[pokkeherrie]

Tonight was supposed to be a quiet night. Most of my friends had stuff happening so just me and my best friend Roy were going to meet for a few beers. We watched our favourite football team Feyenoord get into deeper trouble than they already are and then were pretty drunk and decided to go to the bowling centre across the road from him... clearly some drunken bad decision making. I was having trouble throwing the balls in a straight line and lost 3 games and won 1. More beers were had and then finally we decided to take a cab into town. We were really quite drunk around this time, which must have been around 1:30 am.

The cab drops us off and once we discover we are low on cash we go straight to the nearest ATM, which happens to be right opposite of my workplace. We're queueing up and there's a couple of guys aged 19-20 standing before us in line. One of them is obviously fairly intoxicated, a bottle of whisky sticking out of his inner pocket. The other (let's call him fuckface) is begging for cigarettes in the most annoying way you could imagine. He doesn't seem to accept no for an answer and keeps hanging around the ATM when the guy behind him wants to withdraw money. The guy doesn't want him to be around while he's getting his money, and leaves when fuckface doesn't back off. My friend is next in line and tries to get him to keep distance as well, but fuckface stays put and starts text messaging someone. My friend decides to go on and I keep an eye on him. I'm next.

I insert my card into the machine, enter my PIN and withdraw 80 euros. My card comes out, I put it back into my wallet and while I'm doing so fuckface jumps from behind and grabs my money. My friend notices this right away and grabs fuckface while standing in between fuckface and fuckface's friends arriving (who he's probably just text messaged to come over) enabling me to grab my money back, push fuckface against the wall and cover my friends back. We try to retreat, but with fuckface's friends arriving there now 4 guys surrounding us trying to attack us. We're in some serious shit. Suddenly I'm completely sober, it must be the adrenaline (survival instinct?) that is taking hold of me. I grab the first guy attacking me and manage to throw him over the bonnet of a nearby car. Number two (aka fuckface) is approaching me, but gets delayed when my friend hits him on the back of his head. I try to take out number 1 by hitting him in the face and throw him on the ground. I walk back on the road trying to back off, but see my friend is busy fighting two of them so there's no choice but getting back into the fight. I jump on one of them from behind, get hit by the other one and we end up falling to the ground, struggling.

I'm now wrestling fuckface on the ground, hitting him everywhere I can when one of his friends kicks me in the face. Ouch. I manage to get up, kick fuckface in his face (to keep him down) and am wrestling the dude who just kicked me, when we are grabbed in the back by a third person. "Police! Put your hands against the wall, both of you!". I oblige. Fuckface does not. The officer is wrestling him while his partner is chasing one of the dudes trying to get away.

I'm a spectator now. I look at my hands. One of them is bleeding from when I fell to the ground. The other is holding fuckface's shoe. I touch my face and it's bleeding as well from receiving a kick between the eyes. Within 90 seconds there are 5 police cars/vans, over 15 police officers (with dogs even) and a crowd of around 100-150 people watching the spectacle. Did this really happen?


Fuckface is being held by the police, me and my friend are praising each other for sticking up for the other. Fuckface is violently resisting his arrest while his friends are desperately looking for his missing shoe (which is now hidden underneath my jacket). Me and my friend are pissing ourselves with laughter as fuckface is going absolutely bezerk about not getting his shoe back. First he's yelling, then he's screaming and finally he's squealing like a pig with no less than 4-5 police guys sitting on top of him. Eventually it takes more than 6 to finally drag him into their van. For a minute I think about dropping his shoe into the nearest bin, but unfortunately the nice guy in me takes over and I give it to one of the policemen. While I'm typing this I really regret doing so. He was trying to rob me, the least I could have done was rob him of one of his shoes! Damn! I also really regret not hitting the guys I managed to hit harder than I did. Gosh, I'm such a pussy when it comes to fighting.

Cops took down our names and details and we have to go file a report some time later this week. We continued our way but somehow neither of us managed to get back into that Saturday night state of mind we had earlier that night.

[pokkeherrie]

tl;dr
Apologies for the long rant, I just felt like writing it down before going to sleep.


Have you ever been the victim of a robbery?

[EVOLghost]

hahaha...awesome man. Good job fightin' back.

[pokkeherrie]

Yeah, I think we did really well considering neither of us is used to fighting and neither of us was really sober when it happened. Luckily at least one of them was more drunk than we were... and we were even more lucky that the police got there so incredibly fast.

[jennthebenn]

Jesus crab-crackin' Christ...part of me wants to applaud your integrity in
returning Fuckface's shoe, the other part of me wants to scold you for not
dumping it in the nearest receptacle. All parts of me are proud of your
survival instinct.

Never been robbed myself; my mother was, though, 20 some years ago when she worked at the deli across our house. Got Maced and forced to
lay down on the floor with a shotgun to her stomach while the thieves collected the cash. Both were arrested soon after; they'd done a few other jobs, and one of them (not the one who had the gun on my mom) was wanted for murder.

