, Sat 16 Feb 2008, 17:50, 2 replies)

Held at "gun point"
A year ago now my flatmate and I were walking back home along a busy street in Edinburgh. The night was cold but beers were keeping us warm, almost. Then, a few hundred meters away we see a guy stumbling along with no shirt on... it's pretty damn cold... but we ignore it, he gets closer, yup no shirt and visibly swaying... must be out of a club and going to get a taxi...
We pass, or i do, the guy grabs my flatmate by the throat and demands his shirt. By the time i turn around the guy has a gun pointed at my mates head! Over a shirt!... but wait... it hasn't got a handle... and has a screen...and buttons...it's a phone...being held up by a phone...what a twat
Then the shock wears off, the guys grip slowly loosens, his arm drops down from the effort of holding it up, his whole body droops and he falls to the ground.
So we wander off laughing about it leaving the guy sprawled on the pavement.
(Malcav, Sat 16 Feb 2008, 17:19, Reply)

crap hostage taker
I once worked for a high street computer shop, small by name, now defunct. Some customer bought a PC and had a problem, but all 'support' was done via phone, not from the store, thus giving us more time to satisfy other customers with high quality PCs.

This particular customer took exception and threatened to stage a protest in store, although there was naff all we could do for him, as much as we may (or may not) have wanted to. So he rolls up one Saturday morning with a length of chain, announces that he's going to lock himself in and gives everyone the chance to leave, before locking the chain around the doors.

We call the police, told them he was armed with a deadly weapon (ie chain) and waited for the snipers to appear and take him out. We tried to appeal to his better nature to open the doors to avoid trouble with the law. The police appear outside and ask him to open the doors. Which he does without problem. No standoff, no negotiators, no snipers, no free lunch bought and passed over in paper bags for the poor hostages.

In the end we gave him a 19" monitor and he buggered off. Pathetic.
(randomstupidname would really like this signature field to be bigge, Sat 16 Feb 2008, 17:17, 3 replies)

Im not sure if it is crime
but my neighbor over the street got thrown out of his front window during an argument.
( willenium Fist bump for verification, Sat 16 Feb 2008, 17:09, 1 reply)

get up a get, get, get down
911 is a joke in yow town.

And frankly, if even a grown man who wears a clock thinks you're a joke, you're a joke.
(apeloverage committed the vile act of onanism on, Sat 16 Feb 2008, 17:07, 1 reply)

I saw a hit and run once..
..but couldn't see out of my rear view mirror with great ease because I was pissed!
( The Gentleman Bastard waxing lyrical. ©, Sat 16 Feb 2008, 16:44, Reply)

Rowntrees
My friend was once walking down the street in a not so nice area of London when a not so nice guy came up to him on a shiny mountain bike and demanded his phone, lest he be stabbed.

My friend, being of the small persuasion, decided to oblige and handed over his shit old nokia. At that moment a police siren went off at the other end of the street and the mugger got spooked and ran off with the phone... leaving the shiny bike and my slightly non-plussed friend.

He looked around, slowly picked up the mugger's bike and wheeled it away. Turned out to be worth about 300 quid when the phone only cost about 40. Must be the most profitable mugging ever...
(Bod's Dream, Sat 16 Feb 2008, 16:10, 1 reply)

Somebody tried to mug my dad once.
We think he must have been drunk. Very drunk. You see he was ,in my dad's own words, "Five foot and a fag end" and built like a walking stick.
My dad on the other hand was six foot of burly, truck-driving ex-soldier who had boxed for his regiment until he got banned for kicking his opponent in the bollocks. And meek and mild he was not.
He demanded my dad's wallet.Dad told him to piss off. He demanded the wallet again. Dad, again, told him to piss off. Mugger chappie threw a wild haymaker that missed by a yard and promptly walked into my dad's onrushing left fist. Mugger chappie flew backwards into a hedge and dad wandered off.
The end.
(Big D, Sat 16 Feb 2008, 15:48, Reply)

Biscuit Theft
This happened a couple of months ago.

I was in my local Co-op, buying horrible and cheap noodles (as you do) when I walked past the biscuit isle.

It was there where I saw it happen. A man in his 30's was taking packets of biscuits off the shelves handing them to a small child (about 8 or 9) who was then putting them its his bag. After several packets had gone into the childs bag, the small boy walked out of the store, followed by the man a few moments later.

Obviously enough, I was rather confused. But for some odd reason, It didn't process with me what I had just seen. I payed for my noodles and left.

