The court appearance was down by the airport, and as it happens, I've got a friend who lives close by: Monica Kim, the production designer on Zen Noir and, as it happens, our new business partner. (Say wha? Yeah, I'll get to that in a couple days--not much time to write today, for reasons that I will also talk about in a couple other days.) And since Monica has a three year old (the delightful Alexander), she's always up pretty early. So I was able to beat the worst of the morning traffic, visit with nice people, have a gooey cinnamon bun, and then went off to the courthouse to do my part in making a Bad Guy go away.
Or not.
See, a while back I picked a face out of a photo line-up, but only with about 60% confidence that he was actually the right person (turns out that when there's a knife involved, the only thing you really pay attention to is the knife). The person that face belongs to was arrested for a home-invasion robbery. But since my ID wasn't conclusive, he was never charged with my robbery--therefore there was no reason for my being there. Or, as the young and harried Assistant D.A. said to me, "Geez, I have no idea how you ended up on the subpoena list. I'm very sorry."
And so I nodded, assured them I am happy to help in any way I possibly can with any other aspect of, you know, my case, got back in my car and drove away in what was now height-of-rush-hour traffic.
Never even got to see the accused. Maybe the sight of a real person, rather than a photo, might have triggered my memory more effectively, but I'll never know. The wheels of justice, they are made of stone. Grinding slowly along a stone road. And they're square.
Showing posts sorted by date for query robbery. Sort by relevance Show all posts
Showing posts sorted by date for query robbery. Sort by relevance Show all posts
Saturday, February 10, 2007
Tuesday, February 06, 2007
J'accuse!
There was that first twinge of worry when I came home last week and found an envelope from the L.A. Police Department wedged into the doorjamb, because that's just one of those things that will always make you nervous, like your phone ringing at three in the morning. But inside the envelope, I was delighted to find a witness subpoena from the detective in charge of my robbery case. (This link should bring you to a page with all my previous posts on this subject.)
Someone has been arrested and arraigned, and the preliminary hearing is tomorrow. Curiously, his name isn't Hispanic at all, which might just mean that the person arraigned is the ringleader, which would suit me just fine. (I will hold off on actually recording his name in a public place until he's a little further along the road toward establishing his massive, overwhelming guilt.)
(I am so tempted to pull a Python here [from "The Mouse Problem" in episode two]--"A typical case, whom we shall refer to as Mr A, although his real name is Arthur Jackson, 32A Milton Avenue, Hounslow, Middlesex." But I won't.)
At the prelim, they are (according to the court's website) chiefly interested in determining whether there is sufficient evidence to bind the accused over for trial, and I hear from the detective that there is one other victim who will be testifying. So this is just the beginning of a long process, and there are a thousand ways it could all fritter away into nothing. But here's hoping that tomorrow I get to do my part, my tiny part, to make it that much less likely that someone else out for a nice walk doesn't have to deal with thugs with knives.
Someone has been arrested and arraigned, and the preliminary hearing is tomorrow. Curiously, his name isn't Hispanic at all, which might just mean that the person arraigned is the ringleader, which would suit me just fine. (I will hold off on actually recording his name in a public place until he's a little further along the road toward establishing his massive, overwhelming guilt.)
(I am so tempted to pull a Python here [from "The Mouse Problem" in episode two]--"A typical case, whom we shall refer to as Mr A, although his real name is Arthur Jackson, 32A Milton Avenue, Hounslow, Middlesex." But I won't.)
At the prelim, they are (according to the court's website) chiefly interested in determining whether there is sufficient evidence to bind the accused over for trial, and I hear from the detective that there is one other victim who will be testifying. So this is just the beginning of a long process, and there are a thousand ways it could all fritter away into nothing. But here's hoping that tomorrow I get to do my part, my tiny part, to make it that much less likely that someone else out for a nice walk doesn't have to deal with thugs with knives.
Friday, November 03, 2006
A Break in the Case?
Some time has passed, and now a perfect storm of identity-theft action seems to be beginning. After the robbery on Sept. 25th, there was one use of a stolen credit card, but that charge, for whatever reason, never fully posted with the bank and so it was impossible to track it. Then nothing at all happened, except at my end, as I tried to deal with all the unexpected ramifications of the theft.
But when I came home Wednesday night, there were a half-dozen messages on my answering machine. One was from Cingular Wireless, which told me that someone had tried to open one or more cellphone accounts using my information; and another was from my bank, telling me that someone had tried to ask the bank to mail a replacement credit card to an address in the Bronx. There was also a call yesterday from Dell Computer, which had someone on the other line at that very moment, trying to open an account in my name. Thanks to the fraud alerts I placed with all the credit-reporting agencies, these merchants all contacted me and I sure as hell told them that the other people on the line were bad, bad people.
