A Minnesota Nice Mugging

My family all know about this by now, so I don't suppose there's any harm in bringing it up here. I had my first mugging two weeks ago. On Friday night, I was walking home from Brit's after hanging out with Marie, Sejal and Matt at about 1:20 in the a.m. Lea was working a night shift. I walked past the Hyatt along the Loring Greenway towards the door to my building's parking garage (since it's the nearest entrance). I use my keycard to open the door and am about halfway to the door to the building itself when I hear footsteps behind me. I turn and find a gentleman literally two feet away staring right at me. He tries to step in front of me.

"Where you goin' son?"

Kinda started to get the idea where this was going, so I tried going around him. He blocks my path.

"Gimme your money."

I start to take a step back away from him as he reaches behind his back.

"I got a gun and I'll ****in' kill you. Now gimme your money."

At that point I knew things were serious. I told him that I only had a few bucks, but that I'd give it to him. I slowly pulled out my wallet, opened it, handed him eleven dollars and showed him the empty inside. He accepted the cash and thought for a few seconds while staring at the empty wallet.

"I ain't gonna take your license or cards or nothing 'cause you cool."

Well that's nice. And that's when it started to get weird. I started to back away and turn towards the door to the main building. My mugger starts to apologize. He said that he'd been homeless for the previous few days and was "new at this."

"Hey, if you need help from people, then just ask them. There's no reason to threaten a person's life. That's not cool."

He apologized again and offered to give me a dollar of my money back. I declined.

He broke for the door and I went in to tell the front desk of the building, call the police, etc. I've since found out that there have been a recent rash of such episodes on the Greenway, the worst of which involved three men who attacked a woman who had to go to the hospital for treatment afterwards. The building, to its credit, has increased its security measures and (I hear, anyway), hired a different security company. Didn't even know they had a security company. So I suppose that's a positive development. And truth be told, I came off fairly easy. I lost 11 bucks. Shoot, he was lucky I even had any cash since I never carry any. But it make you start to act a bit differently in public afterwards. I always make sure the door shuts behind me now and constantly check to see if anyone is behind me. I don't use the Greenway to get home after nine. I keep the safety on my piece off so I can get a shot off more quickly if I need to.

So that's my big city mugger story. Here's to hoping I can keep the count at just one. :o)