I had got home, sat down, turned on the telly, and then it hit me...

"You dumb fuck" I said to myself. I still don't know why I did nothing. There was an employee in the previous isle. Why didn't I tell him?

It really irritates me now.

I know theres nothing particularly funny about this story, but I thought I'd better get it off my chest.
(DanS like you've never DanSed before!, Sat 16 Feb 2008, 15:24, 2 replies)

Gun Crime
Working in a well known London Armoury in the late 80s, one Saturday afternoon I had a visit from 2 blokes in their mid 20s. They were asking about this and that, they'd obviously spent the lunchtime in the pub, and they were taking the piss out of the Gat Gun. The Gat Gun is the lousiest excuse for an airgun. It has a range of about 5 yards, the most proposterous loading mechanism, and is incredibly cheap (about £12 at the time). The successor to the pistol was the Gat rifle, a large version that was really an attempt to make a poor gun look even more pathetic. It worked, and in all my time there I never sold one. Anyway, these 2 guys were asking if it would kill someone. One was arguing it wouldn't when I said it would. If I hit them with the butt hard enough around the head it'd kill them.
Fast forward what must have only been weeks later, and guess who should appear on Crimewatch for armed robbery. I did the just thing, and phoned up. If they hadn't taken the mick I might have let them off...
(Rikaitch is full of crap ideas., Sat 16 Feb 2008, 13:58, Reply)

crap drug dealer
More crime prevention than anything, but it makes me giggle...

I work in my dad's pub, which is in a nice area of a shit city. Nothing criminal usually occurs there, apart from cheap fags and so on doing the rounds. Everyone knows each other, everyone (generally) likes each other. It's a bit like a small backwater village, but in a city. You get the picture.

So. A while back, some slightly dodgy types started coming in. They didn't do anything obvious, but didn't talk to anyone, and had a general air of suspicion around them - you know, one of them went to the loos, only to be followed by another after 30 seconds... I didn't like them, they were rude when they came to the bar.

Anyways, one of them smashes a glass by mistake. So dutiful barmaid (moi) goes over with a dustpan and brush to sweep up... Lo and behold, there's a small baggie on the floor with an extremely suspicious looking substance in it. (I don't do drugs so I can't tell you what it was but I think it was crack). So I quickly palm it and call my dad into the back to give it to him. We weren't sure who's it was though, so rather than risk shit going down, we decided to keep quiet, sure in the knowledge that the criminal would reveal himself.

About 2 minutes later, one of them leans back and casually puts his hands in his pockets. His eyes go cartoon-wide, and we know we have our man. He then (trying to be casual but actually looking like he's shitting his pants. He may have well been.) puts his hands in his other pockets. Nothing. All pretence of casual-nosity abandoned, he stands up and starts patting himself down, even going so far as to taking his shoes off and trying to empty them out. He then runs to the loos so fast he trips over the brass bar at the bottom of the bar and does a perfect somersault. My dad, having decided he's suffered enough, calls him over to the bar. 'X!' he shouts, 'looking for something?' X comes over very quietly and my dad shows him the find. Now, as I have said, the pub is a nice, local pub. It's the kind of place you can bring your wife and children, safe in the knowledge they won't be carried off by marauding vikings and suchlike. Not only did X ask for his drugs back, he was also genuinely shocked when he was barred..

At least it got rid of them.

So, like I say, not actually witnessing a crime, but that somersault was of near-olympian standards....


Length? about 5 pebble shaped bits, each about 1cm.
(BelladonnaAnodyne Melissa's gonna wet herself, I swear..., Sat 16 Feb 2008, 13:51, Reply)

Meth lab
Way back when, when I was happily married (it's only been 5 weeks, I'm still bitter), we lived in a building next to a druggie.
We knew he was a druggie, as people were dropping by at all times of the day and night, there were regular fights and one day some guy was banging on their door yelling for his crank.

One night, I'm driving home from work and the local police followed me through the neighborhood and into the parking lot. As I pull into my parking space, blue and red lights start flashing and I'm told to get out of the car with my hands up above my head.
They were pretty brutal, ask what I'm doing there and when I proved to them I lived there they let me go.
10 minutes later, husband gets the same treatment.

About an hour after that, there's an announcement over a loudspeaker for everyone to stay inside their apartments. Everyone ignored it and we joined the neighbors for a closer look. The fire department and the police had just busted a meth lab. Local druggie was no more.

