hard times hitting home-less

[Goonie]

It works. We had one guy who would regularly throw a brick through the front door of the police station so the county would pay for his dialysis treatments while awaiting trial.

He did cooperate when we asked him to throw the brick through a smaller, less expensive window. Nice fellow, just broke and sick.

We had a medium security state prison a few miles form here, that had started out as a boy's school (a.k.a. prison). There were a few guys that had spent most of their lives in there...first as teens, and then they continued their stay there as adults. One of them went in at about age 15 or 16, and after serving many years, he was released in his early to mid 40's. He had no place to go.....no known relatives.....nothing! So he got a ride into to town, walked into the corner grocery store, picked up a couple of things, and walked past the cashier and informed her that he was walking out without paying.....which he did. She called the police, and they found him sitting on a bench just down the street waiting for them. He walked over and told them he shoplifted the items....thus violating his parole...and he was returned down the road to the pen to complete his whole sentence.

Some folks will do whatever it takes to survive, and really, who can blame them.

 

[citrine]

And most prisons have a lot of great amenities too....I don't blame them for wanting to go back.
My mother was shopping at Macy's and while she was trying on things in the dressing room, someone took her purse that was on the floor. Times are definitely hard, and people will do whatever to survive.

 

[lazygood4nothinbum]

An older white man learns to give ground without making too much of it.

&

um...you just had a really really really close call at the market. this guy was invading your space big time. way too close for comfort. i took a self defense course taught by a cop when i was a teenager. your story pinged almost all of the common tricks a perp uses before attacking...compliment, some small talk, rapid approach, very close proximity. the second guy approaching may have saved your life.
is there any chance you could stop shopping alone and definitely not at night...

i hadn't thought the situation dangerous (there was no second guy in the story), just odd & a little annoying. i find more disturbance in ha's comment on making way and freebird's suggestion that i find someplace else or a different time to shop. though i did notice the same guy in the store the next day when i went in for bananas for my protein shakes and read freebird's comment following that. in hindsight, he did look rather less like he was shopping and more like he was shoplifting but that could have just been my imagination. if i see him again i will notify authorities. more likely just a drifter who has since moved on.

i'm too young and too powerful or too self-deluded to give way yet. if ever i should have to fear walking a sidewalk, or transversing such no-man's land between shop to car doors, you can put me in a gated community or a nursing home. and if ever i should be ready for a gated community or a nursing home, please just shoot me. i do not care to live in that world.

 

[freebird5825]

&
i hadn't thought the situation dangerous (there was no second guy in the story), just odd & a little annoying. i find more disturbance in ha's comment on making way and freebird's suggestion that i find someplace else or a different time to shop. though i did notice the same guy in the store the next day when i went in for bananas for my protein shakes and read freebird's comment following that. in hindsight, he did look rather less like he was shopping and more like he was shoplifting but that could have just been my imagination. if i see him again i will notify authorities. more likely just a drifter who has since moved on.

i'm too young and too powerful or too self-deluded to give way yet. if ever i should have to fear walking a sidewalk, or transversing such no-man's land between shop to car doors, you can put me in a gated community or a nursing home. and if ever i should be ready for a gated community or a nursing home, please just shoot me. i do not care to live like that.

my mistake on person #2. oops. i misread your post.
do not be cowed, just please be careful. it was the rapid movement toward you right next to your car that alarmed me. i suggested changing stores or times as a temporary move if my suspicions are right. gender is not always protection.
just call me a worrywart...

 

[haha]

i'm too young and too powerful or too self-deluded to give way yet. if ever i should have to fear walking a sidewalk, or transversing such no-man's land between shop to car doors, you can put me in a gated community or a nursing home. and if ever i should be ready for a gated community or a nursing home, please just shoot me. i do not care to live in that world.

Sock it to 'em Lazy. Me, I keep my eyes open and look to avoid trouble. Been doing it since I was about 15 and got tired of fighting. Like my Dad always said, you may think you are hot sh*t but there is always some one hotter, or with a knife, or a gun.

Ha

 

[shoe]

My cousin was in county jail in Melbourne, Florida for gross stupidity and a resulting 3 month sentence. It was May and the jail had several homeless people who would commit a petty crime so that they could be in air conditioning for the hot months. The favorite crime for them was stealing a 6 pack from a convenient store that had a cop outside it.

 

[CyclingInvestor]

Here in Long Beach CA the begging community has been very active since I got here in the mid eighties, both as disorganized begging and as organized fake charity collectors all over. Many people hand them money as they walk out of the local grocery. Fortunately, I seem to be mostly immune as a very large guy with a perpetual scowl, and rarely have to listen to their spiel.

