I was robbed at gunpoint by 2 kids at 545pm as I was walking home from the bus stop. All they got was my blackberry before they got scared and ran off. I'm still a little freaked out. I'm not hurt. Didn't lost my wallet or any money, but I don't have a phone, which really sucks. More details after I calm down a bit.
Okay, here are the details for the morbidly curious:
It happened around 5:45 as I was walking from the bus stop to my house. I was walking down the street reading the New York Times on my Blackberry (obviously a mistake in my neighborhood). Two kids, African-American, probably between 17 and 21, maybe younger, I don't really know, wearing identical white hooded sweatshirts, baggy blue sneaker and white high tops, came up behind me. One jammed a gun in my lower back and when I turned around, told me to drop my cell phone. I thought he was kidding at first. I couldn't believe I was being mugged in daylight on a busy street with cars going by, but I was.
The kid had the gun wrapped in the sleeve of his white hooded sweatshirt. I could see the muzzle and it looked enough like a real gun. I wasn't going to risk being shot over my phone, so I dropped it. The other one picked it up and then demanded my wallet. I was stalling and something scared them and they took off back up the street.
I wanted to call 911, but I didn't have a phone and I don't have a land line at home, so I tried stopping cars. The first couple ignored me, but then someone stopped. When I told him what happened, he said he just saw the cops stop a couple of kids up the street. I didn't know if it was true or not. I ran back up the street, but didn't see anything. It was too much to expect that they'd be caught that quickly, let alone at all.
As I was walking back to my place, I saw one of those white "unmarked" state police vehicles going the other way. I flagged him down, told him what happened and he called the Oakland PD. I gave a statement, told the cops I'd help with the investigation and prosecution in anyway, but I don't think this will exactly be a top priority case. Officer Moore said something about new technology that would enable them to track cell phones, but I'm skeptical since he didn't ask for any information about the phone other than the number, which I now have with a new phone. We'll see.
So they only got my Blackberry. As irritating and expensive as it is to replace a phone, at least I didn't have to cancel credit cards or get a new driver's license. I had most of my addresses/phone numbers stored on my Blackberry. It's probably a good time anyway to check in and get updated contact info. So please send me your phone numbers and addresses and I'll start the tedious work of rebuilding my digital address book.
Yikes! That totally sucks. And to think it happened late afternoon. Not at night or anything.
I tell you, kids today are something else.
Anyway, glad that you weren't hurt physically.