Mugging

[franceslievens]

"Stop them! Stop them!" I hear the screams when I round the corner. "They're thiefs!" A woman runs down the street, abandoning her car at the red lights. Across the street two guys race away, the first of them carries a big handbag. No-one notices, no-one reacts. The corpulent black lady waggles aside to let the two petty criminals run to their rescue, an appartment block around the corner.
"Those are thiefs," I gesture towards the man standing next to me. He just stares at me like I'm talking a foreign language. "So what." He says it wordlessly, like the rest of the street. So this is it, the not so good part of town, where thiefs go about their business in broad daylight without anyone intervening.
A couple of streets further, at the underground station, I notice a group of teens that usualy doesn't hang there. Three or four police-men mill around the remains of a burnt dust bin. And all that across from a the police station on the other side of the road. The arsonist must have thought himself (herself?) oh so clever and cool.
Sometimes I don't like the city, but then I recall that Hometown had its own version of petty criminals and kids with no purpose in life.

Comments

[iphi1.livejournal.com]

I got mugged in broad daylight in Brussels a couple of years ago, quite violently actually because I fought back, stupid me. Since then I really, really don't like Brussels anymore. I know it's not rational. I know it's not objectively any less safe than any other big city I've been to, still, they ruined Brussels for me. If I can avoid going there on my own I will.
I wasn't so much shocked with the thieving, but with the complete and utter refusal of the bystanders (dozens) to do anything. In the end, the mugger didn't get my bag and ran for it after I hit him a couple of times with my umbrella but that's a small consolation compared to the fact that I can't enjoy Brussels anymore.

[frances-lievens.livejournal.com]

I wasn't so much shocked with the thieving, but with the complete and utter refusal of the bystanders (dozens) to do anything.
That's what ruins living here for me as well. People live on their island and don't notice, don't care to say anything. Working with the teens and kids doing this kind of thing, I always make a point of telling them off when they harass me or someone else. Sometimes they look at me like I'm a retard, but sometimes they apologise. I also try to be polite to groups of kids that don't do anything wrong, and just hang.

It's a pity some mugger ruined your enjoyment of Brussels. It's still fun here! (Even though it got voted most boring city in Europe.) You should come over and admire our view. ;-)
I've walked around in some strange quarters back in the day. Maybe I was lucky that nothing worse happened than some bloke trying to steal a kiss? Very eww. Or maybe I just belong nowadays.

[sister-luck.livejournal.com]

Eeek, that's scary and infuriating that the bystanders just didn't react. My town seems to be pretty safe - there aren't many muggings, but pickpocketing in supermarkets is quite common. On the other hand, I don't think for one minute that bystanders here would be more active in stopping a mugger.

There also used to be a lot of drug dealing going on in the trams, with one line in particular being very popular - of course, this only happened after the dealers were 'evicted' from their usual spot in front of the train station (reminds me of Hampsterdam...).

Only a minor annoyance: Where we live we've got problems with men peeing everywhere - today I got the full frontal view of a guy doing his business in a flowerbed on our street corner.

[frances-lievens.livejournal.com]

That's the thing. It seems to be pretty safe here, although I hear a lot about people getting mugged, or handbags being stolen from the passenger seat (which is the reason why my handbag always resides behind my seat and never on the passenger seat).

The underground tunnel I take to the metro gets tagged a lot, and is often used as a public urinal (eww), but the society responsible for public transport in Brussels makes sure all the underground stations etc. are kept clean, which reduces the amount of tagging and graffiti a bit.

My annoyance? People (and this aren't only teens or kids!) getting on the metro before anyone had the opportunity to get off. I always consider this as showing how egoistic these people are.