Have you ever been mugged? (New York, Ridge: to live, safer, train)

[NooYowkur81]

Knock on wood going on 29 years living in this city without being the victim of any major crime. Back in the day a bullet came into our apartment and ruined our VCR. LOL that's been about the worst thing crime-wise that's happened to myself or my immediate family.

BTW, I'm not counting getting jumped or anything like that when I was a kid. Getting jumped is almost like a right of passage in this city...

[SobroGuy]

I have been ALMOST mugged 3 x, but I was a teenager and it was by other teens...so no surprises there. I always fought them off so I never lost anything...I think b/c I was so white and scrawny in the 'hood they thought I was an easy target.

[LegalDiva]

I must be an aberration - I grew up in Queens and commuted to school/work in Brooklyn and Manhattan and have never gotten mugged. Now that I think about it, I was pretty lucky considering I am female and a pretty decent target with my huge pocketbook and the fact I used to take the "J" train from Forest Parkway all the way to Broad Street/Wall Street at any time of day and night (would work until 6, then hit happy hour/dinner until 10/11 pm). I am so glad I don't deal with the NYC subway anymore, I wouldn't be good at dealing with the threat of constant mugging!

[Jaydata]

Originally Posted by SobroGuy

I have been ALMOST mugged 3 x, but I was a teenager and it was by other teens...so no surprises there. I always fought them off so I never lost anything...I think b/c I was so white and scrawny in the 'hood they thought I was an easy target.

Maybe you are right, I was scrawny and my face looks more like a
girl then a guy when I was younger. No mugging or teasing the last
10 yrs now.

[NYChistorygal]

Nope. House has been robbed though.

[Jaydata]

Originally Posted by NYChistorygal

Nope. House has been robbed though.

Now you mentioned it, I almost forgot about the time
a female burglar got into our 3rd floor apartment while
I and my younger sister were still sleeping at home. I
was 13-14 yrs old at the time.

I have no idea until my downstair neighbor( A beautiful
PR family) knocked on our door and ask if we are okay,
since her friend from other side of the building saw a
female burglar climb into our apartment from the fire
escape ladder. She asked me to check if anything was
missing, We don't have much to steal from, so... I look
around and said no and thanked her. We didn't call the
cops.

Later that night, when I want to play my video game.
I realized all my games were gone.

[Ruready4Bklyn]

Got jumped and robbed a couple of times but like someone else said that seemed to be a right of passage being young and living in NYC but than I knew alot of people that this never happened too. As an adult I also got robbed while asleep on the train luckily nothing else happened to me only got my wallet and watch taken.

[anon1]

Man @ jaydata sorry to hear about all your experiences in Ridgewood... Around what time period did you live there? I don't think it's as bad as it used to be... Problems still happen of course but not at the level it used to happen about 10-15 years ago when the neighborhood was at it's worst...

Personally, I was jumped for no reason a couple of times in my old neighborhood but when I moved over here to Ridgewood I almost got mugged three times... 2 incidences happened within 10 minutes of eachother that was crazy...

1st incident- My family never had much money but I remember getting my first jersey around 2000 and paying about 70 dollars for it which for me was a considerable amount of money so naturally I was excited to show it off... I figured since this area was way better than where I used to live in Brooklyn I could flaunt it... as soon as I unzip my jacket on the street to show my jersey off these three jamaican dudes come asking me for money... I tell them I got nothing and they close me in saying we're not asking you... long story short they frisked me, talked amongst themselves about beating me up if i didn't run my jersey but in the end, two of them just wanted money and so they left me alone...

2nd and 3rd incidences- This happened 2 years ago one a couple blocks away from my house and the other right on my block... I still try to play ball with my friends and also my students who talk alot of junk about being nice in ball as much as possible... I was coming home from playing ball when these two drunk guys start calling me and my friend out... "screaming hey... you". We didn't pay no mind and we just kept walking... seconds later, they cross the street but are still pretty far behind us and they continued screaming for us so we started to walk a little faster... I turn my head about a minute later and the guy is about to put his hand on my shoulder... We stood calm cause they were drunk and one of the dudes was apologizing to me for some reason while the other broke his glass bottle and threatened us to give him money or else... long story short... we said we had no money, they let us go... and then about 5 seconds later started chasing us down the block and so we ran to the end of the block and hid behind a car till they left...

about 5 minutes later I'm on my block and I see this black van on the sidewalk... I thought it looked a little shady so i tell my friend let's cross the street even though my house was on that side... we're crossing the street and about 6 guys pop out asking us to run the basketball... Like a moron trying to be a tough guy I say no, and the guy pops out a blade and tells me how i don't know who he is... he's crazy... blah blah blah the whole routine... Thankfully, the house they pulled in front of was the leader of their chapter and he recognized me from the block so he told them to let me go and they did... they made sure I knew their crew was RFW and that I watch my back... stupid nonesense...

Also, I've never been officially mugged for my ball... but everytime I go to Cleveland or Rosemary/93 park I get my ball stolen over there... They've stolen my basketball about 7 times since i've been here... To those people who play basketball in these Ridgewood parks... Mark your ball... keep it in your bag unless you're playing with it... don't let noone use your ball... and if you're bag has a string, tie it to the fences so they don't take your bag as well...

[Jaydata]

@anon1, all the mugging happened 10+ yrs ago. It is true Ridgewood
is much safer after 2003 or so, although my brother almost got robbed
in 2007 near Gates Ave. The mugger was only 16 yrs old and he got
arrested few days later while robbing other kids. My family saved enough
money for our own house then, and we finally moved.


And the video store owner Ali from Seneca Ave Ridgewood story.

I'm not sure if Ali is Indian/Pak or middle-Easterner, he always
shakes his head slightly left and right whenever he talk or write.
It's very difficult to understand him sometimes because of the
heavy accent, but he was extremly friendly to everyone.

One day, I went to his store and notice he installed a plastic wall
over his counter with a 20X20" window (it's not the bullet proof type)
he told me his store got robbed at knife point few days ago. I felt bad
for him, but every store got robbed one time or another on Seneca
Ave, it's nothing special.

Fast forward half a year later, Ali installed a new bullet proof glass
window. The reason was he got robbed at gun point this time. The
new installation is double layer with the second smaller layer directly
behind the first layer window. Robbers won't be able to point the gun
directly at him with this new installation anymore, but customers have
to slide returning tapes/DVDs sideway between the bullet proof glass
to him. He was safe for a while.

Fast forward again maybe half a year later, Ali added a door buzzer
to his store, because kids would go to the video store and grab
empty tape covers and run or throw them all over the place. They
did that to the Asian grocery stores as well, but just not as often.

The final time I saw Ali, he was with a huge black eye and swollen
face, he told me this time he got beat up and robbed while he was
closing his store. He sold the store to a new owner soon after that.
Last I check the video store is still open with new owner. It's called
Video Force near Seneca Ave & Linden st. You can still see it from
google map street view.

[SeventhFloor]

No mugging experiences in adulthood. But I attribute that to looking like the trash that do it in the streets whenever I go out really late at night. Never had a problem playing it that way.