But the way I look at it, each of these attempts represents another opportunity to catch the bastids. For example, the attempt to have a replacement credit card mailed to the Bronx means that I now have an actual street address in the Bronx, plus a couple of phone numbers. Now it could turn out that that address is a vacant lot or something, because it sure does seem stupid for the thieves to actually give their address in a traceable manner. Then again, thieves are not always rocket scientists, so maybe they really are that stupid.
(As proof, I offer this from the always-delightful News of the Weird: "New Yorkers Donald Ray Bilby, 30, in July, and Abdullah Date, 18, in August, were, respectively, convicted and arrested for sending anthrax threats to authorities in envelopes that each contained their correct return addresses. (Date allegedly also included a taunting note reading, 'Catch me if you can.')")
Of course, I don't hold out much hope that anyone at that New York address will lead back to the two guys out in front of University High School that night. Most likely, they sold my wallet to someone for maybe a hundred bucks cash, and the buyer sent it on to his contact in New York, and there's probably an identity-theft ring that processes information from thefts all across the country. In which case, it becomes less likely that they're stupid enough to actually give out an address, but you never know, and it's all worth following up.
This morning, by coincidence, I got called in by the police to look at a photo line-up. I have given the address and the phone numbers and all the particulars to the detectives, and we'll see what happens. That's all I can do: try to keep ahead of the ID theft brigade, and relay anything potentially useful to the authorities. I really truly wish this all weren't so damn time-consuming, but that's my new reality so okay, that's what I'll do.
In the Meantime...
...there's this, a photo I took of the Getty Villa on the coast. Went there yesterday with some friends and, despite occasional interruptions by phone calls relating to the bad people, it was a very nice day. As you can probably tell.
But when I came home Wednesday night, there were a half-dozen messages on my answering machine. One was from Cingular Wireless, which told me that someone had tried to open one or more cellphone accounts using my information; and another was from my bank, telling me that someone had tried to ask the bank to mail a replacement credit card to an address in the Bronx. There was also a call yesterday from Dell Computer, which had someone on the other line at that very moment, trying to open an account in my name. Thanks to the fraud alerts I placed with all the credit-reporting agencies, these merchants all contacted me and I sure as hell told them that the other people on the line were bad, bad people.
But the way I look at it, each of these attempts represents another opportunity to catch the bastids. For example, the attempt to have a replacement credit card mailed to the Bronx means that I now have an actual street address in the Bronx, plus a couple of phone numbers. Now it could turn out that that address is a vacant lot or something, because it sure does seem stupid for the thieves to actually give their address in a traceable manner. Then again, thieves are not always rocket scientists, so maybe they really are that stupid.
(As proof, I offer this from the always-delightful News of the Weird: "New Yorkers Donald Ray Bilby, 30, in July, and Abdullah Date, 18, in August, were, respectively, convicted and arrested for sending anthrax threats to authorities in envelopes that each contained their correct return addresses. (Date allegedly also included a taunting note reading, 'Catch me if you can.')")
Of course, I don't hold out much hope that anyone at that New York address will lead back to the two guys out in front of University High School that night. Most likely, they sold my wallet to someone for maybe a hundred bucks cash, and the buyer sent it on to his contact in New York, and there's probably an identity-theft ring that processes information from thefts all across the country. In which case, it becomes less likely that they're stupid enough to actually give out an address, but you never know, and it's all worth following up.
This morning, by coincidence, I got called in by the police to look at a photo line-up. I have given the address and the phone numbers and all the particulars to the detectives, and we'll see what happens. That's all I can do: try to keep ahead of the ID theft brigade, and relay anything potentially useful to the authorities. I really truly wish this all weren't so damn time-consuming, but that's my new reality so okay, that's what I'll do.
In the Meantime...
...there's this, a photo I took of the Getty Villa on the coast. Went there yesterday with some friends and, despite occasional interruptions by phone calls relating to the bad people, it was a very nice day. As you can probably tell.
Monday, October 09, 2006
Catching Up
The Movie
It's going fine. Still playing in Colorado, and will continue there as this weekend we add Austin, Texas. Marc will fly out to Austin for some Q&As, so if you live in the area, stop on by. So far we're averaging two weeks at each location, so if you want to go, it's probably best to go sooner than later.
And yeah, we've been losing money (which is to say, we're spending more on advertising in toto than the film has taken in), but we always knew we were going to lose money, that's how these things work nowadays. A couple years ago I attended a seminar conducted by Peter Broderick, who explained that with the exception of the really big Hollywood blockbusters, all theatrical releases these days are really looked upon as "loss-leaders" for the DVD. That definitely opened my eyes: the idea that a theatrical release is really just advertising, designed to raise awareness of a movie so that people will buy the DVD. With that in mind, all along we knew we were going to lose money by putting Zen Noir in theaters; our budget always reflected a loss from this release.