Length? He got 8 years.
( Batshitmentalist is sane for once, Sat 16 Feb 2008, 13:40, 1 reply)

Alright then...
...as I've said, I've seen a fair bit, and no small slice of it from my own family. Fancy a bit of length? Okay then.

An auntie of mine, passed away now, hooked up with a very nasty man named Johnny some decades ago. An ice-cold and more than fairly sociopathic petty criminal with anything-goes attitudes to offensive weapons, human rights, lawful conduct and general morality. She and her daughter endured him for a number of years until she let him know it was time to leave by sweetening a cup of tea made for him with slug pellets. She ended up telling him before he drank it - he made his displeasure visibly clear on her, but he left.

Of course, he was a pariah amongst the family for ever after, and turned up here and there mostly to terrorise younger members of the family. He never bothered any of the blokes though because most of them were big lads, and a number of them either squaddies or ex-squaddies. All that stopped at least for one cousin, who had suffered Johnny's attentions pretty much throughout his adolescence. He was mostly grown up when playing pool in a local pub one time when Johnny walks in and spots him. Of course he starts up with the grief, which this time ends with Johnny on his back on the pool table taking repeated blows from a pool cue with fondest regards from my cousin. He made his exit at his soonest opportunity but came in again about half-an-hour later offering my cousin 'outside', but he wasn't an idiot and he had had the misfortune to come to know this bloke well. 'What, have you got your knife now? Look, I'm a lot bigger now and you can't beat me with your hands anymore which says it all so just fuck off'. And with a curt 'This isn't over mate', Johhny did exactly that. That family member didn't personally have any more trouble with him, so in addition to everything else he was full of shit too.

The next time I heard of him, and the first time I got a close look at him was when my brother had hooked and shacked up with this quite frankly appalling smackhead witch from down south, moved up here because of trouble for her and hers down there. She's another story in herself, but her bad judgment is a factor here as one time my brother arrived back to find Johnny sat in the living room skinning up some hash he'd just bought. My brother was naturally WTF but didn't dare ask the mean bastard to leave. It went pear-shaped thanks to a mate of my brother's, who stole Johnny's weed off the table when he went for a piss. Johnny looked to my brother to explain it, and this being Johnny, my brother chose to avoid what would be a very painful inquisition by escaping out of the window. This only strengthened Johnny's resolve, and so my brother came home to us, completely shit-scared. I've mentioned this time before briefly in another post, but it's at this point my mum got involved. {MUM-RECAP; career mother until we grew up, has taught karate locally with my stepdad for decades, has a respectable Dan grade herself and working as a high school teacher now} Johnny and my mum stood there in front of this daft bint's house just out of reach but squared off all the same whilst my mum tried to talk some sense into him - they both knew perfectly well who one another was, and so I think neither wanted it to really come to blows. My mum could probably have handled him, but even if she had, he would still have run into my stepdad by no accident not long after and probably never been the same. My stepdad didn't break much bread with the family at large and thought my brother was a waste-of-space, but anyone who even tried to hurt my mum would be dealt with most efficiently. I was stood off to the side the entire time, more than a little anxious but ready to jump on the fucker's back if he went for my mum - I was only about 14 at this time, and a bit of a softarse. But my mum, my amazing mum managed to convince this psycho that my brother didn't do it, and set him on his way peacefully for what was possibly the first time ever. The freakiest part of that part is that from then on, my mum became the only human being in our knowledge that he regarded with any respect. She said he told her 'You're the only person that's ever talked straight with me'. Strange how some things turn out.

Unfortunately, he was no less of an aggravation to the rest of the family. A couple of years later another aunt, a well-loved and regarded matriarch in the family passed away. After the memorial service we had arranged to take the lounge room at a local - the very same local and very same room where my cousin had vindicated himself some years before. We were all catching up with one another as you do at funerals, when one of the girls piped up to say that the lads (referring to the squaddie contingent of the family, who'd been taking a quiet pint at the bar) had spotted Johnny in the other side of the pub, he'd spotted them and been observed asking about them of the bar staff. Minutes later, he came into the lounge side and took up next to the lads at the bar, offering them a drink. They refused, he persisted, they explained the situation and indicated that the family would like some space. His response? 'Yeah, I heard.' Not a flicker of sympathy or sorrow. Then he started to insult our recently departed. Well, he tried, but he didn't finish the first attempt before one of the lads, in from out-of-town to pay his respects reached over and smacked him, telling him to get the fuck out. Again, he left with a 'This isn't over mate.' and this time we locked the door after him. Sadly though this time he meant it.

