Now *this* is a drama...

[gemfyre]

Ju invited us over for dinner tonight as a housewarming thingy for her.

I drove to the address and drove right past because the house looked like it was still being built. Technically it was still being finished off but people were living there.

Ju was home late because she had been out getting new keys and general new house admin work, she was also sick. She hadn't yet done the shopping for the dinner yet because she'd waited around half the day for the gas man to install the gas hot plates, in the end he didn't install them anyway. So we went shopping in search of quick, oven cookable stuff. Pizzas we decided. So we got all our pizza stuff and came home and started preparing... the oven wouldn't start. Apparently the guy who was meant to the install the hotplates must have done something with the oven so it was unusable. Bad gasman.

So we decided to go down the road and get Chicken Treat. Matt, Joel and I went down to get that. We hemmed and hawed over what would be best to order and finally ordered. While waiting for our food we heard two "rowdy youths" enter the store (you know the kind, generic little shits, baggy dark trakkies etc, they think they are so cool but are anything but). We're like yeah whatever. Then one jumps on the counter. I'm thinking "oh kaay" still just thinking thier two drunk kids being morons. Then one of them yelled at us to get down and people started getting down and I noticed points protruding from their hands (WHY they were holding knives such a stupid way I have no idea). Anyway, I realised that this was for real and got down. Yep, we got held up at Chicken Treat. *sigh* While they were behind the counter I quietly moved my bag from off my back to under my stomach. No WAY in hell they were stealing that, I didn't mind losing the $20 in my wallet (although that would suck royally because I can't afford to lose that) but the loss of 2 cameras and replacing all of my cards is just too much of a pain in the ass. If they had tried to steal it they would have been royally thumped by Matt and I. But they just ran out of the store.

Apparently one had 2 knives and the other had a syringe of blood. How un-original. We were kept there for 2+ hours while we waited for the cops then waited for them to get to us for statements, took forever. But apparently they caught two sus looking people further down the road and they pretty much fitted the description. I really wanted to see them to point and laugh (and tar and feather and strip and tie to a phone pole on Albany Highway...) But yeah, eventually we were able to go home.

The manager knocked on the car window and said "Sorry about all this, here's my card if there's anything I can do for you." That made me sad. That some customers are assholes enough that they feel that THEY have to apologise when some little shits hold them up. If I could have afforded it I would have given HIM money.

Bastard petty criminals. People really need to stand up to them and beat the crap out of them then they might stop their pathetic forays.

*sigh*

It's late, I have to be up early tomorrow, I have a headache. *goes cross eyed*

Comments

[jassalol.livejournal.com]

Gah, that sucks. I hope nothing like that ever happens to me at work : /

[shadowshifter.livejournal.com]

i hate those little fuckheads almost as much as i hate script kiddies. i think i jes hate script kiddies more because they take slightly more effort to hunt down and hurt. see those ones when you encounter them you could quite easily relieve them of their balls and save humans from having to put up with more of them. script kiddies take slightly more effort than i can be bothered expending on their worthless carcasses to hunt down and do likewise to.

apologies for language, those types of people really shit me. specially the ones that think theyre cool for doing so.

[just-laura.livejournal.com]

::rolls eyes:: They held it up with KNIVES?? How the hell do you hold up a store with a KNIFE?? Did they even steal anything? And why were they even successful?? I mean, weren't there plenty of people there, many of whom probably had at least more knives? I mean, I carry a knife! Band together, people! Band together!

In America, we have guns, LOL.

[gemfyre.livejournal.com]

I would have loved to have kicked their scrawny asses. But unfortunately here the people who stand up seem to get in more trouble than the criminals, it's fucking pathetic. The knives looked piddly and cuts heal, the only real threat was the syringe but even that was likely to be okay, it's just the possibility that it isn't and the ages waiting for blood tests if you DO get jabbed. I don't think these assholes would have had the guts tho.

Matt would have stayed standing, the problem was there were two of them and one of him and he was the only one around with training to disarm and restrain, you see me, I would have just flown into a biting, scratching, snarling rage and I definetly would have got in trouble for assault.

But yeah, if everyone DID stay standing and tell them to piss off and get a fucking job then maybe these people would quit their shit. But the legal system is fucked, they just get a smack on the hand and a "don't do it again" and get let go.

I'm just waiting for the day for people to get sick of it and finally rebel.

[firvulag.livejournal.com]

Knifes work here because of thinks like no-one caring to stop them. I mean the attitude of the business is normal. It's not an issue, we're insured. Staff are not allowed to prevent them from doing stuff because morons will likely sue the company (thank you america) and that leaves just customers, and while you get the random customers that know what to do, you generally don't know what the other customers are capable of. so the customers tend not to care either, unless their own personal stuff is threatened.
I'd love to see how it would have gone if we had a couple of our friends there that know what they're doing also.

And I'm sure that I would have got in trouble from the cops for it because they'd be incapable of leaving before the cops got there, however I'm not suicidal and not going to take on two random criminals on my own.

Oh, and in Australia, most people don't carry weapons on them. I used to carry a pocket-blade, bout an inch long, but figure that my keys are more useful, and more painful when used :)

I can't wait till our fucked up legal system actually starts to support the people on the right side of the law.
I think last year they finally made it that the home-owner actually had the right to use neccessary force to stop a home invasion. but it was only because there had been a few cases where the home owner actually lost the case of assault/murder when it was their property that was threatened.

I think i might post a rant soon :)

[terrycat.livejournal.com]

So glad i wasnt there.
with the sort of day i had yesterday, i would prolly have disarmed them by breaking their arms.
and since im still officially a blackbelt in kickboxing, **I** would have been the one up shit creek.
Gotta love the legal system

[jet-ski.livejournal.com]

It's illegal to carry knives. That hasn't stopped kids carrying around sharpened samuri swords and attacking other kids with them though. Guns are much more tightly controlled, and for that I am glad! If I wanted to live in the USA I would move there.

