Our building was broken into yesterday, and apartments on two floors were robbed. Yesterday morning I had noticed that a door to the street didn't close behind me, went back and closed it, but didn't think more of it. After hearing of the burglaries, we went down to that door, and discovered how the thieves got in. They had jimmied the handle so that the door wouldn't close by removing a screw on the push-handle plate. Still unsure if this was deliberate to gain entry, or an accident due to poor maintenance (there isn't any really - we're too small a building to have anyone on retainer) that some lucky thief noticed. Now of course everyone is in a small state of panic, with talk of installing cameras, fences, etc.
Being robbed is a definite feeling of violation, someone has been rifling through your belongings, taking whatever grabs their fancy (in this case, a law students computer with all his files, jewelry, etc.), or that is easily sellable. My main office is next to the door, I'd be devestated if someone grabbed my computer, or camera, or guitar.
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Ugh! We've had three armed robberies and a stabbing in a four-block radius of our house this past month.
I live downtown in a large city, so am inured to a certain amount of crime. However, never want it so close.
According to my local crime map www.chicagocrime.org/beats/0111/
there's plenty of it going on.
Hope nobody was hurt in the armed robbery near you! Was the stabbing random?
We live about 2mi up a major artery out of Baltimore City, so crime is fairly common. Across the street is a major university so we get mostly nuisance crimes (vandalism, noise, petty theft). The last couple years however have seen a rise in rape and armed robbery--there have even been a few homicides.
The stabbing last week was young teens in an altercation at a movie theater. The suspects got away.
I went to graduate school in center city Philadelphia and lived there two years. Nothing here approaches that!