About 40mins later another one of the lads, an uncle who had retired from the army to live nearby a couple of years previous, got a call on the pub phone from his hysterical daughter at their home. A few of the kids were too young for the pub so this daughter had been selected to babysit them at their house for a couple of hours. She was 13 or so at the time I think, but a level-headed girl. Not so much so at this moment though as she screamed at her dad to please come home, which he did very quickly with a few others to find the front window and door window smashed with broken glass and screaming children being very much the motif. My cousin had heard a knock at the door so had gone to answer it with the youngest of her charges in one arm. A 'mean looking' man at the door asked if this was the house where {her dad's name} lived. She didn't know him as up to now she'd spent most of her life on one army base or another abroad with her mum and dad, so she confirmed it. At this, he picked up an empty milk bottle from the step and drew his arm back to throw it right at her. My cousin screamed, slammed the door and ran down the hall with the baby in both her arms now, but she wasn't halfway before the milk bottle came through the door window, smashing both. He broke the other window with another bottle and chucked one more through that before he ran off, with my cousin and four little kids terrified on the inside. The police were called once we’d calmed the kids down, but we knew they'd find him by accident if at all. So we made enquiries of our own.

This actually did make the last time that Johnny bothered us because of another uncle, in the family by marriage to the same aunt who had endured this guy as a partner almost 20 years earlier. This uncle was a very quiet man, mostly an unknown quantity but making an honest living and good as gold to my aunt and her daughter, when to be honest both could try the patience of a saint at times lol. He found out where Johnny was hiding the evening of that same day, but instead of alerting the rest of us he got a tyre iron out of his car and went the short walk to where he was. He knew the people who lived at the place where Johnny was and they knew why my uncle had paid them a visit - everyone knew we were looking for him. They asked my uncle to take it easy and let him in. He walked in and came upon Johnny sat on the kitchen table laughing with a spliff in his mouth. My uncle pulled the tyre iron out and whacked him in the head with it, smacking him on his back on the table and near-knocking him cold. He was still awake though as my uncle used the tyre iron to break one of his arms and both of his kneecaps, pointing out as he lay there on the table screaming that it's not as easy to terrorise someone who isn't a 13-year-old-girl, but if that didn't do it, then he'd soon find something more final to solve the problem. He paused only to apologise to the couple there for the trouble before walking back home. The hospital involved the police, but they found that not one soul would tell them who did it - not even Johnny. Given our own recent complaint against him, they easily put two-and-two together I'd expect (if probably not guessed exactly who it was because it surprised the hell out of all of us), but I’d say the police no doubt thought of it as a problem they no longer had to solve and were secretly grateful. This man really was a piece of work, and this here has barely scratched the surface of even his unsavoury endeavours, so they were aware of him with some clarity and detail. I'll admit, they were aware of some of us too for a number of reasons but none of us were ever like him.

And like I say, after that he never troubled any of us again. He died of Meningitis a few years later, so that's a factor more recently I suppose. No-one I know has missed him. Once.

But do you see? I've not only witnessed crimes more often than I can actually recall, I've witnessed crime storylines, and some that span decades.
(thatblokeoverthere not quite as much an arsehole as I thought, Sat 16 Feb 2008, 13:33, 8 replies)

Salford has shit muggers.
Something similar, though with less bravado, to Tony_'s post below happened to me when I was up there last year as a student. I'd been out on the serious lash the previous night and had stumbled into a 9am lecture like the living dead, and was just stumbling back to my halls when one of Manchester's knife-weilding little scamps rode up on a rediculously small bike.

"Give us yer wallet" said he.
"Mnnngh?" said I.
"and your phone, now, you cunt!" he replied.
"fuck off mate" was my response, not at all out of bravery but entirely out of semi-consciousness after no sleep and a good portion of the north-west's whisky intake for the month the previous night.

So off he fucked. That was easy.

