Dave n Ailsa

Yes, this is not going to be the cheeriest of threads, but I'm interested to see actual real figures from people around this country, and that of expats that have been in Canada for a while.

I'm talking about things that have actually happened to you, or you have been directly affected by.

This could be a long list, lol...


Glasgow - 1978 - bank job car chase up our street. Half the cars get smashed into as we watched in shock (and excitement, lol, we were kids)

Glasgow - 1979 - My brand new bike was stolen from the Scout hall I was attending

Glashow - 1979 - My replacement bike was stolen when I was at the school sports day

Glasgow - 1880 - Mugged when I was 12, by two scumbags, stole my stereo, broke my thumb (didn't want to let go, lol) -

Glasgow - 1981 - Friends face bashed in with baseball bat by the "Tory Toi" gang for no reason. We were playing on home made go-carts

Aviemore - 1987 - Local bully had his throat cut outside chip shop. I was among 30 witnesses. He died on way to hospital. Killer was the chef who lived two doors from me

Glasgow - 1988 - My car was broken into outside my house. Window smashed, stereo stolen

Glasgow - 1998 - Woke up at 3am to sound of woman screaming outside. Called police. Next day we hear she had been raped 100 yards from our house

Glasgow - 1999 - Friends car get broken into outside our house

Glasgow - 2002 - My Shogun is broken into outside our house, all my tools stolen

Glasgow - 2003 - Ailsa's MX5 gets roof slashed and stereo stolen

Glasgow - 2004 - Man gets beaten with baseball bat as he leaves local pub... by the landlord... at 12 noon, with kids watching. I was going to the post office at the time.

London (Slough) - 2009 - Friends parked car gets smashed into by joy riders when we are buying a car. Police not interested

Glasgow - 2010 - Ailsa's Subaru gets keyed outside our house

Glasgow - 2010 - My RangeRover gets keyed outside our house

Glasgow - 2011 - Junky neighbour sets fire to his shed, which spreads to all the neighbours fences

This year has been fairly quiet so far, lol. Just the usual scumbags dumping trucks of garbage in the park where I walk my dog, and the odd junky stealing stuff from Tesco.


Wow, It's only when you sit down and type this all out that you realise all the nasty stuff you've seen

macadian

Where do you live? Easterhouse...in my day that was a weekends crime reports....

Dave n Ailsa

LOL, no, that's my point. I was brought up in Kingspark, and our current house is in a nice wee estate, although it's close to Nitshill/Pollock

I'm sure it's much worse in Easterhouse etc.

Atlantic Xpat

Umm....why have you waited fronn 1978 to 2012 to move away from Glasgow then?

Crime I've personally experienced in UK? None. Not even while living in Essex for 14 years. Including working in Basildon for much of that.

Crime I've personally experienced in Newfoundland? Theft of a mountain bike from our garage, theft of jewelry from the glove box of my car. Both of those occured at our house. In a nice area. Had two tires slashed on my car at the last place I worked at.

What does that all prove? Not sure.

Sally Redux

Most of it seems to be car-related. Perhaps could be mitigated with a garage?

Not sure someone setting fire to their shed is a crime - more an accident?

You are doing well for your age if you were 12 in 1880

Hawk13

Not a bad list but then my dad came from the Gorbals. Some of the stories him and my uncles tell.....

How about an add to your post "What crimes have you witnessed and you made an effort to jump in and stop it?"

Dave n Ailsa

I have a garage, they just robbed that too, lol.

Not sure what you mean about my age?

Hawk13

You know, right after you found the time machine in Glashow

Sally Redux

Oh no

Just a typo - unless you're Dr Who -

Dave n Ailsa

I gave up trying to stop crime when I chased a couple of neds that were hitting golf balls at my house where my 1 year old was sleeping in a pram. I got them, relieved them of the golf club/weapon, and then nearly got done for assaulting a minor. He was 16 and bigger than me. Amazing how they turn into cry-babies when they get confronted.

So screw vigilanty-ism, you just end up getting shafted.

Dave n Ailsa

hahaha, sorry, I only just spotted that.

Hawk13

Been there but I don't think you should ever let the buggers get away with it.