[pokkeherrie]

I forgot to give credits to the unknown taxi driver stopping his car and trying to intervene in that brief moment just before police arrived.

While it might not have been really successful, it's good to know that there are indeed people stepping up to help instead of just watching from a distance.

Thank you unknown person. You looked Indian, so hopefully good karma will come your way.

Originally Posted by jennthebenn

Jesus crab-crackin' Christ...part of me wants to applaud your integrity in
returning Fuckface's shoe, the other part of me wants to scold you for not
dumping it in the nearest receptacle. All parts of me are proud of your
survival instinct.

Never been robbed myself; my mother was, though, 20 some years ago when she worked at the deli across our house. Got Maced and forced to
lay down on the floor with a shotgun to her stomach while the thieves collected the cash. Both were arrested soon after; they'd done a few other jobs, and one of them (not the one who had the gun on my mom) was wanted for murder.

Being threatened at gunpoint must have been a traumatic experience... I once got indirectly threatened with a knife by someone who turned out to have a history with firearms (as well as a long psychiatric record), but that was nowhere near as radical as being physically robbed and attackd like I was tonight. I can't imagine my reaction should they've had firearms (although they didn't seem like the kind to have them).


And yeah, I'm such a fool for giving back that fucker's Nike shoe. I reckon I'd easily have gotten away with it!



edit: nearly 8AM already. goodnight everyone. stay safe.

[Moshe]

my hero!

[deflinus]

rock on, man. keep fighting the good fight

[Murmer99]

sounds like quite an experience... but id say you handled it the right way.

and fortunately i have never been robbed, but my mom has told me a story of this time she was walking at night with my uncle and these two guys pushed them against a wall and held a gun in their faces, they threatened to throw my uncle off of a bridge or something i think... good thing that didnt happen. i think it happened in new york... thats where my uncle lives and he never visits over here. i havent heard the story in years so im sure im forgetting something.

[shabbray2.0]

Originally Posted by pokkeherrie

tl;dr
Apologies for the long rant, I just felt like writing it down before going to sleep.


Have you ever been the victim of a robbery?

I never was a victim of a robbery, but me and a friend of mine were almost beaten unconcious by a gang of 7 other people. the reason: we were friends with a guy who shittalked to them.
we looked like straight outta fight club while crouching out of some dirty hedges aftwerwards

[nicfit]

I'm glad you returned that shoe, they could have used your "robbery" against you.

Sounds quite a dangerous situation to be in, I'm glad you two managed to "resist".
I've never been in a proper "robbery fight", some tense situations, yes, and a couple times an ATM machine was indeed the focus of the whole thing, but nothing happened beside a few sketchy looks and angry faces.

One time a guy tried to take my phone from my bag, I turned and looked at him in the angriest (?) way I possibly could (I'm big and probably I look like I could do some damage with a well placed punch if I manage to suck my belly in haha) and told him: "give it back NOW". He looked genuinely scared and gave it back, he also apologized and got away. I laughed haha.
The phone was worth around 20 euros, go figure. I read in the local newspaper that he got "caught" after some small tefths here and there in the city center, I recognized him coz they said the guy had a sort of "foulard" covering the arm/hand he stole stuff with.
Another time three guys kind of "surrounded" two girls while walking on a street in bologna, and while one of them "distracted them" talking about some bullshit the other two were trying to slip stuff out of their backpacks, while keeping on walking. I stopped one of the guys while he was taking a cd player or something out of the back pocket of one of the girls' backpacks, and they got kinda surprised and let the girls alone. I kept the "angry face mode: ON" even if they were 3 guys (3 tall guys, but not that "muscular"), and one of the them told me: "you did good, mate, they never notice us.", smiling, and they just walked away. Surreal.
Both of the times I didn't call the police, perhaps I should have, dunno...

another time a guy, EVIDENTLY drunk followed me and a friend of mine..we where walking at night in a small street, we heard steps behind us and we saw this weird guy like 20m behind us, no big deal, we thought..then we heard a "metallic" sound and we "accelerated" a bit..then we heard steps like someone is running behind us, and guess what? This guys is running towards us wielding a metal pipe. For no reason. NICE. He probably picked the pipe up from the ground where there was some small contruction site a few meters behind him.. we managed to dodge his first "attack" and then ran towards him screaming FUCK YOU, YOU BETTER RUN!! he threw the pipe on the ground and ran away.

I think that's all my experience with stuff like that.
Superlong post, yeah. It's raining outside.

[atsonicpark]

Holy.

