Have you ever witnessed a crime?

[NJmaverick]

what did you do?

[taterguy]

1. Yesterday I witnessed someone exceeding the speed limit

I did nothing

[Ohio Joe]

2. Yes, a number of times

Many years ago... early 80's, I had a job bartending at the Lamplighter in Monsey NY. We were closing up one night... Me, the other bartender Anthony and a local cop that was off duty were the only ones left in the bar (this particular cop stopped in after his shift and often stayed with us till we finished and went home). We had forgotten to lock the front door and a guy walked in, came up to the bar, right next to the cop(who was not in uniform) and pulled out a gun. He pointed it at Anthony and I and told us to give him the money from the register. Neither of us moved as the cop pulled out his gun and put it to the guys head and said "Police... put the gun on the bar... NOW". The guy did and the cop arrested him. Anthony and I broke up laughing.

[NJmaverick]

9. Did you guys ever have to testify or did he cop a plea?

[Ohio Joe]

14. A number of cops came that night

Maybe three or four came when he called it in. We gave statements and gave them the security tape but never heard anything after that.. Never asked about it either. I always assumed he put in a guilty plea or made some kind of bargain. heh, he really did it about as bad as he could, we only had one camera and he was about dead center in it so I don't think he really had much of a leg to stand on.

[JVS]

3. I don't remember a thing, but maybe Ben Franklin and some of his friends might jog my memory.

[NJmaverick]

8. I am not sure I have seen Ben lately

would George and a couple of his brothers do anything?

[NewJeffCT]

4. I saw George W. Bush steal an election in 2000

in front of 300 million witnesses. I started becoming more active politically in writing letters to the editor, etc.

[MichiganVote]

41. Hey me too. And I saw Cheney lie on meet the press a bunch of times.

Not to mention the Barney Fyfe's of Homeland Security/FEMA during Katrina. But really, its just a flook that the generals lied for 8 years. Who could blame them? Its not as if Rummy ever followed the law.

[Tobin S.]

5. I've been convicted of two so I guess you could say that

Nothing serious, though, just misdemeanors. Disorderly conduct and trespassing. Then there's all of the dope my friends and I did from when I was 15 to 23. Under age drinking. Driving without a driver's license. Vandalism. Drivng under the influence of a lot of different things. Felony drug possession.

Fortunately for me, and probably several other people, I'm a lot smarter than I used to be. I don't know how that happened, though. Somewhere down the line I grew a brain.

[NJmaverick]

7. So I guess things could have gone much worse

[Tobin S.]

10. You got that right.

:D

[NJmaverick]

6. When I was going to college in NYC

I was walking to school one early morning. I see a young guy running and a lady screaming something (I couldn't make out what). The young man ran toward me opened his coat to show me he had nothing and kept going. Eventually the older lady came into good ear shot and she was yelling stop him, because he had stolen her purse. To this day I regret not having stopped, or tried to stop, the thief. Now admittedly I was a skinny thing in college (hadn't started weight training) so I am not sure how things would have gone, but I still wish I had tried.

[hobbit709]

11. Misdemeanor, felony or worse?

[Deep13]

12. Yes. Stood aside and let him clean out the register. nt

[NJmaverick]

13. That must have been frightening

[Deep13]

15. Honestly, it really wasn't.

The whole situation was kind of laughable. Two guys came into the convenience store and demanded I open the register. One guy picked up MY broom to hold me at bay behind the register and the other guy across the counter took out a cheap steak knife. They had hoodies cinched tight around their faces. All I could think was that I was being robbed by Abbot and Costello. I shouted, "It's not too late to reform" as they ran out the door. It was a little scarey to think about it later, realizing it could have gone worse. My mother made me quit. She was horrified. I went to work at an overnight drug store that had an actual cop there all night. Seemed like a sensible precaution. Plus it paid more and offered health insurance.

[fNord]

16. do you mean crimes I didn't commit?

[eyepaddle]

17. Would the one where I got held up at gunpoint count?

'Cause if that counts, then yeah I've witnessed a crime. I was about a foot taller than either of the little hoodlums that were mugging me, and if not for the shotgun I would've beatne them severely for having the temerity to try and rob me. I thought about it for a bit and I was pretty sure I could take them before they could get the sawed-off, single-shot 20 gauge into play, but then decided that "pretty sure" wasn't good enough with these types of stakes, so I gave them my $16. They wanted my wallet too, as it turns out.

I wasn't in the mood to make that many phone calls trying to sort out identity theft so I snapped then and pretty much bellowed "FUCK YOU, YOU GOT ALL MY FUCKIN' CASH, THAT'S GOOD FUCKING ENOUGH, NOW GET THE FUCK OUT OF HERE!!!" I may have been a little more abrasive than that though. But at this outburst they took off running to the getaway car--leaving me behind wondering "How would things have worked if I would've just STARTED with that approach....

Oh well, I digure $16 split three ways was about good enough for some McDonald's, I wonder if they thought it was worth it.