Still, there's a difference emotionally between understanding a thing intellectually, and watching the reality of the numbers as they come in every week. But hey, that's when you do a gut-check and keep your eyes forward.
The DVD, by the way, will probably be released fairly soon. I can't make the announcement yet, but believe me, when I can, I will announce it loudly.
Starstruck or Just Plain Desperate?
Last week I went to an event at The Egyptian sponsored by the No-Budget Film Club, during which director Christopher Nolan screened his first film, Following, and then previewed his new one, The Prestige. Nolan stood up with Peter Broderick (what, him again?) to introduce his movie; the second he was done, as he headed for his seat and the lights started to dim, some guy hurtled up the aisle with something in his hand. So now all those people, in their hundreds, had to wait till this guy was done wasting Nolan's time; but no sooner had Nolan somewhat grudgingly accepted whatever it was this guy had foisted upon him, than the guy started to actually pitch a project. In the aisle, as Nolan tried to get to his seat, this guy actually starts nattering on about whatever the idea was that he hasn't been able to get anyone else to listen to. So one of the event's organizers warns the guy that he's gonna have to return to his seat or get thrown out, and there's a little tiny scuffle, and then the guy finally retreats--all the way out of the theater. As he harrumphed up the aisle, he started shouting something about "this goddamned incestuous industry" not letting the average guy get a break, then he punched a wall and was gone.
And of course he's right, but still. Behavior like that will get you exactly nowhere, ever. If this guy can't figure that out, he might as well just go home now.
Post-Robbery
The hard part is fighting against the almost overwhelming impulse to cast blame. I know perfectly well that the crime against me was not a Latino crime just because it was committed by Latinos. I knew that before I got robbed, and I know it after. But that deep, awful reptilian part of our brains wants very much to cast a wide net so that anyone who is like the robbers becomes a robber. And once that process starts, it only ever expands. I was walking around the other night and my internal radar was pinging like crazy off practically everyone. Dark corners got darker; innocuous alleways suddenly loomed with danger. I refuse to give in to this sort of thing; still, it can't be accidental that lately, most of my walks have come during the daytime because, you know, I had errands to run and they were all fairly close by so why not walk? And of course these places are closed at night so what can I do but go during the daytime? And so forth and so on. This is how we explain things to ourselves so that we don't have to admit that we've become a little more fearful than we used to be.
At the same time, there is the still-astonishing example of the Amish. And with that shining before me, fear is forced to retreat back into those dark dingy corners. It's been an interesting internal struggle lately, the light and dark more fiercely at odds than usual.
Roger Waters
Given all the above, the recent series of Roger Waters concerts at the Hollywood Bowl was well-timed. Great music, well-played, in a great venue. I went with Marc Rosenbush (who then went twice more, catching all of the L.A. shows with different people), and at one point Marc commented that Waters needs two guitarists to recreate what David Gilmour can do by himself. True enough; but at the same time, having two guitarists opens up some Lynyrd Skynyrd-like possibilities that produced some great results--particularly when Pink Floyd's drummer, the great Nick Mason, came onstage for the second half of the show. (I've now seen all four! Yay!) That meant two lead guitars and two drummers working away, as the sound filled the space and made my chest vibrate.
The political content has been controversial, but in Southern California there were no complaints--and the floating pig, with "Impeach Bush" written across its ass, was greeted with delight. (Check the link above for a photo.) My real complaint about Waters, though, is that for some reason he has abandoned metaphor in his songwriting. It's not like "All in all you're just another brick in the wall" was terribly subtle to begin with; but now even that level of metaphor is gone. He performed his new song "Leaving Beirut," and it's a completely straightforward, on-the-nose number that says exactly what it says and nothing more--prose rather than poetry. On top of that, he had artist Bill Sienkiewicz (whose work I've always liked a lot) put together a comic strip to illustrate the story of when Waters was a young man visiting Beirut. Put that together with the overtly-political flying pig which was being walked around at the same time, and you get three layers of obvious when one would have been enough.
Still, nothing beats "Comfortably Numb" for closing out a nice evening of music.
It's going fine. Still playing in Colorado, and will continue there as this weekend we add Austin, Texas. Marc will fly out to Austin for some Q&As, so if you live in the area, stop on by. So far we're averaging two weeks at each location, so if you want to go, it's probably best to go sooner than later.