 

[Goonie]

Like my Dad always said, you may think you are hot sh*t but there is always some one hotter....

We had a bully at the HS I went to that thought he was sh*t, and he was always punching and shoving people around. One day I was walking past him and he started some crap with me. I usually just ignored him, and walked away (because I wasn't even close to being a fighter)......but not that day! I was in a lousy mood, and had a lot of stuff on my mind, and his actions were the last straw. I threw my books down, spun around, and commenced to pound the everlasting day lights out of him. He was on the ground in a near-fetal position, whimpering and whining, and begging his friends to pull me off. I finally quit wailing on him, and looked him square in the eye and told him if he ever messed with me, or if I saw him mess with anyone else, I'd put his @ss in the hospital.

As I walked away that day, I thought to myself...."What the h*ll were you thinking? He could've killed your sorry @ss, you moron!"

That was freshman year, and I never saw him bully anyone else for the next three years.

 

[harley]

i'm too young and too powerful or too self-deluded to give way yet. if ever i should have to fear walking a sidewalk, or transversing such no-man's land between shop to car doors, you can put me in a gated community or a nursing home. and if ever i should be ready for a gated community or a nursing home, please just shoot me. i do not care to live in that world.

I used to wander the streets in the bad part of DC with no fear or trepidation. But I was young, poor, and a raggedy-ass hippy. Once I got to middle age, richer, chubbier, with better grooming habits I started worrying. If you pay attention to who gets targeted for crime you start to see the big bullseye on your back. I'm a big guy, but I doubt I'm very intimidating to the bad guys in this world. And as Ha says, there's always someone bigger, badder, or better armed.

I wouldn't usually worry about the distance from the car to a shop, but even now when I go into Chinatown for our favorite Mongolian Grill I drop the ladies off, and usually end up parking 2-4 blocks away. That walk from the car to the restaurant has been pretty hairy a few times.

 

[harley]

I wonder why people still do muggings. Barely anyone carries cash anymore and credit cards get canceled within the hour. Maybe you get a cell phone and a watch?
Not really worth it for a potential jail time.

And this makes less sense than knocking over a liquor store for $16? I suspect there is a logic going on that we'll never understand.

 

[freebird5825]

We had a bully at the HS I went to that thought he was sh*t, and he was always punching and shoving people around. One day I was walking past him and he started some crap with me. I usually just ignored him, and walked away (because I wasn't even close to being a fighter)......but not that day! I was in a lousy mood, and had a lot of stuff on my mind, and his actions were the last straw. I threw my books down, spun around, and commenced to pound the everlasting day lights out of him. He was on the ground in a near-fetal position, whimpering and whining, and begging his friends to pull me off. I finally quit wailing on him, and looked him square in the eye and told him if he ever messed with me, or if I saw him mess with anyone else, I'd put his @ss in the hospital.

As I walked away that day, I thought to myself...."What the h*ll were you thinking? He could've killed your sorry @ss, you moron!"

That was freshman year, and I never saw him bully anyone else for the next three years.

I LOVE stories like this!!!
You be bad, you be bad.

 

[growing_older]

um...you just had a really really really close call at the market. this guy was invading your space big time. way too close for comfort. i took a self defense course taught by a cop when i was a teenager. your story pinged almost all of the common tricks a perp uses before attacking...compliment, some small talk, rapid approach, very close proximity. the second guy approaching may have saved your life.

I was approached in a very similar way at night in the small parking garage attached to the grocery store. At night, it's pretty much deserted. There was nobody but me and a guy aimlessly standing around. When the guy was close enough he grabbed me through the open window (summertime) and started spouting nonsense about his latest stint in jail. Luckily I was able to drive away and he was forced to release his grip. I don't shop there at night anymore. Police never found the guy, but who knows how hard they looked.

 

[Frugality_of_Apathy]

And this makes less sense than knocking over a liquor store for $16? I suspect there is a logic going on that we'll never understand.

Well chances are a liqour store has more than $16 as I every time I've gone there there's someone buying bags of booze and handing over $100 bills. I assume it's drug money or they are working under the radar.

Lots of people that get paid in cash spend their money at the liqour store.

 

[harley]

Well chances are a liqour store has more than $16 as I every time I've gone there there's someone buying bags of booze and handing over $100 bills. I assume it's drug money or they are working under the radar.

Lots of people that get paid in cash spend their money at the liqour store.

OK, a Deli-Mart then. My point being that small time crooks have always commited small time crimes for little reward at huge risk. Mugging someone for jewelry, credit cards and cell phones is probably more rewarding than some of the other crimes.