It took until I got into my flat before I realised what had just happened and I nearly shat myself that I probably came very close to being stabbed. I think the only thing that saved me was my previously-mentioned resemblance to the living dead, and I think my appearance and speech probably made the little shit think I was one of the many crackheads that litter the streets of Manchester, and the little scrote probably thought that it's not worth getting into a knife-fight with a crackhead over whatever they've scraped together to buy their next rock, because, having seen fights in the town where other chav/scallies/whatever they call them up there had tried mugging crackheads, they defend that money to the fucking death.
( Shegetz Chris Kamara's comedy moustache, Sat 16 Feb 2008, 13:25, Reply)

Pervland, sex offender capital of the world
In addition to seeing my friend get her bag snatched through an open window in my halls (and have her complaint waved away by the apathetic staff with little more than a "oh, sorry about that, it happens"), I never really felt safe in the city itself. As well as all the usual leering pervy men (who would be of any age between 16 and dressed like chavs, and 60 and wizened) who would follow you and yell "che bella!" etcetera at you till either told to fuck off or laughed at until they went away (or my favourite: pretending to speak neither English nor Italian, Welsh was my favourite to use), there were the extremely persistent and greasy gypsy women who hung around on Piazza del Campo trying to get money out of the tourists by rattling a battered plastic cup repeatedly in their faces until told to bugger off enough times that it sank in, when they would shuffle away and mentally putting a jihad/curse thing on you. Not fun. Then there were the bag sellers who were usually selling cheap knockoff "Luis Vution" and "Guce" handbags and whose favourite way of getting your attention was "nice girl!" and grabbing your arm when you tried to escape. They were usually quite hard to get to leave you alone, too.

Another evening when I was happily ensconced in the internets I frequented (I had access to weak wifi at home but it turned off if you coughed and I couldn't get to b3ta for some reason), I suddenly became aware of someone sitting to my left. I looked to the side, and at the next PC was a man in his late fifties, if not sixties, wearing two pairs of glasses one on top of the other and looking a lot like Chris de Burgh. The motion that had caught my eye was the fact he was parading his (fully clothed, thankfully) self in front of the helpfully-provided webcam. Doing little turns and showing his tiny skinny frame off.

Curious, I had a better look at what he was doing and put my limited Italian to use. The chat window on the screen was bordered with lots of pictures of naked ladies and had "SEXY CHAT" across it in huge letters. The conversation within was somewhat disturbing:

Man: you're cute. How old are you?
Girl: :) 15 thank you
Man: I'm oooooooooooooooold.
Girl: :) [custom icon of naked lady fwapping] hihi you look good

It was then that I realised he had about six similar windows open, and over the course of furtive glances over the next few minutes I realised all the tabs he had open were pr0n and meet-up-for-sexytime sites. All featuring girls who much much less than half his age.

This frankly made me feel sick to my stomach: I wasn't sure what the age of consent was in Italy and I figured that if he was in fact a big paedo I was going to have to say something (not long before this, someone got done for online grooming in Geneva in a net café while I was living in Lausanne so it must have occurred to me that it was likely). Feeling a bit like Chloe O'Brian from 24 I Googled "age of consent Italy" and found that it was in fact fourteen. I did feel sick enough to log off and go home, though; some of the things he was saying to her and that she was saying to him made me need to go home and look at kittins.

The worst thing, however, was one day when, having finished a gelato and a sit down on the piazza, I decided to head for my favourite internets café , and in walking the few hundred yards to get there, I was nearly accosted by a creepy looking guy. This was nothing out of the ordinary really so I quickened my pace and kept looking ahead of me, and while I am doing this I see another guy walking towards me, obviously half cut on something and has the trademark Pervland "look at me I'm all that" swagger to his walk all the same. It's only as I'm a foot or so away that he looks at me with a look like Rik Waller would look at a plate of pies and I realise all too late that his flies are undone and his pants - if any - are too.

This means that his length and girth are swaying gently in the Tuscan breeze. This all takes a few seconds to register and so by the time the thought "he had his cock out!" occurs to me, he's some way down the road. I settled for yelling "pervert!" Vicky Pollard style and legging it to my internets (and spending the next hour on MSN with my mum at first freaking out and then laughing at it).