[just-laura.livejournal.com]

I was joking about the US, as evidenced by the "LOL" and the fact that I was referring to a negative aspect of it. I'm definitely one of those Americans who bitches and moans about how much she hates living there until she's old enough to move out. ^_^

ohmigosh Gemfyre

[peppermintrose.livejournal.com]

That is so wild! I always have fears of being held up in a public place, but I hope it never happens to me because I'm a big panicker :)

Good thing they didn't have more on them than knives and everyone got out okay!

[jet-ski.livejournal.com]

You all talk big. I think it's a silly thing to be considering, beating the shit out of a couple of kids, regardless of what they happened to be doing at the time. Violence doesn't solve anything, and most likely kids like that are used to dealing with violence - I doubt that it would do much to deter them. Anyway, apart from the inconvenience of waiting around, who cares? I mean really, if you're the proprietor of a fast food place and you lose alot of money to that kind of robbery it's cos you and ur staff don't do drops into the safe often enough.

[gemfyre.livejournal.com]

The problem is that if no-one cares these people will continue to commit these crimes and know they can get away with it, which is completely wrong.

And as for violence, even though that would be satisfying I think public humiliation would be more effective and still darn satisfying.

Singapore flogs these kids of thugs, and their crime rate (for these kinds of crimes anyway) is very low.

[(Anonymous)]

In Singapore you also get corporal punishment for possession and homosexuality is illegal.

I’m sure we all know people who, as kids or when under group mentality have done stupid things.

They aren’t necessarily 'thugs'. And the problems are escalated when people start assuming that all kids dressed in a certain way are thugs.

[gemfyre.livejournal.com]

Singapore is wrong in some respects, every country is.

But petty crime is something which they have managed to deal with well.

[jet-ski.livejournal.com]

The kids I know who I think are most likely to get sucked into those kinds of behaviours are used to humiliation. From their parents, from their classmates, etc. It's what makes them not give a shit about the rest of the world.

But I guess we'll have to agree to disagree on this one.

[gemfyre.livejournal.com]

Then how do we stop them from commiting crimes then?

Oh yeah, going "oh poor you for having a screwy childhood. I'll let you go and do it again."

*sigh* Sorry, don't mean to argue, I'm always willing to agree to disagree, this sorta stuff just really pisses me off tho.

perspective

[jet-ski.livejournal.com]

I don't pretend to know all the answers. This post is going to be a bit disjointed, and I'm not sure how interested people are in what I have to say, but I'm going to post it anyway.

I haven't been held up by anyone, so I don't know how I'd react. I've had beggars get violent when I've refused them, and my reaction to that was to try and calm them down, go on my way, and then talk about what I 'should have done' afterwards [and I won't pretend I didn't think about throttling the scrawny bugger!].

Thing is, we all come from this from a different perspective. Maybe I should try to clarify some things. For me, aggravated hold-ups (i.e. involving weapons) are not petty crime, but are quite serious considering the violence they threaten and evoke. I consider that crimes against property are far less serious than crimes against humanity - and hold-ups are a combination of both.

Having said that, I don't really believe that punishment like humiliation, infliction of physical pain, or imprisonment, is a deterrent, especially if there are other reasons that people are committing these crimes. Also, 'punishing' people in this way comes at a cost to us as a society. It makes acts of violence acceptable, as long as the person on the receiving end 'deserved it' (i.e. they are a criminal, or just a no good layabout kid, or black, or gay, or be a peace protestor, or anything else the perpetrator of violence may not like), not to mention the economic costs of keeping kids like that in juvy detention centres.

I guess I just hope for a future where the motivation to commit crimes like that is reduced. Maybe some day the gap between the 'haves' and the 'have nots' will start getting smaller. Maybe another government will see fit to restore the social security net, and fix up the public health system. Maybe one day people will start to acknowledge that there's not alot of satisfaction in growth fetishism anyways.

There are probably shades of red, green and black in this post. I embrace them. But I'm always trying to be [and admitting that it's really hard to be sometimes] open to dialogue, to reading, to learning, to experience. I'm still trying to get hold of the concept of 'playful world travelling', which is putting yourself in spaces that are not your own, that operate under different rules, where you are not the centre, and just watching, acknowledging, understanding. Unfortunately sometimes I can be a bit of a walking house-sized ego!

Re: perspective

[gemfyre.livejournal.com]

Oh I TOTALLY agree with you on finding and fixing the source. :)

Band-aid measures don't work in the long run true. And the challenge is to get the haves (read politicians mainly) to actually realise that yes, to put and end to this once and for all you will initially need A LOT of time and money. And most are two short-sighted and narrow-minded to bother. :(

[sassamifrass.livejournal.com]

Gah, that sucks. Glad you got out of it safe with all your things though *hugs*

[lotus79.livejournal.com]

wow.

weird stuff happening all over.

While I was away in Sydney, the idiot who used to live next door decided to try and rob his ex-housemate as revenge for kicking him out. Only he came knocking on our door first to boast to Luke about what he was about to do. I guess for some reason he thought Luke would think it was funny? *shakes head* Smack is *bad for you* OK?

Anyway, long story short, Luke played along, and then called the cops when he left to do the deed. Not to mention tackling him to the ground and sitting on him until the cops arrived to take him in.

Well, as I said, I was in Sydney when this happened. Staying in the dingiest dump of a hotel in King's Cross, one street away from the brothel strip and injecting room. And the action happens in Kewdale. Go figure.

[pinkjubie.livejournal.com]

Hey :) I noticed you added me as a LJ friend :) I guess you got my reference at the trading post, that's cool, I love "meeting" new LJ friends!