Hacker News Reader

Comment by kkielhofner | Hacker News Reader

I wish it was anywhere near that "respectable".

I was visiting a college town for an away football game. This was the night before the game and some of my friends and I went out. I met these two guys at a college bar my friends and I went to. My friends were going back to our hotel but these guys (who we had all met maybe an hour before) had invited me to a party. It was still fairly early and I thought "Neat, this will be a different and interesting experience". Unfortunately it was - much more than I had imagined.

It's likely that if the circumstances were closer to what you've described the police would have taken me more seriously.

I should also probably add that this was in a period of my life where I was unknowingly experiencing untreated bipolar disorder. If you're not familiar with manic or even hypomanic episodes your risk assessment can be very warped. That was a large component of this situation.

View on HN

I guess in the scheme of "things that happen in a college town," being invited to another party from a public bar with people you just met there doesn't seem like a particularly unusual thing to take part in either. It being a college town, and stemming from a bar, does seem like it may have aided in the inappropriate response from the police, unfortunately. I wonder how many college kids end up in a similar situation, where in most cases the police likely won't even be able to do anything to follow up. A friend's brother had a similar experience, having been approached at a gas station for help and ultimately being beaten up and mugged. Aside from also being treated like a drug addict (which he was, to be fair), he was told they they couldn't/wouldn't do anything about it anyway since they had no way of knowing the people involved.

That's the other side - when describing the situation to the incredulous officers my take was (essentially) "The beginning of this scenario likely happens multiple times every single day in this city and it's not about drugs or other criminality". It's a fairly standard situation by college town standards, not some fantastical story or some other scenario that screams "a bad guy ripped off another bad guy". At one point they even said "we just don't understand why you would get in a car with people you just met". It was clear to me the subtext there was "why would you trust /those/ people". Again, sadly, it was clear race was a factor.

In my situation the bar was a corporate national chain in the downtown center with locations in most college towns (at least in my experience). They likely had video surveillance from every angle. The perpetrators may have even paid by credit card, been already known to others there, possibly even the staff, etc. Compared to the situation your friend's brother experienced it seems like there's a decent chance my assailants could be caught. As I said I'd been talking to them for an hour, left with them, etc. Video wouldn't be tough to get.

I often wonder if it was a one-off crime of opportunity or some MO/pattern of theirs. No way to know I suppose but given my case they certainly wouldn't have any reason not to do it again.

Ouch, in a national chain, potential video, potential payment trail... it's too bad that (in my admittedly limited experience), these sorts of things are almost never pursued, because to your point - there's no disincentive to the perpetrators to stop.

Well let’s remember, after my initial experience with the police I didn’t even bother to return the call from the detective who “followed up”. Not having the cooperation of the victim is a guarantee nothing will come of it. Perversely it also probably reinforced the attitude the officers demonstrated - “Knew it, this guy was doing something shady and finally realized he doesn’t want to get in trouble”.

I feel bad that my inability to deal with this could contribute to it happening to someone else. But, certainly at that time, I just couldn’t bring myself to even talk about it.

Oddly, years later, I can talk about it on HN and think nothing of it. Occasionally my friends will have me tell the story to someone else and we’ll all laugh about it (occasionally to the horror of anyone hearing it for the first time).

It’s been a very strange experience.

> Occasionally my friends will have me tell the story to someone else and we’ll all laugh about it (occasionally to the horror of anyone hearing it for the first time).

"Comedy is tragedy plus time."

Just want to say that it's not your fault. I've gone unfamiliar places with unfamiliar people many times. A college town party being one of the most representative examples. I've never had anything close to that happen to me. I think you were just extremely unlucky. I'm sorry you were robbed in such a horrific way and I'm sorry for how the police treated you.

I'm a pretty big introvert, and even I would probably have at least considered going with them to a party. And one of my reasons would not have been "they might try to rob me". So I think you're putting far too much blame on yourself.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com