Length? I only got a split second glance, but it was a hot day. All the same, some things are best not known.
( Maladicta, Sat 16 Feb 2008, 12:07, Reply)

freddie's other sister
somewhere buried back on one of the earlier pages - i don't do clever linky things as i am computer illiterate - i told the story of my friend's older sister who had to jump off her balcony to avoid being murdered.

anyway, his younger sister maria has a flat in the same block. she lives there with her mad sportsplaying flatmate, but as is the way in london, they seldom see each other. so maria comes home one night, makeup off, teeth cleaned, nightie on, gets into bed, lights out, sleep.

at about 3am she was woken up by her bedroom window smashing open and two men dressed in black from head to foot, including balaclavas, swinging through it on ropes.

as you can imagine, maria was absolutely terrified; she was half sitting in bed, and she said she was too scared to scream. the two men were swearing (in english this time frank!!) to each other about breaking the window and why it hadn't been open.

then maria's flatmate came running in, hockey stick in hand, saw the two men and started screaming. the men jumped a mile, then they clocked maria in the bed and started swearing again.

anyway, it turned out that there was a suspected terrorist living in the flat next door and the two men were policemen, part of a planned raid on the block. they were to be stationed on her balcony in case he tried to escape that way somehow, but it hadn't quite gone to plan. all the other neighbours had been evacuated for the night, but somehow maria's flat had been missed out.

meanwhile the unfortunate suspected terrorist, when they got him, was nothing of the sort and ended up getting rather a lot of compensation from the taxpayer.

ok, fine, it's not a crime exactly (apart from the criminal stupidity of the police) and i didn't witness it either. but chthonic's blurb says "whatever" so i am putting this under that category, ok?
( rachelswipe with a fork, Sat 16 Feb 2008, 11:52, 2 replies)

I got held up in an armed robbery
I worked in a spar type shop with my flatmate at university. One Monday we had, had absolutely no one in so we had the shop ready for close bang on 10pm and sauntered off home. Walking past the alley way the back of the shops backs onto and spotting a car full of blokes. We continue our journey, all of about 50 yards back to our house when the car appears, slamming on its breaks behind us and two of the guys jump out brandishing rather large knives. They told us to get in the car and I was rather shocked and told him where to go. he replied that my mate was in the car and that I didn't want to leave him alone. So in I got.

They drove the car to the back of the shop and demanded the back door key to shop. We pointed out that we only had the key for the front, so eventually my flatmate took one of them round the front to open up the back door from the inside. At which point the silent of alarm should have gone off (as he had typed in the closing code). Eventually the back door is opened and in we are chaperoned.

They told me to sit on the big metal box and then demand to know where the safe is. I pointed out that I was sitting on it. Eventually we are pushed into the front of the shop to empty the ciggy counter and give them the top shelf whisky. We also handed over the phone cards as they where getting pissed off they couldn't get in the real ciggy counter out back, and that they couldn't get into the safe. They also went for the float, which was all 2ps and 1ps due to the slow nature of that night.

Eventually they put us in the kitchenette out back, pulled the door shut and stacked crates of beer against the door. Unsurprisingly the door gave in over the weight. We waved at them the said if we came out they'd stab us. We stayed there until we couldn't hear the car and did the whole calling the police business and didn't get in till very late that night.
(el_meerkat, Sat 16 Feb 2008, 11:09, Reply)

i missed it...
one night a few months ago, directly across the road, someone's car got torched. not just burnt out, but it exploded, setting off house and car alarms, including my own which is parked directly under my bedroom window.
these details were filled in by my neighbour the next morning as i slept through the whole thing.
i used to joke about being able to sleep through a bomb going off. it is no longer a joke.
(polished turd 404 pixels wide, Sat 16 Feb 2008, 10:07, Reply)

Hong Kong Triads
When i was about 18, I was enjoying my year off in Hong Kong. One Friday evening I had met up with some old primary school friends & had gone to a party.

Lots of cheap booze etc, one particular chap was quite mouthy & being rather annoying in the corner, obviously getting more & more drunk & with it more annoying. We all knew that his evening wasn't going to end well as he was being quite racist as well - it was only a matter of time.

We got bored of the party & went down to Lang Kwai Fong - a bar district on a very steep hill. A few hours pass when there is a commotion & a scream from outside. The next thing we see is the annoying bloke running very fast down the hill, in hot pursuit were 3 or 4 Chinese guys in white T-shirts, blue jeans & DM boots (triad foot soldier attire so I was told on the night).

They were not just running after him, but taking advantage of the steep incline of the hill to jump & do impressive spin kicks in the air. Was just like watching a Kung Fu film.