And yeah, we've been losing money (which is to say, we're spending more on advertising in toto than the film has taken in), but we always knew we were going to lose money, that's how these things work nowadays. A couple years ago I attended a seminar conducted by Peter Broderick, who explained that with the exception of the really big Hollywood blockbusters, all theatrical releases these days are really looked upon as "loss-leaders" for the DVD. That definitely opened my eyes: the idea that a theatrical release is really just advertising, designed to raise awareness of a movie so that people will buy the DVD. With that in mind, all along we knew we were going to lose money by putting Zen Noir in theaters; our budget always reflected a loss from this release.
Still, there's a difference emotionally between understanding a thing intellectually, and watching the reality of the numbers as they come in every week. But hey, that's when you do a gut-check and keep your eyes forward.
The DVD, by the way, will probably be released fairly soon. I can't make the announcement yet, but believe me, when I can, I will announce it loudly.
Starstruck or Just Plain Desperate?
Last week I went to an event at The Egyptian sponsored by the No-Budget Film Club, during which director Christopher Nolan screened his first film, Following, and then previewed his new one, The Prestige. Nolan stood up with Peter Broderick (what, him again?) to introduce his movie; the second he was done, as he headed for his seat and the lights started to dim, some guy hurtled up the aisle with something in his hand. So now all those people, in their hundreds, had to wait till this guy was done wasting Nolan's time; but no sooner had Nolan somewhat grudgingly accepted whatever it was this guy had foisted upon him, than the guy started to actually pitch a project. In the aisle, as Nolan tried to get to his seat, this guy actually starts nattering on about whatever the idea was that he hasn't been able to get anyone else to listen to. So one of the event's organizers warns the guy that he's gonna have to return to his seat or get thrown out, and there's a little tiny scuffle, and then the guy finally retreats--all the way out of the theater. As he harrumphed up the aisle, he started shouting something about "this goddamned incestuous industry" not letting the average guy get a break, then he punched a wall and was gone.
And of course he's right, but still. Behavior like that will get you exactly nowhere, ever. If this guy can't figure that out, he might as well just go home now.
Post-Robbery
The hard part is fighting against the almost overwhelming impulse to cast blame. I know perfectly well that the crime against me was not a Latino crime just because it was committed by Latinos. I knew that before I got robbed, and I know it after. But that deep, awful reptilian part of our brains wants very much to cast a wide net so that anyone who is like the robbers becomes a robber. And once that process starts, it only ever expands. I was walking around the other night and my internal radar was pinging like crazy off practically everyone. Dark corners got darker; innocuous alleways suddenly loomed with danger. I refuse to give in to this sort of thing; still, it can't be accidental that lately, most of my walks have come during the daytime because, you know, I had errands to run and they were all fairly close by so why not walk? And of course these places are closed at night so what can I do but go during the daytime? And so forth and so on. This is how we explain things to ourselves so that we don't have to admit that we've become a little more fearful than we used to be.
At the same time, there is the still-astonishing example of the Amish. And with that shining before me, fear is forced to retreat back into those dark dingy corners. It's been an interesting internal struggle lately, the light and dark more fiercely at odds than usual.
Roger Waters
Given all the above, the recent series of Roger Waters concerts at the Hollywood Bowl was well-timed. Great music, well-played, in a great venue. I went with Marc Rosenbush (who then went twice more, catching all of the L.A. shows with different people), and at one point Marc commented that Waters needs two guitarists to recreate what David Gilmour can do by himself. True enough; but at the same time, having two guitarists opens up some Lynyrd Skynyrd-like possibilities that produced some great results--particularly when Pink Floyd's drummer, the great Nick Mason, came onstage for the second half of the show. (I've now seen all four! Yay!) That meant two lead guitars and two drummers working away, as the sound filled the space and made my chest vibrate.
The political content has been controversial, but in Southern California there were no complaints--and the floating pig, with "Impeach Bush" written across its ass, was greeted with delight. (Check the link above for a photo.) My real complaint about Waters, though, is that for some reason he has abandoned metaphor in his songwriting. It's not like "All in all you're just another brick in the wall" was terribly subtle to begin with; but now even that level of metaphor is gone. He performed his new song "Leaving Beirut," and it's a completely straightforward, on-the-nose number that says exactly what it says and nothing more--prose rather than poetry. On top of that, he had artist Bill Sienkiewicz (whose work I've always liked a lot) put together a comic strip to illustrate the story of when Waters was a young man visiting Beirut. Put that together with the overtly-political flying pig which was being walked around at the same time, and you get three layers of obvious when one would have been enough.
Still, nothing beats "Comfortably Numb" for closing out a nice evening of music.
Friday, September 29, 2006
The Hubbub
The robbery took about a minute. Following up has taken hours.
