
Attacked By Thugs (2004) - hubot
http://idlewords.com/2004/05/attacked_by_thugs.htm
======
Kiro
I'm sorry but I was hoping they would find the thugs and just beat the hell
out of them. I've lived in a real ghetto type of area in Spain where the track
suit thugs robbing people were an everyday feature.

~~~
collyw
I live in Barcelona, and the police here intimidate me way more than any
"thugs". The police are nasty, unaccountable state sponsored thugs.

~~~
S4M
I'm in Barcelona as well, and it's pretty safe, but I heard some bad rumors
about the cops, even though I never had to deal with them.

------
cpks
I wish we had cops like this in Cambridge, MA. Whenever I've reported a crime,
or seen people report a crime, the police can't be bothered...

~~~
lotsofmangos
You may want to temper that desire with the thought that it does sound as
though, motivated as they were, the police did about the same as the original
thugs, to a variety of other people, without finding anyone.

edit - The German general Kurt von Hammerstein-Equord was quoted as saying;

 _" I divide my officers into four groups. There are clever, diligent, stupid,
and lazy officers. Usually two characteristics are combined. Some are clever
and diligent -- their place is the General Staff. The next lot are stupid and
lazy -- they make up 90 percent of every army and are suited to routine
duties. Anyone who is both clever and lazy is qualified for the highest
leadership duties, because he possesses the intellectual clarity and the
composure necessary for difficult decisions. One must beware of anyone who is
stupid and diligent -- he must not be entrusted with any responsibility
because he will always cause only mischief."_

These police in this story are definitely in the stupid and diligent section
of Kurt's matrix.

~~~
hypertexthero
I've recently [experienced][1] the latter type of policeman here in Rome.

[1]: [http://simongriffee.com/notebook/police-aggression-
coercion-...](http://simongriffee.com/notebook/police-aggression-coercion-
photographing-colosseum-rome)

------
antihero
Is this like the Polish version of The Shield?

------
lotsofmangos
Reminds me a little of Bert Kreischer's skit, "The Machine".

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VHfroJBMlVM](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VHfroJBMlVM)

------
julie1
I am coming from «la banlieue».

These kind of incidents happens to you so much time in your life that I can't
empathize. Aggression is stressful, but even being beaten is not the end of
the world. It's part of the process of becoming adult at my opinion to know
how to face these kind of incidents.

And our special policemen «la BAC» are behaving like bad cops in movie we call
them the cowboys. When you see them in the suburbs they cover a surface of
15km in radius. But, when you go in Paris, where people are wealthy you can
have 4 cars looking for a block because one gypsiy has been spotted
pickpocketing.

The normal cops on the field are worse. They can control you. And even if you
are white (and right) when they control you if you are not in suit an tie or
looking like a rich kid they will talk to you like a 6 years old kid if they
think you look like a criminal.

Most of the time I am white and dressed like a rick kid, so it's rather pretty
okay for me. I have 2 friend of mine who are in the police. I know what they
face, and I also see the other side of the fence. The worst is it does not
seems related to human nature, but much more the result of a cascade of bad
political, economical and social decisions that resulted in a clock-like
mechanic of systemic violence based on a ghettoisation of violence.

Just to say where I come from we all experienced these «aggression», and I
will develop the reason why it is bad to flee and not face the problem.

I avoided not the streets of my town, but the violence (my martial art was
running like hell). And then I learnt how to face it more constructively.

I learnt.

By overcoming your fear of the place, you can meet the people: the thugs, the
cowboy, the rich kids ....

And you see that whatever you can think, this violence is not directed towards
you. It is directed towards the society, and the pain they live in.

Towards discrimination ans poverty. You learn there are bad guys every where
(cops, rich kids, thugs) and nice guys too.

But learn for survival to spot two important informations: who has the more
power, and who can reach you.

to sum up: R > C > T in terms of power. Rich kids are out of reach of the law,
and the thugs because they live in their ghetto, and can call for more cops.
You may think it is not violent a rich kid. But in the private school near me
the kids of celebrities (such as famous actors) were famous for drug
consommation (they had the money), being thieves and all, but the cops were
constantly surveying the public school where no one had as much money (coke
was expensive).

Cops have more power on you and the thugs because they put you in jail for
fallacious reasons. So you learn to not be picky when they troll you and talk
to you as if you were a retarded.

You notice that they do it all the more you are black or to tanned.

Except if you have a kipa, that would be antisemitism and that is not well
socially tolerated.