[ploesj]

awesome man!

i've never been robbed but i've seen it happen a few times. me and my brother once chased this guy who grabbed an old ladies' purse for a few blocks until he gave up and just dropped it (we're both pretty fast runners, needless to say that lady was happy)

just a few days ago i suddeny heard a lot of noise in the street. when looking out of the window we saw that two guys had tried to grab a wallet or bag from some people sitting outside a bar. one guy got away but they grabbed the other once and knocked him to the ground. he didn't speak dutch and very little english so he was just lying there with his tracksuit bottoms halfway down and the guys standing around him yelling he had to stay down and pushing him back all the time. they called the police and made him lie on the ground until they arrived. i've never heard a grown man cry that hard, even though he was a pickpocket, it was pretty difficult not to feel sorry for him... my guess is that he was an illegal immigrant and that he knew they were going to find out now and send him back.

apparently there's this trick they do now: you are walking down the street when suddenly a guy comes dancing around you, acting all drunk and silly. it's funny, but when you go on your wallet turns out to be gone!

[jon boy]

well done to you! its good that you stood up for yourself and you and your friend looked out for each other.

[davenotdead]

i actually read all of it. good job. held my attention

[ann ashtray]

Fuckin' A man, good for you and yr friend for not taking any shit. Sounds like y'all put up a good fight, too.

[TheFoxBen]

Well done, dude ! I know a guy who got mugged and got his cellphone stolen by a group of 7 guys or so and the friend he was with didn't even help him... But you and your friend did great, that's what I call a friendship !

[!@#$%!]

fun story! i'm sure your grandchildren will hear about it some day.

there's always the tradeoff money/life. when facing a gun, or a deadly weapon, toss the money and GTFO. a physical brawl on the other hand can be fun. i wish they were more popular these days, but we have "assault charges" for anything.

once a long time ago a stupid crackhead tried to mug me... with a stone! i feigned compliance just to get close enough and then proceeded to bash his head against a wall (he had long hair, it was an easy grab). it was sad to damage him that way but it had to be done.

another time me + some friends caught a thief that had grabbed a woman's purse-- the woman had been running some kind of sales stall all day and the bastard was running away with the day's proceedings. my friend landed him a kick in the stomach, and as the guy was falling down i pinned him to the ground. that was cool. but holy shit, the thief stank.

a couple of pointers about fighting criminals in the street: the bastards aren't your friends, so don't punch them in the face like you wanna make a point of honor: kick them in the balls, punch them in the neck or throat, and easiest of all, kick them on the side of the leg: they will crumble, and then you can curb-stomp them. you want to go for a LOW round kick (not roundhouse, but round. see http://www.orangecountymuaythai.com/...nd-kick-lg.jpg) -- don't get fancy trying to aim for the face or even ribs-- just hit his fucking leg, cripple him, and then you can have your way with him while the coppers arrive.

next time of course you can ask the guy to step the fuck back before you withdraw your money.

[ilduclo]

straight punches
if you have it, knife blade out down by little finger in your left fist for extra nasty jabs. nearly impossible to defend against it. Learned that from a Nicaraguan.

[pokkeherrie]

Thanks everyone.

I got woken up by a phone call from the police today. Still half asleep, I had already agreed to coming over at noon to file a report before I even realised what time it was... 9:45am. Ugh, I had gone to bed at 8am!

So me and my friend reluctantly spend 2.5 hours at the police station in separate rooms going over our story again and again while being asked about the smallest of details. It's really difficult to give an accurate report of what had happened, especially where each person was standing during specific actions. I did remember when I had received punches and when I was handing them out, but who was being hit by who? No idea. "Where was person 2 standing while you were struggling with person 1?"... Fuck knows, I couldn't even remember which one of them I was struggling with in the first place! Just that it was us against them. It all happened so fast and of course it didn't help that we'd been drinking... nor that I'd slept for less than 2 hours.

I couldn't give ANY description of what the 4th guy looked like at all and the other ones were really difficult too. Afterwards I checked with my friend and he had the same problems. It doesn't really matter though because the only thing that really mattered was the moment of robbery itself and our stories were identical in that regard and we both saw and identified the guy who grabbed the money, plus I'm sure they have film footage from the ATM and probably even street surveillance cameras. The officer told me the guy had been questioned earlier that morning about attacking police officers at the station, so he's in for a lot more trouble than just street robbery.

Originally Posted by !@#$%!

next time of course you can ask the guy to step the fuck back before you withdraw your money.

That guy before us did, my friend did and I did as well. He just wasn't listening. We should probably just have walked to another ATM (like the guy before us did) but that would've costed another 5-10 minutes and he didn't appear to be a real danger, just some drunk asshole. It wouldn't surprise me if it wasn't even premeditated to grab my money but he just acted when the occasion occurred. A professional robber surely would've done a better job. I probably should be more cautious about using ATM machines in the middle of the night though, especially after drinking.

I'll be informed if (although that seems 100% sure) and when they decide to prosecute him, etc, so we'll see what happens.