Monday night, of course, there were seven or eight phone calls to get credit and debit cards canceled, plus time on the internet adding fraud alerts to my credit reports, and so on. At one of the credit reporting agencies, the woman on the phone actually tried to hard-sell me one of their services. After listening to her entire spiel I said "You know, this is really the wrong time to be trying to sell me something." After which she actually tried to sell me harder.
Then there was the guy at one of the credit card companies. I called, said my card had been stolen and that it needed to be canceled. "Yes sir, I can take care of that right now for you." Short pause. "And sir, may I ask why you are canceling the card?"
I paused. Had he really just asked that? "Yeah, it's because the card was stolen. During the robbery portion of my evening."
So after all that I watched Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, and then part of The Daily Show, and it took that long before I felt sleepy at all. Finally got only four hours of sleep, and then the next day realized I would have to take the day off from work. So I went to the Social Security office to replace my card (hey, you're not supposed to carry the card with you--but I don't think they told me that when I got the card at age 13, and I'd had that thing with me ever since), I went to the DMV to replace my driver's license, and finally everything seemed pretty well taken care of. There would still be some foofaraw once I got all the replacement cards, and had to notify various merchants of changed accounts numbers. But for the most part, the adventure was over.
(Except that yesterday I found myself in the Anger phase of my post-robbery mental adjustment, and it wasn't fun spending a whole day just plain pissed off, but that's a whole other story.)
Then this morning, I got a call from Bank of America's fraud department. The guy wanted to check on some charges, and he led with one from this week--definitely post-robbery--from a merchant I have definitely never used. How on earth had that happened? Turns out that when I called Monday night, BOA simply set me down for a replacement card and didn't cancel the old one. In fact the replacement has the same number as the old one.
Another hour of my life passed, because now I had to double-check my BOA business cards as well--and sure enough, the same foolishness had gone on there, too. No charges on those cards, but still, it looks like the rat-bastards did in fact get away with using one of my cards.
My only hope now is that I can get the name of that merchant to the police, and if one of the robbers actually went to this place to use the card, maybe the police can make some headway in tracking these piss-ants down.
Oh, and by the way--the card they used? It was one of those that had my picture on it. A friend asked, "Well did the robbers look like you?" "Yeah," I said, "I was robbed by Ed Begley Jr. No they didn't look anything like me."
And all of this at a time when the release of the movie is still churning forward and there are a billion things to do. With Marc flying out to Colorado today, I'm left to take care of all the things he would ordinarily do, plus my own stuff. Plus, now, the seemingly endless hubbub following the robbery. Hell, no wonder I'm feeling so damn pissed off.
Monday night, of course, there were seven or eight phone calls to get credit and debit cards canceled, plus time on the internet adding fraud alerts to my credit reports, and so on. At one of the credit reporting agencies, the woman on the phone actually tried to hard-sell me one of their services. After listening to her entire spiel I said "You know, this is really the wrong time to be trying to sell me something." After which she actually tried to sell me harder.
Then there was the guy at one of the credit card companies. I called, said my card had been stolen and that it needed to be canceled. "Yes sir, I can take care of that right now for you." Short pause. "And sir, may I ask why you are canceling the card?"
I paused. Had he really just asked that? "Yeah, it's because the card was stolen. During the robbery portion of my evening."
So after all that I watched Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, and then part of The Daily Show, and it took that long before I felt sleepy at all. Finally got only four hours of sleep, and then the next day realized I would have to take the day off from work. So I went to the Social Security office to replace my card (hey, you're not supposed to carry the card with you--but I don't think they told me that when I got the card at age 13, and I'd had that thing with me ever since), I went to the DMV to replace my driver's license, and finally everything seemed pretty well taken care of. There would still be some foofaraw once I got all the replacement cards, and had to notify various merchants of changed accounts numbers. But for the most part, the adventure was over.
(Except that yesterday I found myself in the Anger phase of my post-robbery mental adjustment, and it wasn't fun spending a whole day just plain pissed off, but that's a whole other story.)
Then this morning, I got a call from Bank of America's fraud department. The guy wanted to check on some charges, and he led with one from this week--definitely post-robbery--from a merchant I have definitely never used. How on earth had that happened? Turns out that when I called Monday night, BOA simply set me down for a replacement card and didn't cancel the old one. In fact the replacement has the same number as the old one.
Another hour of my life passed, because now I had to double-check my BOA business cards as well--and sure enough, the same foolishness had gone on there, too. No charges on those cards, but still, it looks like the rat-bastards did in fact get away with using one of my cards.
My only hope now is that I can get the name of that merchant to the police, and if one of the robbers actually went to this place to use the card, maybe the police can make some headway in tracking these piss-ants down.