I once ran down a guy that nabbed a womens purse in a crowded park, she started screaming and her husband was giving chase, I joined in but everyone else just stood and watched. Chased the bugger for a couple of blocks then he tossed the purse, I caught him in the next block to only realize that the husband gave up the chase after the purse was dumped. Walked him all way back to the Park where the police were waiting.

Never really thought anything of it as it was just a reaction but about two months later I read about a similiar thing that happened not far from the same park, except that the purse snatcher turned on his pursuer and knifed him, hit an aertery in the guys leg and he bled out and died.

Always wondered if the situation happened again, what would I do.

BristolUK

Bristol

late eighties - brick through my window. Next door neighbour argued with girlfriend, she returned and threw the brick into the wrong window.

2000 - bike stolen while I was in newsagents for about 20 seconds. Wheel stolen from bike on separate occasion.

80s/90s Got back to mum's house after a day out to find it broken into - the first of three. Had her car broken into on the driveway separately and stolen 2 or 3 other times. All Bristol.

Canada (whisper it...Moncton)

House paintballed somewhere around 2008.

Sally Redux

A guy got shirty once when he couldn't renew 2 books (Swiss Cottage library circa 1985), neither of us would let go of the books and a rather comical tussle ensued He kept saying that he was going to go to the press.

dbd33

On Sunday I came out in the morning to find the severed head of a ram on the roof of my convertible. I'm thinking a bunch of drunk aggies were strolling along with some sheep parts, got bored and didn't know what to do with it, but I suppose it could be some sort of symbolic gesture in Canada. I don't own a racehorse.

I haven't kept a catalogue of every little thing since forever but some crimes in Canada:

- my neighbour drove into our shared driveway to find a kid trying to pry his basement window open. The neighbour ran his van into the burglar breaking an assortment of limbs. He then pissed on the would-be burglar and invited me to do the same.

- I became involved in a lively argument with my partner while walking along the street. Incensed, she began hitting me over the head with an umbrella. A passer-by called the police and I was arrested(!)

- my car had a sign in the window "not locked, please do not break glass" despite which the side window was broken monthly (in the Monoxide Towers). I came along and found someone in the act, I started hitting him over the head with my 1980s cell phone (the size and shape of a house brick). The parking guy arrived, in his green uniform, and, by way of assistance, kicked the miscreant repeatedly.

- I was in a bar, the old Mickey Finn's. My companion spoke and that caused a bunch of oiks to take the piss out of her accent. I asked them to cease and desist. A fracas developed ending with the bouncer pounding my head into the pavement, I wound up in hospital.

- We were bounced from the Yard (for hustling nine ball). I was laying in the gutter and looked up to see the then bouncer, Steroid Steve, lift my Italian friend by his neck chains and smash him in the face. Ricardo, to his eternal credit, managed to say "you wimp, is that all you got?" before Steve hit him again and he passed out.

- I have had so much stuff stolen off the front porch of various houses that I've come to think it normal. Items vary from iced hockey equipment (too stinky to want in the house) to empty beer bottles (last week). I don't know how traditional Canadians can have their appliances on the porch, they must have to stay up all night watching them.

- The nephew of my then partner bought a load of tabs of what he thought was acid, they were cut with something else and he started seeing Mexicans in the refridgerator and did no end of damage trying to kill them. Honestly, if you can't get straight drugs in Canada, where can you get straight drugs?

- A relative of his, Pat, I'm thinking he was the uncle of my then partner but the family was large and complicated and I lost track, quit drink and drugs and went quietly about his business for five years then got struck by a stray bullet in the middle of the afternoon. Not killed but seriously hurt and offended by the injustice of it all.

- A close colleague turned out to be a kiddie fiddler, that was an extremely unpleasant business.

What else, hundreds of traffic tickets, lots of commercial "crimes", bribery and such, prostitutes and drug dealers on the kids' school steps, daily technical violations (not all the guns are licensed, I was years and years without car insurance, that sort of thing), pretty much the same run of things one would encounter in a city anywhere.

Doesn't mean anything does it? Don't go to the pub or leave before close and you won't see half of it.