Really? Again?

SHORT version – just to update folks. I was sitting on the subway, holding my phone in the “phone death grip,” as having had my phone stolen ALREADY a year ago, I’ve learned a few things. But I was sitting by the door. Won’t do that again!

So I get on the train at 125th, notice a group of guys on another area of the train, think to myself, Hmm, is it a school holiday today? When we get to 145th street, the doors open, and linger a bit. I notice a group exit the train, and then, as if it were in slow motion, one of them reaches back in, and literally struggles with me over my phone, succeeds, and they all run off. I BOLT up, and run after them, screaming: “He stole my phone! STOP HIM!” (of course, no one does, they all just watch this unfold) I RUN after them, up, out of the subway, onto the street, and down to 144th street, they turn a corner, I’m out of breath, and I can’t see them, so I hit the payphone, and immediately dial 911. I’m on the phone with the operator, describing what happened, and a gentleman outside of a deli says the deli guy wants to talk to me, and the kids? They’re in that building over there. I lean to my right, one of the kids comes out of the building, yells, “it wasn’t me,” and then they all take off running. I describe the scene to the operator, and he says the police will be there shortly. I go into the deli, and he says they have video camera, and his boss will be in at noon, and they can give me the video then.

The cops show up, and they CAUGHT THE KIDS! I’m blown away. Amazingly fast action on behalf of the 30th precinct! I go in the car with them, see the kids, I can ID them, and we then go to the precinct. While I’m filling out paperwork, I notice that the papers are slightly different than last year. There has actually been paperwork created for iPhone theft. WHAT does that say about NYC?! I call and disable phone, etc. I had the usual security measures in place – the auto lock, the erase all data with 10 unsuccessful pin attempts, etc. And in fact, I had even backed up the phone this am.

But here’s the sad part. As I’m chatting with one of the officers, he informs me that this isn’t their first booking, and the youngest was 14 years old. FOURTEEN YEARS OLD. only one of the kids had a clean record. And there were about 6 of them. I almost lost it on the spot. So we got into a long discussion about parenting, and I even showed him how to set the “all data erase” on HIS iPhone.

So now? We are waiting until about 4pm, when the kid that got away is due to come home from school. Which he clearly didn’t go to today. But according to the officers, his mom “rules with an iron fist, and will drag his sorry behind to the precinct herself when he gets home from school.”

So we wait.

I cannot believe, that after having my guard UP, that this happened AGAIN. I cannot believe that KIDS are the ones responsible. It totally breaks my heart.

I’m OK, B”H. It’s just a phone. If this were 10 years ago, I wouldn’t have even noticed, because I didn’t have a cell phone. But now? we’ve all become so dependent on them, I feel naked. I am typing this up at Kinkos, while I’m texting with Narda and my boss, just to let them know what happened.

I told the Sargent that I didn’t want to point out one kid over another if I wasn’t 100% sure, for fear of blemishing his record. That’s when he told me that it wasn’t the first arrest. I had to pick my jaw up off of the floor. I guess I’m just a little naive.

So now, we wait. And Narda goes out of town for 2 days tomorrow am. So we have to either get my phone back, or replace the one that was stolen.

This sucks.