I think he got what was coming to him.
(Baron Greenback Still in Sunny Singapore, Sat 16 Feb 2008, 7:37, 1 reply)

Edinburgh
When I was a student living in Edinburgh I often found myself walking down Foutainbrige road at night, stoned. My mate lived at the other end of the road, see, and his gaff was nicer than mine.
Anywho, I'm walking down said road when some woman comes running towards me screaming "HELP". She was clearly in distress and was being pursued by a rather large, scary man who was naked from the waist up.
She sees me and asks me to call the police. He sees me and says that if I do he's going to cut my fucking throat. What to do, what to do?
This was pre mobile phone days so I had to find some other way of alerting the police to the nasty little scene that was being played out not 5 meters from me. He had her pushed up against the wall and was strangling her. I looked on, stunned, for a minute and then realised I really needed to do something. There were no phone boxes about and most shops were closed apart from a fish and chip shop a few meters up the road. I ran in and told the old woman behind the counter that she needed to call the police because a woman was being attacked outside.
So what does she do....
She goes fucking mental at me of course. "Don't you come in here telling me what to do, ya radge wee cunt."
I stood there completely gobsmacked until the owner came out to see what all the commotion was about. I tell him what's going on, all the while being berated by this crazy bint. He gets his mate to call the police and then starts laying into this old woman.
"I've had enough of your shit. That's it. You're fired. Go on, fuck off."
She comes out from behind the counter and starts pushing me out the door, swearing at me and telling me I'm going to pay for this. As I get outside the shirtless gentleman turns to me and says "You're a fucking dead man."
It was at the point that I decided to high tail it out of there and ran home like a little girl.
I felt bad but there was no way I was taking this nutter on and the whole situation was just getting too scary, and a little surreal, for my liking.
(Creamy Discharge Freeze Motherstickers, this is a fuck up, Sat 16 Feb 2008, 6:38, Reply)

I witnessed a crime
many moons ago, I went out in Glasgow for a nights drinking with some friends a day or so after new year, some of the guys were english and on the train we were telling them how Glasgow is good for a night out, safe, etc etc. as we walked along Argyll St to the first boozer, we hears an almighty smash of broken glass and looking down a side street sees a weegie with his arms in a Golden Egg (an early maccy dees) and he (with some difficulty) is lifting out the till. we gave an almighty cheer and he proceeded to leg it along the road or as fast as you can leg it carrying a heavy till, all went well for 3 or 4 yards till the power cable went taut and he ended up on his back with the till in the air,he picked himself up yanked out the power cable with some difficulty and was off again, laff, fresh underwear all round, and the bast bit was, the shop would have been empty for 2 days and there would be naff all init.
(montyzuma, Sat 16 Feb 2008, 2:35, 1 reply)

I live in a lovely area of Salford.
It's about 7pm, very dark and I'm going into the town centre to meet a female friend of mine at the time. I decide to cut down a very dirt-ridden path as I'm running 15 minutes late. One guy walking up the path. Shoulder barges me. I turned around, insinctivly to see who the hell it was. He sees and decides to engage me.

"What the fuck?"
"...you just shoulder barged me"
"That's because you're a prick"
I laugh, because it didn't make sense.

"Alright then", I turned around to carry on walking, he pulls a knife.
"Give me your wallet."
"...no", I reply, none-chalontly.

"I said give me your wallet you fat prick before I cut you"
I sigh, loudly. I'm running too late for this crap.
"Listen, that knife, what is it? 5"? 6" max? That'd probably be able to do some damage
on a normal person, lucky for me, I've got at least a good 8" of flubber, so quite frankly-"

He interupts.
"Shut the fuck up and give me your wallet and your phone, you cunt!"
"No. You're not listening to me. You're not going to be able to do any major damage to me
with that thing and certainly not enough to stop me from absolutely-fucking-wasting-you
and ripping off your jaw by the time I've passed out through blood loss."

He looks a little stunned, so I continue.
"The only damage you're going to do is if you go for my neck. But you're not going to do that.
I've got twenty quid and a phone that's worth about thirty, you know it's not worth it, so FUCK. OFF."

He doesn't say anything, he was a little shocked.

I turn around and walk away casually.

Take that, youth of today.

 
( TonyUNDERSCORE from the Internet, Sat 16 Feb 2008, 2:32, 4 replies)

Bar Room Battles
.
Due to my penchant for the odd pint I've witnessed, and been in, quite a few bar room brawls. But my favourite happened in Redcar, North East England.

Redcar is rough but, the place I was based, Eston, is even rougher. It's the sort of area where anyone with more than one ear is a cissy.

Anyways. I was staying directly across the road from where I worked in. It was a pub. A *really* rough pub and the downstairs bar was populated with some of the finest knuckle-draggers you've ever seen.

