JedFonner.com

So 2 weekends ago, while walking home from Adams Morgan, I was forcibly separated from my wallet and cell phone. Another way to put it is to say that I got mugged at gunpoint. Looking back, I don’t feel that this was in any way “my fault”, but there were a few things I could have done to reduce the probability of getting mugged. That’s what I want to talk about here.

1. Stay on main, high-traffic, well-lit roads. I took a shortcut down 17th St, between U and T streets. Normally this is a pretty nice, amlost posh area, 1 block from Lauriol Plaza. But at night, it’s a deserted, poorly lit, almost-alley.
2. Be aware of those around you. I noticed my mugger heading towards me (on a bike), and I probably should have crossed the street just to be careful.
3. When in doubt, take a cab. At 2:30 in the morning, I probably should have just hailed a cab.

I have to say, having a gun in my face and having someone threaten to shoot me was a little traumatic. But even as I was being told to lie down on the ground, I could tell my mugger was almost as nervous as I was. So I wasn’t about to try anything tricky. After all, nothing I was carrying was valuable enough to risk getting shot.

After getting home, I tried to cancel my credit cards over the internet (since I no longer had a phone). I was amazed that none of my credit cards or banks have an option to report a lost or stolen card over the net. Even the ones that pretend to have a link just go to a page telling you to call a number. Without a cell phone and having no land-line at my house, this was quite a pickle. Luckily I remembered Skype. I was able to download and install Skype on my laptop and use it to make free 1-800 calls to Verizon (to cancel my phone), BofA, and all my credit card companies. Technology rocks.

I called the cops the next day, and a very nice officer named J.L. Dobbins took my statement and chatted with me for a bit. He mentioned the one thing which I think is worthy of highlighting: he said there are people who roam around looking for easy targets, especially late at night but not strictly at night. The best way to avoid these people is to not make yourself an easy target (see above).

The net result of my mugging wasn’t even that bad, altho I did lose a few things of sentimental value:

• Lost my wallet, which was a gift from Nicole
• Lost my LG VX6000, which was 3 years old, totally beat up, and basically worthless. I replaced it with a sweet Blackberry Pearl… love it!
• Lost about $40 in cash
• Had to get all my cards replaced, but they all showed up by the following Friday
• Wasted about 3 hours of my life canceling cards or filing police reports - but I did have an interesting story to tell for a week or so

Here’s the strangest part of all though - my mugger used my ATM card (not my credit card) at the local gas station to charge $52.45 about 10 minutes after mugging me. Keep in mind, my mugger was on a bike. I can’t imagine he biked home, got in a car and then went and filled up, all within 10 minutes. I’m guessing he went to the station, and offered to pay for someone else’s gas if they gave him cash. How frickin sketchy is that!? Granted, gas is expensive and, if you have an SUV that costs $52.45 to fill up, I’d be looking for a way to save some money too. But you’d HAVE to know that a guy who shows up with a magic credit card at 2:30 in the morning is peddling stolen goods. What kind of person goes along with that?

My mugger tried to do this twice at the same gas station within a few minutes. Luckily, Bank of America noticed the potentially fraudulent behavior and immediately shut down the card. Nice work BofA. But I think it’s weird the guy didn’t try to use my two other credit cards…

Well, needless to say, I’m a little more nervous and a lot more careful when walking around the city at night by myself now. That’s hopefully the last time I get overconfident about my safety in DC.

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