The Underscore Archives

2008/6/3 Chris Kaminski <chris at setmajer.com>:
>
> • 3rd person account — it wasn't the person writing who experienced
> the event

Rarely is.

> • overuse of exclamation points

Welcome to the internet.

> • curious details (maybe I just don't read enough news, but I don't
> often recall police specifying the heritage/nationality of a youth
> gang except where it was relevant to the crime — e.g. in hate crimes;
> and 'big welts' doesn't seem particularly serious to me, and I'd
> think he'd have had a broken bone or two)

Yes they do, having been beaten and (almost mugged) in the now closed
Easton motorway underpass the Police were quite clear as to the
nationality of the suspected culprits.

As for 'big welts', have you ever been beaten with a large wooden
stick?  Trust me you don't have to break anything for it to f*cking
hurt.

> • no link to a news story

Not news apparently.

> • baseball bats? are those common gang weapons here? they are in the
> U.S. (well, when they're not using guns…), but I handn't thought
> baseball was very well known at all, and consequently baseball bats
> would be a bit of a specialty item — not something one'd expect a
> gang of (presumably poor) 1st/2nd-gen immigrant kids would have to hand
>

Really don't think they're that uncommon, I've known plenty of people
who have owned a baseball bat (inc a girl at college who kept it under
her bed in case of burglary!). Get away from the american gang
stereotype (although this is probably an image most gangs aspire to).

>
> I know that part of the town can be rough — even heard an account
> from someone who claimed she'd personally witnessed her neighbor
> getting cornered in a doorway by a youth with a machete — but
> something about this account feels wrong to me.

I've known plenty of people mugged at knifepoint down that way and
lets face it they brought in armed police patrols to sort out the drug
gangs, it has a history of violence.

rick (not Rick)