Geordie Lass

Oh I forgot the one in Leeds when we lived in a semi.

Neighbour lived with a guy, they split, new guy moves in. Ex comes over one night and creates absolute mayhem. So much shouting and screaming and things being thrown or people being hit that we called the police as we were scared for her safety.

They pulled up outside the house and then rang us back to check the number of the house (!) before 4 burly cops got out and sorted it all out.

Ex's eh?

TheThornes

Personally only suffered minor car crime, all in Surrey in the UK. Boyfriend's car's roof got slashed and I had two vehicles broken into with minor stuff (music cassettes and, believe it or not, about 10 quids worth of needlework supplies) stolen.

Had a distressed call from my then 16 year old niece once when she was home alone with a couple of friends - they were upstairs in the house when they heard the front door shut, went down to find someone had come in through an open window stolen some stuff and left through the front door. They lived near Epsom Downs and it was Derby week - local crime always went up Derby week when the fair was in town!

Had a wonderful Great Uncle who lived alone. Sadly he was elderly, blind and lived in a not so pleasant part of south London. He regularly got taken advantage of; on more than one occasion people pushed right past him at the door into his house and stole stuff.

Since living in Canada, (over three and a half years now) I have no personal experience of crime. In fact, we're always amazed at the amount of stuff people leave out on their porches and in their front yards and its still there, weeks later!

Oink

Its quite a common occurrence to find bottles and rocks on my boat thrown from the very high bridge above by drunken or stoned louts.

Tangram

Serves you right sailor-boy

Steve_

I was on an Army base back in the 1980s delivering some equipment, went back to barracks, woke up the next morning and the barracks at the base where I'd been delivering equipment had been blown up by the PIRA. So they were probably there the same time I was, or immediately afterward.

Anyway I could sit here and give you a catalogue of crimes I've witnessed or had happen to me but I have a friend in the UK and her list is infinitely more interesting:

Girl she went to school with, murdered by two drug dealers who injected her with pure heroin "to see what effect it would have";
Guy living above the convenience shop across the road from where she lived, he was murdered, still an open case last I heard;
Pub she goes to, the owner was murdered by his son for drug money;
School she sends her son to, one of the parents she knew was murdered by her boyfriend during an argument, he stabbed her to death;
Primary school she sent her son to, one of the parents was killed in a hit and run outside the school by a teenager driving a stolen car who was trying to get away from the police.

And that's just the major stuff.

Dave n Ailsa

Wow!, you guys have excelled yourselves.

Quite possibly the grimmest thread I've ever started.

What a horrible species we are.

Oink

If they were specifically targeting me I'd tend to agree with you. But its all the boats in chucking range that have had debris and subsequent damage. Broken radar antennas, cracked decks, windscreens. If you call the plod they come about three hours later and nothing gets done to prevent it. Apart from that, I see people breaking the law everyday here by smoking drugs and nothing gets done about that either. But shoot a few innocent rounds off your boat while in a festive mood and the rozzers swarm around like flies.

Steve_

I lived in a flat once and anyway one morning some guy shows up banging on my neighbour's door across the hall, some jilted ex and I could tell immediately he meant her serious harm so I called 999 and got some dispatcher who showed no real interest until a few minutes later when she must have called them as well and then they sent the police around pdq. The conversation went something like this:

"Okay mate, you're coming with us."
"But I'm just here to..."
"Mate we can do this the easy way or the hard way."
"I don't see why you're.."
"Okay, hard way it is then."

THUD, followed by screams of anguish.

Given that I was stood on the other side of my door with a shotgun, probably the best result.

YoshiPal2010

When you say "witnessed", do you mean that you actually saw the crime take place, or that you happened upon on the scene when the authorities were already there?

Steve_

Had that happen at the house next to the office where I used to work, was driving out and all these coppers were jumping out of paddy wagons and bashing in the doors. Turned out he was a drug dealer, his father had died and he'd turned the place into a drug den. Strangely after the police searched the house they found some undeveloped film that turned out to be some pictures of the liberation of Paris at the end of WW2 iirc and they were all over the news because of their rarity.

Steve_

There was a liquor store near one of the places I lived in the US. Anyway some moron held the place up and because there wasn't any money there he shot the guy behind the counter and killed him. I wasn't really aware of what was going on until the police showed up and then I went outside and could see the blood running out from under the door.

You should really stop reminding me all of this shit, kiwilass just reminded me of the worst one with her story about the corpse but I'm not going to go into that one.

dollface

MarkG

In the UK, off the top of my head:

Friend's car was stolen. The thief parked another stolen car behind mine, walked past mine and stole my friend's. Police found his car just down the road from where the thief had stolen the other one, but didn't bother to tell him for weeks.

Burgled one time, but they just broke the lock on my computer desk and left with a flat-mate's work laptop.

Various nuisance crimes like kids throwing eggs at my car.

Guy ran down the street near a friend's house shooting things with an AK47 the day before we were going to shoot a movie there.

Parcel stolen from a friend's doorstep after the post office left it there.

Chavs setting cars on fire on the road near where I worked.

Joy-riders setting stolen cars on fire in the wood where I used to live.

Several break-ins to cars parked outside the flat where I used to live.

Some drunk jumped onto a police car, kicked the blue light off the roof, grabbed it and ran off.

Some drunk came into the pub we were in, argued with the barman, attacked him and broke his arm before anyone else had a chance to react.

Regular break-ins at the health clinic where a relative worked.

When I worked in London I seem to remember not being able to get to work one day because the IRA had blown up the station.

Ireland:

The IRA (or one of the other Irish terrorist groups) threw a hand-grenade through my uncle's office window, but the blast blew out the floor and didn't harm him.

Canada:

There's a policeman who lives down the road from us, and someone stole his bike one day. Apparently the thief left another bike, so presumably he'd stolen that one and then decided that this one looked better.

Various people stealing construction supplies from the new houses being built near us.

Someone sprayed graffiti on the housing development sign a year or two back.

(And that's five years in what is supposedly one of the most dangerous and crime-ridden cities in Canada)

Novocastrian

Oh, I don't know. All your threads are pretty grim.

Dave n Ailsa

lol, thanks for the support. I'm doing it all for you