Oh, and by the way--the card they used? It was one of those that had my picture on it. A friend asked, "Well did the robbers look like you?" "Yeah," I said, "I was robbed by Ed Begley Jr. No they didn't look anything like me."
And all of this at a time when the release of the movie is still churning forward and there are a billion things to do. With Marc flying out to Colorado today, I'm left to take care of all the things he would ordinarily do, plus my own stuff. Plus, now, the seemingly endless hubbub following the robbery. Hell, no wonder I'm feeling so damn pissed off.
Wednesday, September 27, 2006
Robbery
On Monday night, it came time to take one of my every-other-day walks. Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip was about to come on, but I left the TiVo to do its job and figured I'd catch the show when I got back. I meant to take the garbage out, but forgot; remembered just after leaving the apartment and almost turned back, to take those extra couple minutes to get it done, but didn't.
But the crucial decision was this one: on Sunday, I bought myself a new iPod, one of the new 80 gig models, because I'd been working hard and I deserved a present. Monday night, about to leave for my walk, I thought "Hey, I never take my iPod when I go for these walks, wouldn't it be fun to have music?" Even as I thought this, that little voice in the back of my head was shouting as loudly as it could, "There's a reason why you don't do that! Remember? Late at night? Why you don't--ah, hell, there he goes."
I have always prided myself on having good street awareness. I've done these late-night walks for years and years--when they took me through Boston's Combat Zone, I had no problems. When I walked down a pre-cleanup 42nd Street at 1:00 a.m. wearing a tuxedo, still no problem. (There was a pool of silence that moved with me as not-quite-seen people stopped and stared, but no one bothered me.) This sense of street awareness has everything to do with paying attention to what's going on around me--and being seen to be paying attention to what's going on around me. I'm very tall, I move fast, and my eyes look everywhere.
But the iPod, that alone changed my profile. Suddenly, I wasn't the tall guy with his eyes open, I was the shlub strolling down the street listening to his tunes. That's what the little voice in the back of my head was hollering about. I wish I'd listened to it. I wish I'd taken out the trash so that the timing of my night would have changed. I wish a lot of things. Instead, this happened:
The police believe that the two young men, both Latino but without noticeable accents, were driving by looking for easy marks. They spotted me, with the distinctive white wires from the iPod headphones trailing down. They took the next left, parked in an open space on Westgate right next to University High School, and started heading north on foot. I was heading west on Texas, and we reached the intersection at the same time. They gave a little, allowing me to pass in front of them, and at this point I had a tiny alarm bell ringing because something about them was a little off. I kept my eyes on them, and once they were behind me, I saw them turn, accelerate and separate.
Fight or flight. Here's another wish: I wish I'd picked flight, because it might have worked. Instead I turned toward them, and I was shouting an expletive and now so were they. But faster than I could blink, one of them was in front of me, one was behind me, and they both had knives. "Gimme what you got," they said, with a few curse words tacked on at the end. I didn't bother trying to fight anymore once I saw the knives, so I dropped the iPod to the ground and reached for my wallet. My fingers wouldn't grip it. "Hurry it up," they hollered, and a few more curses; and for emphasis, the guy in front of me put the knifeblade in my mouth. Finally I got a grip on the wallet, pulled it out, and in the one smart thing I did all night, instead of handing it to them I tossed it away from me.
The wallet landed on the sidewalk to my left, and by pure dumb luck that happened to be exactly the direction in which their car was waiting. They scooped up the wallet, left the iPod where it had fallen on my right, and as they ran away I had an utterly mad impulse to shout "Hey, what about the iPod?" Because after all, I only had $8 in my wallet and it just seemed idiotic not to take my day-old $350 iPod. But I said nothing, and instead reached for the cellphone in my pants pocket (nope, they didn't get that either). Even as they drove off I was already dialing 911.
And no, I didn't get a look at the license plate. The car was just far enough away, and they didn't turn on their lights till they were well down the block. I'm guessing these guys have done this a time or two before.
With the danger gone, I could start thinking again. While waiting for the police to arrive I called Marc Rosenbush and had him immediately starting canceling the Zenmovie debit and credit cards that were in my wallet (since we just had the party, I happened to have a lot of cards on me), so within ten minutes those cards were already dead. After filling out the police report (we did it at the site, instead of going to the station) I hurried home and started calling my personal credit card providers, canceling all of those cards. Within ninety minutes of the robbery, every card was canceled, the debit cards were useless, a fraud alert was out with all three credit agencies, and I knew for sure that there had been no activity on those cards before I canceled them.
The robbers, they got squat. Eight bucks. In exchange, if they weren't armed felons before, they are now.
