Thursday, November 12, 2009

Rio, Joberg and now KL?

I have never been to Johannesburg or Rio de Janeiro but I heard the crime rate there is quite high to the point where one can be mugged from inside their vehicles in broad daylight.

My postings are becoming more and more depressing lately. Rest assured it does not reflect my mental state. Some say that was what Robert Enke said the day before his suicide. Sigh.

Anyway, what I want to talk about today is snatch thefts. Daring ones.
A few days ago H lost her handbag to snatch thieves. Those b****s smashed her front passenger window and grabbed her handbag which was on the front passenger seat. This happened at 8pm, on a weeknight, at the Yap Kwan Seng/Tun Razak traffic lights.


Their modus operandi was to target solo women drivers (obviously) and strike when the lights are red so the victim cannot run or chase them. The size/make/model of the car is irrelevant, everyone is a potential victim. H was driving a huge SUV (no, a CRV is not a huge SUV, its a midsized SUV), it didn’t deter them despite the risk of being rammed down and killed by a marauding 4x4.

What was worse is that H not only had her personal particulars in her handbag but also her house keys! The scoundrels now know where she lives and has her house keys. Although all the locks in the house have been changed, she still lives in fear.

Some years ago, while walking to the car after a nice dinner, X’s handbag was almost snatched. It happened so fast, I had no chance to react, even if I had a bazooka with me that night, I wouldn’t be able to blow their heads off, it was a split second thing. Luckily X was not hurt but the trauma didn’t go away so easily.

A colleague has a sister who was seriously injured by snatch thefts, spent months in ICU. Everyone knows someone who has been a snatch theft victim. The papers report them almost on a daily basis.

The loss of personal property is not the concern, broken windows can be fixed. It is the trauma, the fear, which will linger for a long time; it is not a nice feeling.

Good riddance to those thieves who died ‘during active duty’. For those who escaped with bruises and broken bones, the vigilantes are obviously not finishing what they started out to do. Killing snatch thieves should be commended and rewarded.

Snatch thieves would not get it easy for me. No, I won’t kill them; they will continue to live their natural life albeit minus a few limbs and organs and probably their eyesight.

I still hope to one day be able to visit Joberg and Rio, for the World Cup and Olympics perhaps …


2 comments:

  1. Second last para - Sam, so cruel?

    ReplyDelete
  2. I've seen and heard of too many snatch cases, really pisses me off.

    ReplyDelete