But I can fit into almost any environment and I was soon a regular and could be found propping up the bar after work. I got to know a lot of the local meatheads and they soon found out I was a computer consultant and they soon found out I'd fix their systems for beer. So it soon became a regular fixture, me at one of the tables happily de-porning systems ( me missus will kill me...), removing virii and spyware and installing cracked software for them.

So all was well with the world. Then, one night , there was a pool match with another pub and it kicked off. A massive bar-room brawl with cues being used as clubs, chairs and tables flying across the room (often accompanied by flying teeth) and fists, boots and heads being used with abandon.

The bar staff just scuttled to the safety of the lounge bar and soon I was the only spectator - literally, everyone in the bar was involved in the fight. Of course this couldn't last for long and a meathead, having dispatched his opponent, by throwing him through the toilet doors, came looking for his next victim. Me.

He saw me standing alone at the bar and started to run across the room towards me. I saw him and did my famed "deer in the headlights" impression and prepared to defend myself when a mighty roar came across the room.

"DON'T TOUCH THE GEEK!!!!"

It was the head hardman. The hardman's hardman and I'd fixed his machine for him several times and he didn't want anyone interfering in his free computer support.

Cheers
( Legless Mister Stabby - shanks for the memory, Sat 16 Feb 2008, 0:49, 10 replies)

Beating a puppy
Was out walking on a beach with 2 of the most unscary dogs possible - a labrador puppy, think andrex in black, and a sausage dog.
Whole beach was pretty emtpty apart from one other man and his dog. As my puppy was pretty new to the big wild world he made a beeline for the stranger to have a sniff about. IT was only as we got closer I noticed this made had a horse riding whip out with him. strange but this is the countryside...
So as the tiny cutey puppys get up close what does the man do? procede to beat both dogs with the whip. Not jsut that but in his mad state even his own dog gets a few lashings.
Being miles from anywhere myself and friend have to jump in and try and wrestle old man away - who has now decided we deserve the beatings.After much struggle we decided the simpliest thing to do is pick up the dogs and run away.
And did the police even care when we phoned to report it later? did they feck.
(Emily Salvage, Sat 16 Feb 2008, 0:37, 1 reply)

Fenland master criminal.
About 11 o'clock at night, I heard a banging in the street. Went outside and saw a bloke bricking a car. Slowly. He'd throw the brick, walk round the car, throw it again. Once he missed, from a distance of about 3 feet. After he'd had 5 or 6 goes I shouted and he went indoors. Which was nice, as otherwise I might have had to cave his head in. Called plod, who gave me an incident number. In the morning I saw the woman (from the same house he'd gone into) to whom the car belonged and told her. "Oh, that's my partner's brother".

Two days later her son, who's banned from driving came home drunk. This time Plod were waiting. He drove into the lamp post outside the house, and much swearing ensued. All the local children came out and watched, slackly drooling.

Incest is Nature's way of keeping stupid people related.
(all my scars face forward possesses 2.5% of a hyperalloy combat chassis, Fri 15 Feb 2008, 23:55, 3 replies)

First day of Secondary School
I was 11, it was the end of my first day of secondary school. I commuted to school from my village on the train with a lot of other kids. Waiting at the station with them, I had a couple of minutes spare, so went to the platform toilet.

I walk in.

There are two men standing in the middle of the large tiled room.

They have belts around their biceps, and hypodermic needles deep in their forearms.

They see me, look straight at me, say 'Shit!' loudly...and turn 45 degrees to the right.

What am I supposed to do? I'm 11, in school uniform, and 2 junkies have just seen me staring at them shooting up, not even in the cubicles (which I presume had blue lights in) but in the middle of the room.

I walked as calmly as I could to the urinals, and pretended to pee for the next minute. I'm standing there assessing the situation, convinced that any second one will come up and grab me, threaten to jab me if I tell anyone.

Instead, laughter: 'He didn't even fucking see me! The little dick didn't even SEE me!' More shrieking laughter. That's right smackie, obviously I didn't see a thing.

I zip up, not having released a drop, and walk out. As I leave the room, I realise that, as I'd entered and witnessed the tableau, I'd nearly said something smart-arsed like 'Jesus guys, put it away'. I am thankful I wasn't that arrogant, even if I was that young.

Yet now I look back and think about how I probably dealt with it much better then than if I had been in that position now.
(Tendency, Fri 15 Feb 2008, 21:49, Reply)