If only all those cop-show cliches weren't so damn true. "It was dark," I found myself saying to the officer. "It all happened pretty fast, I didn't really get a good look at them." I've heard those lines a million times on TV, and always said to myself "Ah, but I'm a writer, I'm observant. If it ever happens to me, I will give a terrific description." Turns out, not so much. Because the knife as a weapon of intimidation is obvious; but its other function is to serve as a distraction. As soon as the knives appeared, they were all I could see. Where were the knives? What were they about to do? Why was one of them in my mouth? During all of that, I could spare no brainpower at all for what my assailants looked like. Consequently, my description to the police was probably no better than anyone's would have been. So much for my keen powers of observation.
Every once in a while I try to think of the Jean Valjean defense: maybe these guys live in poverty and they have no choice but to steal. Families to support and nothing has ever worked but crime. But then I immediately think this: pulling a knife on someone is simply beyond the pale. Whatever desperate motivations might lie behind their actions, pulling a knife, pulling two knives, makes all those motivations meaningless. They went way over the line, and if given the opportunity to testify against them, to send those two rat-bastards to jail, you can be damn sure I'll do it.
In the meantime, I revel in the fact that they got nothing of value. And then there's this, too: the iPod survived unharmed. Go figure.
But the crucial decision was this one: on Sunday, I bought myself a new iPod, one of the new 80 gig models, because I'd been working hard and I deserved a present. Monday night, about to leave for my walk, I thought "Hey, I never take my iPod when I go for these walks, wouldn't it be fun to have music?" Even as I thought this, that little voice in the back of my head was shouting as loudly as it could, "There's a reason why you don't do that! Remember? Late at night? Why you don't--ah, hell, there he goes."
I have always prided myself on having good street awareness. I've done these late-night walks for years and years--when they took me through Boston's Combat Zone, I had no problems. When I walked down a pre-cleanup 42nd Street at 1:00 a.m. wearing a tuxedo, still no problem. (There was a pool of silence that moved with me as not-quite-seen people stopped and stared, but no one bothered me.) This sense of street awareness has everything to do with paying attention to what's going on around me--and being seen to be paying attention to what's going on around me. I'm very tall, I move fast, and my eyes look everywhere.
But the iPod, that alone changed my profile. Suddenly, I wasn't the tall guy with his eyes open, I was the shlub strolling down the street listening to his tunes. That's what the little voice in the back of my head was hollering about. I wish I'd listened to it. I wish I'd taken out the trash so that the timing of my night would have changed. I wish a lot of things. Instead, this happened:
The police believe that the two young men, both Latino but without noticeable accents, were driving by looking for easy marks. They spotted me, with the distinctive white wires from the iPod headphones trailing down. They took the next left, parked in an open space on Westgate right next to University High School, and started heading north on foot. I was heading west on Texas, and we reached the intersection at the same time. They gave a little, allowing me to pass in front of them, and at this point I had a tiny alarm bell ringing because something about them was a little off. I kept my eyes on them, and once they were behind me, I saw them turn, accelerate and separate.
Fight or flight. Here's another wish: I wish I'd picked flight, because it might have worked. Instead I turned toward them, and I was shouting an expletive and now so were they. But faster than I could blink, one of them was in front of me, one was behind me, and they both had knives. "Gimme what you got," they said, with a few curse words tacked on at the end. I didn't bother trying to fight anymore once I saw the knives, so I dropped the iPod to the ground and reached for my wallet. My fingers wouldn't grip it. "Hurry it up," they hollered, and a few more curses; and for emphasis, the guy in front of me put the knifeblade in my mouth. Finally I got a grip on the wallet, pulled it out, and in the one smart thing I did all night, instead of handing it to them I tossed it away from me.
The wallet landed on the sidewalk to my left, and by pure dumb luck that happened to be exactly the direction in which their car was waiting. They scooped up the wallet, left the iPod where it had fallen on my right, and as they ran away I had an utterly mad impulse to shout "Hey, what about the iPod?" Because after all, I only had $8 in my wallet and it just seemed idiotic not to take my day-old $350 iPod. But I said nothing, and instead reached for the cellphone in my pants pocket (nope, they didn't get that either). Even as they drove off I was already dialing 911.
And no, I didn't get a look at the license plate. The car was just far enough away, and they didn't turn on their lights till they were well down the block. I'm guessing these guys have done this a time or two before.
With the danger gone, I could start thinking again. While waiting for the police to arrive I called Marc Rosenbush and had him immediately starting canceling the Zenmovie debit and credit cards that were in my wallet (since we just had the party, I happened to have a lot of cards on me), so within ten minutes those cards were already dead. After filling out the police report (we did it at the site, instead of going to the station) I hurried home and started calling my personal credit card providers, canceling all of those cards. Within ninety minutes of the robbery, every card was canceled, the debit cards were useless, a fraud alert was out with all three credit agencies, and I knew for sure that there had been no activity on those cards before I canceled them.