[NJmaverick]

18. Risky, but I like the outcome

did the police ever catch them?

[eyepaddle]

23. Not for that crime, but I am pretty much convinced that they are in prison

for something. I left out the part about how they mugged me in a residential neighborhood at about 5:00 PM on a Sunday afternoon. If they were that brazen then, well, I'm sure they have fucked up and gone to jail for....something.

[guitar man]

19. Yeah, 8 years worth

Witnessed 8 years worth of crimes under the last administration. Hollered, screamed and tried to blow the whistle as loud and long as I could, but it seems nobody heard it, at least nobody that could or would stop it. :(

[Forkboy]

20. Only the ones I was involved in.

[graywarrior]

21. Numerous times.

I grew up in Lynn MA. I have PTSD as a result.

[schmuls]

22. I was involved in a shooting. It was around the 4th of July in the

evening and I heard what I thought were fireworks going off. I looked out the front window and my neighbor was making her way to my door saying, "she shot me". I brought her inside and my boyfriend called the ambulance while I stayed with her. She was lucid enough to ask me to look at her torso and tell her where the bullet holes were. The paramedics took her and then we we talked to detectives. Turns out the victim had been harrassing the shooter all day, making sexual advances and slashing her tires. The victim survived and we saw her at a music festival a week later! It all made for a memorable Independence Day!

[NJmaverick]

26. That's some story

So your neighbor was harrassing the shooter (another woman who I assume didn't live there) and slashed her tires etc. So the shooter came to your neighbor's house and shot the woman in her home. Is that correct?

[schmuls]

33. I'm sorry I wasn't clear...the shooter was actually her roommate!

So the shooting victim was at home with her all day and evidently drove her over the top.

[Ikonoklast]

24. Yeah, came home from work early and the townhouse two doors down was getting robbed.

It was early afternoon, just after lunchtime, so they must have thought they were safe from anyone coming home at that hour.

Five kids were walking out the front door carrying everything they could fit in the car; TV, microwave, stereo system, what have you. They saw me, dropped what they were doing, and scrambled out of there before I could block them in with my car.

Got their plate number, make and model of the car, and called it in as they were leaving the development, but the cops didn't catch them for a week. The car they used was stolen.

They were wanted for a string of daylight breaking and entering robberies throughout the area, and the one guy they actually later caught in the act as the others ran away ratted out the rest. One lit out of the state, don't know if they ever did find him.

Theses guys worked for a robbery ring that was pretty sophisticated, but simple. They would watch to see when people left for work, and time their burglary accordingly, steal a car, do the crime, and take their haul back to their boss who financed their efforts. He had crews of thieves working all across the area.

[NJmaverick]

27. At least they were finally caught

can't stand criminals that prey on others

[MajorChode]

25. This was the funniest crime I have ever seen

As I was going into a little mom-and-pop convenience store I saw two screwy looking guys putting gas in their truck. They looked a bit circumspect, but I didn't think much about it at the time as it was a fairly bad neighborhood. As I was coming out of the store, the truck was pulling away and a guy came out of the store yelling. I realized the guys were stealing gasoline. The owner of the store had what looked to be a long sawed off broom handle. As the guys started pulling out into the main road, the store owner threw the stick at them as they drove by. The stick shattered their rear window. It scared them so much they shot across all four lanes and blew out two tires on the curb on the far side. They continued to limp down the street in their fucked up truck. I laughed so hard I almost cried.

I told my buddy about it who lived in the neighborhood and he said he saw the guy shatter a woman's windshield for the same thing. So I guess it was a regular thing. He said he asked the store owner about it, who said he loses too much business making people pre-pay, so he just takes his revenge out on those who steal gas. I suppose at the very least it prevents repeat offenders.

[Iggo]

28. Hundreds if not thousands of times.

I am an ex-criminal.

[Deep13]

29. Domestic violence, neglect by my drunk of a step-father...

...and my complicit mother. Also, I was a passenger in his van while he drove drunk and with a suspended license.

Being a child, there was nothing I could do.

[unpossibles]

30. I chased down a thief once

It hurt like hell too because I was really, really hungover.

I was unloading some supplies at a bakery where I used to be a manager, and heard someone yell "Stop! Theif!" across the street. I turned to see a young man running away from a larger, older man who could not keep up, so without even thinking about it, I raced after the perp. Luckily for me, he was not too bright: he ran literally around the block, and every corner I was able to gain on him - something that due to my hangover, I would not have been able to do had he just ran straight away from me.

As he rounded another corner, some people had come up from the other direction and slowed him down, enabling me and a guy who cam from the other way to grab the guy until the cops showed up.

Despite the throbbing pain in my ribs, head, stomach, and lungs, it felt pretty good.

[NJmaverick]

31. Good for you!

I know the police say not to do stuff like this, but I think it's great.

[abq e streeter]

32. saw someone smoking marijuana

I was deeply shocked at this transgression of our societal norms values and laws, and immediately attempted to confiscate it, but the arrogant scofflaws would do no more than share it.