Then, they are the thugs, they are a pain in the ass. They are often the
dealers and some times thugging the rich kids. But, they never thug the rich
kids where they live, because troubles are bad for business.

So I you are close to a place where people deal, you have less crimes that
make the people call the police (like prostitution).

It can be seen as cool.

Then you go to work to the capital. There people call you an affabulator or a
mythomaniac when you tell your stories, bacause «they live in the same place,
and it never happened to them».

And one day at works a rich kid will whine because he was «thugged». An
incident level 2 on the Richer scale of what you experienced. And he will call
for more security, more repression, and he will eventually blame it on the
coloured and tanned.

It is not always true, but mostly we can spot a lot of the «rich kids» are
jews, because sepharadim last name are as easy to recognize as the colour of
the skin. It creates prejudices. Is it stastically true? I don't care. I you
want to understand, you have to accept the other's point of view.

And guess what, because I was learning french boxing I met both people
practicing «ratonnade»(when you go in a city to beat the pulp of the arabs)
and thugging the rich kids. I liked these people though.

They hate each others because a fraction of the others are violent to them on
the sole reason of their difference.

So they have violent discriminating violence that reinforces itself in vicious
feedback loop: no one is innocent.

And they all go voting marine le pen hoping she will get rid of the bad guys.

So I decided to take a stand rationally.

I blame it on everyone. I blame it more on the more powerful.

The vicious circle can only be broken by stopping to exert discriminative
violence, and stopping to create the social, political reasons of the core
violence : poverty AND ghettoisation.

I quite loaded the end of my description so that you have an overview of how
the conflict in Israel can spread to other cities in Europa. They spread
because we built the same kind of ghettos where poor and tanned are
concentrated and other citizens live in another reality protected by the walls
of the force of order. The conflict still has not yet comes as far as using
tank and rockets. Just stones, kicks vs tasers and gum guns (40mm cartridge
with gum balls).

The moral of my story is when you are thugged, learn to pass through the
violence so you don't take part in this vicious cicle. So that you don't
ignore it, and try to make you understanding of this shitty situation.

If you avoid it, if you avoid the places where over citizens are going you
ignore what is happening in your community. And if you call for only more
order, you just take part in the building of violence.

Problems are to be face. Problems are to be solved, especially when they
induce the violence and the pain in the community.

Maybe my analysis is wrong, but I think I am right to care. I was right not to
flee and whine.

PS for the record my city -Pontoise- ranks as one of the calmest city you can
see in my banlieue, and the aggression I have faced were no more than 4 on a
span of 30 years except if you add the 6 guys always trying to beat me at the
end of school for 6 months in a row because I was socially awkward and
pedantic, but they never got me, because I was escaping smartly the school
every time -but this is just bullying- I don't call that an aggression just an
initiatic rite for your acceptance in the empire of nerddom.

~~~
dualogy
Are we now all supposed to google for whatever the heck "banlieue" or "la BAC"
is supposed to mean? :D

~~~
ArikBe
The banlieues are the suburbs (of Paris). The word has become terminology
which is used in international media. It's valid English:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banlieue](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banlieue)

The BAC are the "Brigade anti-criminalité", that term is more obscure.
Basically a special unit of the police.
[http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brigade_anti-
criminalit%C3%A9](http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brigade_anti-criminalit%C3%A9)

~~~
julie1
In fact, we «banlieusards» from Paris have a tendency to consider ourselves as
«THE» banlieue. The most emblematic one. But most big cities have one of their
own. Marseilles, Lyon and Lille have theirs.

------
slowmotiony
That's not the police I know, and I've been living in Poland for 24 years now.

~~~
lgieron
Also, and I've been living in Poland for my whole live (33 years now), must
have met or read about tens of thousands of people by now, and have never
encountered anyone named Elmer.

~~~
idlewords
Presumably it was a nickname.

------
BrandonM
It might be worth adding [2004] to the title? My wife and I were just in
Warsaw for a few weeks, in the exact region he described, and we saw no signs
of crime to speak of. We saw very few police out and about, just the
occasional uniformed officer at a metro station.

~~~
spacefight
The crime the author describes is hard to detect until an assault/attack has
been executed on somebody.

------
BugBrother
I got a surreal feeling when reading about the police reaction. When I lived
in Stockholm a decade ago, I called in a few times.

The worst case was in the subway, when a big black guy talked incoherently in
bad Swedish and started to beat on the windows with a crowbar.