The robbers, they got squat. Eight bucks. In exchange, if they weren't armed felons before, they are now.
If only all those cop-show cliches weren't so damn true. "It was dark," I found myself saying to the officer. "It all happened pretty fast, I didn't really get a good look at them." I've heard those lines a million times on TV, and always said to myself "Ah, but I'm a writer, I'm observant. If it ever happens to me, I will give a terrific description." Turns out, not so much. Because the knife as a weapon of intimidation is obvious; but its other function is to serve as a distraction. As soon as the knives appeared, they were all I could see. Where were the knives? What were they about to do? Why was one of them in my mouth? During all of that, I could spare no brainpower at all for what my assailants looked like. Consequently, my description to the police was probably no better than anyone's would have been. So much for my keen powers of observation.
Every once in a while I try to think of the Jean Valjean defense: maybe these guys live in poverty and they have no choice but to steal. Families to support and nothing has ever worked but crime. But then I immediately think this: pulling a knife on someone is simply beyond the pale. Whatever desperate motivations might lie behind their actions, pulling a knife, pulling two knives, makes all those motivations meaningless. They went way over the line, and if given the opportunity to testify against them, to send those two rat-bastards to jail, you can be damn sure I'll do it.
In the meantime, I revel in the fact that they got nothing of value. And then there's this, too: the iPod survived unharmed. Go figure.
Friday, March 24, 2006
Coppers and Choppers
I was just winding down, thinking about going to bed after a pretty busy week. Sat down to watch an episode of My Name is Earl that I TiVod last night, but it was hard to hear the show on account of the helicopters whirring endlessly overhead. Eventually I put on some shoes and wandered outside to find out why in the world there was so much noise going on this late at night.
I found an LAPD motorcycle cop standing in the middle of the street, his bike blocking the road. Down at the intersection there was a cluster of people and more cops; and two police helicopters were circling, their spotlights stabbing the streets. The motorcycle cop told me that someone had been held up with a gun just down the road, and that they were looking for the bad dude with the gun. Officers, helicopters, dogs, everything, all out in force, and not about to relent until they found the guy. I thanked the officer, watched for another minute, and wandered back inside, behind my nice locked door.
Now, I take walks through this neighborhood all the time. And late-night walks are my favorite; almost never earlier than 9:30, and just Wednesday I walked home at one in the morning. I've never had a moment's trouble in all that walking around, and I guess now I know why. Apparently the LAPD believes in shock-and-awe policing: it's a fair bet that if they don't find the assailant tonight, that guy will think long and hard before coming back here again.
Kind of amazing, actually. I've never seen a police response this intense before; the liberal in me wonders whether parts of town that don't have quite as solid a tax base would get this sort of police turnout for a single robbery; and the part of me that wants to continue taking my nice safe walks at night is damned happy to have those choppers in the air.
I turned on the local news but there was nothing; I guess it's no big deal, citywide, just a neighborhood thing. Hope no one got hurt in the robbery, but I probably won't know anything more till I check the paper tomorrow. For now, I guess I just go to sleep and dream of dogs and police and the whirring of rotors in the air.
I found an LAPD motorcycle cop standing in the middle of the street, his bike blocking the road. Down at the intersection there was a cluster of people and more cops; and two police helicopters were circling, their spotlights stabbing the streets. The motorcycle cop told me that someone had been held up with a gun just down the road, and that they were looking for the bad dude with the gun. Officers, helicopters, dogs, everything, all out in force, and not about to relent until they found the guy. I thanked the officer, watched for another minute, and wandered back inside, behind my nice locked door.
Now, I take walks through this neighborhood all the time. And late-night walks are my favorite; almost never earlier than 9:30, and just Wednesday I walked home at one in the morning. I've never had a moment's trouble in all that walking around, and I guess now I know why. Apparently the LAPD believes in shock-and-awe policing: it's a fair bet that if they don't find the assailant tonight, that guy will think long and hard before coming back here again.
Kind of amazing, actually. I've never seen a police response this intense before; the liberal in me wonders whether parts of town that don't have quite as solid a tax base would get this sort of police turnout for a single robbery; and the part of me that wants to continue taking my nice safe walks at night is damned happy to have those choppers in the air.
I turned on the local news but there was nothing; I guess it's no big deal, citywide, just a neighborhood thing. Hope no one got hurt in the robbery, but I probably won't know anything more till I check the paper tomorrow. For now, I guess I just go to sleep and dream of dogs and police and the whirring of rotors in the air.
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