[Deep13]

34. I saw that a few times actually.

I never partook myself as I did not approve of it at the time. I was a judge-not variety of Christian at the time. I even saw some of my friends try to smoke a Percocet once.

[tonekat]

35. Stopped an assualt on a young woman

Back in the 80s...my then girlfriend and I were driving home in my hometown in upstate NY when we spotted a man who had a younger woman bent backwards over the trunk of a car. I stopped my car, my g/f asked if everything was all right, to which the man mumbled "we're fine". My g/f phoned the cops, and we followed his car long enough to get his license plate number and car model for the cops.

The cops nabbed him. Eventually, the detectives called us in to look at the pictures of sex offenders, it wasn't a huge city, so I saw pics of people I'd seen around town for years...that was scary. Plus the number of kids that were in that book was disturbing.

Later, we went to do a line up. We picked him out, and it went to trial. The defense attorney actually tried to discredit our testimony because my g/f and I were living in sin at the time! Jerk. Anyway, the perp was found guilty, went to jail, it turned out he had done this with other young women.

As for the person we "rescued"? She and her trailer trash mom really didn't give a shit. Not even a thank you.

[KansDem]

36. A purse snatching...

I was driving along a busy street when out of the corner of my eye I saw what appeared to be a flash of brown and then realized it was a lady's purse. She was sitting on a bus bench and there was a kid who walked up behind the bench, lend over, grabbed the purse and flung it up and over the back of the bench, then took off to a car parked on a service street (he had friends in the car waiting for him with the motor running). Cautiously I steered over and around the next intersection to get onto the service street and drove back to the bus bench. The car had already took off, but the driver of another car back behind me far enough to pull over and stop in front of the bench had gotten the car's plate number.

I gave him (the driver) and the woman my name and number in case the police wanted to contact me (I couldn't stay as I had an appointment and couldn't wait for the police), but I never heard anything else, so I figured the information the other driver got was enough for the police to follow through.

[EFerrari]

37. I chased a burglar/convicted rapist out of my house with my finger.

lol

And once saw a guy beating on another guy on a meridian. Told my husband to stop the car and got out and ran over to them and yelled for the guy to stop. My husband was really, really pissed at me.

Another time I was cashiering at a stop n rob during swing shift and two guys came in to case the store. They left when they saw I had a dog behind the counter. Whew.

[NJmaverick]

38. That must be one scary finger

bet even the dog was afraid of it

[EFerrari]

39. Asshole turned off the light when he got to my bedroom

so I flipped the dark on him. Thank Dawg I was half asleep or I'd have been too scared to whip out my finger and threaten to shoot off his face. lol

[Silent3]

40. Yes...

...but I certainly don't turn myself in when it happens. :evilgrin:

[theNotoriousP.I.G.]

42. Too many to count

I either called the cops, ran away to the park or hid in my bedroom.

[doc03]

43. Yes 8 years of GWB.

[LostInAnomie]

44. When I was in high school I would see high school kids drinking pretty much every weekend.

[armyowalgreens]

45. My Walgreens was ransacked by a Mexican Gang. I was the front register clerk...

They stole about 2000 dollars worth of merchandise.

They came back two weeks later to do it again and I recognized one of them as they walked through the door. We called the cops and told them to leave.

Instead of leaving, a few held up in the back of the store. The rest surrounded me at the front counter and verbally abused me until the police arrived.

Scary shit. I thought I was going to get stabbed.

[suninvited]

46. more for your book?

I don't know if I am going to sign the release.

[jeff30997]

47. Have you ever witnessed a crime? Yes.

what did you do? Responded to this question.

[Drunken Irishman]

48. Yeah...a guy was beating the shit out of his wife.

I was a kid.

It was on my old street.

We were playing cops & robbers and I was in the jail (which was my lawn) waiting for someone to come tag (break me out).

Across the street, I noticed the neighbors fighting and the wife was in the driver's seat and the husband leaning through the door. Then he socked her one good. I was stunned. But what could I do? I was just a kid. She quickly got out of the car and took off the down the street. I think I was the only one who knew.

An hour or so later, we all decided to head to the elementary school down the street and while we were getting ready to cross the road, we saw her walking by and her face was all puffy.

We got home, I told my folks what had happened, but things seemed like they calmed down. I guess we all went to bed at the same time (must've been a weekday, though it was summer). I'm lying in my bedroom (which faced the street) and could hear screaming. So I look out the window and see them fighting in the driveway (it was shared by the fourplex next door - we grew up in a housing project).

It was getting bad, so I went and got my parents and we all piled into my brother's room (he was sharing it with my cousin, who lived with us) and watched. Next thing I know, he knocks her to the ground and pulls her up the driveway by her hair. At this point, my mom calls the police and they get there fast.

Well they're all talking in the middle of the street and my lame-brain dad makes a loud noise, so the cop flashes the light up to my brother's window. We all drop and hide, but idiot dad is left standing there in his white shirt so they could see who was being nosey.

Pretty funny in an otherwise unfunny event.