I shrugged, walked to the next wagon and called the police. I gave up when I
realised they weren't interested in hearing which subway line I was on and
what time, so they could meet up with it.

At least they answered that time...

The point is, not long after some crazy person killed a few people with a
baseball bat or something outside a subway station. I always wondered if it
was the same person. (I didn't see any pictures in the newspapers, which
implies an immigrant, like the crowbar guy.)

It doesn't matter if it was the same person, a bunch of violent crazy and/or
drugged people will destroy others' lives as long as they are outside.

(As I understand, the Finnish police otoh is well respected and trusted. I
don't really know about Denmark/Finland.)

~~~
seivan
Yeah that's Sweden for you.

Actually recently the cops have been told not to engage when a crime is
occurring, and instead just to take notes. They don't want riots.

A week ago a riot occurred in Rinkeby (islamic enclave) when a cop stopped a
speeding car.

~~~
rhblake
It should be noted that this is (obviously) not a general directive in Sweden
but rather about certain types of crimes in certain poor, problematic areas
where distrust of police (and other government agencies) is very high.

~~~
guard-of-terra
Anyway this isn't a solution to anything. What do they want, create their own
Gaza out of those problematic areas?

~~~
judk
Ready and waiting to hear your solution.

guard-of-terra for Mayor!

~~~
guard-of-terra
Strict immigration quality laws (as in, three strikes and you pay for your one
way ticket home). Fix police funding and then demand performance from them. If
there's a problematic area, put enough cops there so they pluck everybody
undesirable one by one until the rest is benign and/or got the hint. Control
unemployment (we don't just want low numbers, rather evenly distributed),
discourage walled settlements, try to mix people together. Instead of
providing welfare checks, make policemen/teacher jobs. Still can't find work?
Try hard or get booted (if you're some kind of immigrant, of course).

The main take off is - it works until you break it. If you have a broken
socity, stop complaining and fix it, it's absolutely doable.

------
blackdogie
in case you've missed it, it's from 2004, so I doubt that it's still like that
in Warsaw.

------
codecondo
Director: Steven Spielberg

------
Spearchucker
Krav Maga. First thing it teaches you is to stay away from areas where
something like this is possible. The next thing they teach you is to run away.
If you think you'll look like a coward, compare that feeling to having a knife
in your arm. If none of that works out for you, they teach you how to defend
yourself. Brutally. Even how to extricate your wrist or arm from a grab.
Physical size and strength (yours and your assailants) doesn't matter.

Just a couple of lessons should equip you well enough to avoid what happened
here. Give the lessons some time and you should have enough to deal with
multiple assailants, knife, stick and gun threats.

I see this as a basic life skill, right up there with at least enough
knowledge to differentiate a Monet from a Van Gogh, or a Beethoven from a
Rachmaninoff.

~~~
rb2k_
Kind of a stretch to call that a "basic life skill".

In my last 30 years, I never had to fight anyone or differentiate a Monet from
a Van Gough or a Beethoven from a Rachmaninoff. Then again, I don't life in
crime heavy neighbourhoods or go to dinner parties that fancy.

Maybe that's something for the next 30.

~~~
lotsofmangos
You should get out more, I've needed those skills in one evening.

edit - Defending yourself is a basic life skill. Not ever getting into a fight
means you are already fairly good at it.

~~~
jessaustin
Let me guess: when you drink beer, you prefer Dos Equis.

~~~
lotsofmangos
Wasn't familiar with the advert till I just looked it up. But no, I have to
say, that if I am feeling pretentious, I would have to claim to be more
Churchillian in my tastes. What really sets you up for breakfast is some
Carlsberg Special Brew, washed down with a nice glass of Buckfast Tonic Wine.

~~~
collyw
Buckfast Tonic Wine. Are you a Weegie?

Yeah, getting intimidated by neds was part of my growing up. You learn how to
show them enough respect not to annoy them, without looking wimpish enough for
you to be an easy target.

Some people must have proper sheltered lives.

~~~
sehr
_Some people must have proper sheltered lives._

It _is_ a software dominated forum. This is just an anecdote, but I'd guess
>80% of the developers I have met are from comfortably middle - upper middle
class families/areas.

~~~
collyw
You can see by the replies that they think this sort of thing is unacceptable.
It is in a way, but it doesn't stop it being the norm for many, many people
growing up. And that's in a developed country. Some kids are growing up in war
zones.

