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I still recommend the oldest form of self-defence, practiced by our ancestors thousands of years ago...

Run like hell! And remember, you don't have to be able to run faster than the bad guys, just faster than the slowest of your mates (joke)

I'm going to second the sound advice Seige gave you - by "light drugs" I presume you mean the old hemp (whoever mentioned aerosols - they are well known for being one of the most dangerous "substances" you can abuse - a good warning, but not necessarily a good comparison!).

Anyway - I could just say "drugs are bad" but I doubt that'll pursuade you, so I'll just explain myself:
If I'm going to club in a rough area of with a bad reputation (and I try not to), I don't even drink, or at least limit it to one beer. That way my reactions or assessment of a situation aren't compromised, and chances are whether fight or flight (and I much prefer flight), I already have a significant upper hand. The same goes for walking around places you know to be frequented by the sort of people who did that to you. I advise you to do the same!
As Seige said, drugs/drink and violence are a lethal combo, because people just don't have the sense to realise the consequences of what they're doing, or that one kick to the head or stab to the body could kill.

Honestly, police or no, the best advice I can give you is if you want to do a few recreationals (is there really nothing else to do...?!), go to a mate's house and have a giggle at the TV, don't be wandering round the streets incapable to any degree, because trouble will find you, and whether it's a mugging or a car crash or whatever, you need your wits about you!

That's the lecture over - I hope you're feeling better now, these things really shake you up, don't they?!

i never realised magicians were so straight laced!

me either.
Just give them a good hard kick in the b*ll*cks.
If that doesn't work, send them round here. I could do with some exercise.

i had some problems with some local portsea thugets many years ago fortunatly in thoughs days i always carried my metal apearing cane, which puts an asp, police trungeon, to shame.
a bit of stick girating convinced them that there little knives were not going to cut it or me luckily as i can't run.

also fortunatly for me my brother had his own security business so for the next fortnight ever two days six huge bouncers would turn up for coffee and leave with suspisious looking white parcels, actualy there pay for that month, and saunter off happy chaps.
since i lived under one of the main scroats he thought i was a heavy dealer and decided to leave me well alone.

i still have a rep in portsmouth as a psycho because of my young psychic / spiritulist days and by doing some geek type stuff to aparently show i was imperviose to pain, block head and the like, so you could say magic has saved my life on a few occassions.

I've been following this post since it began and I'll say again, the main thing to take away from this experience is that you are OK and will live to tell the story. I also back what Seige said in his post 100%.

Firstly the drugs, in the long run drugs will do you more harm than good. They may give you a short term boost but the consequences last for much longer.

It is certainly true that the police provide a very varied service throughout all areas of the country these days. It's not a matter of the police being bad in one town and good in another and it's more basic than this. It's really a matter of whether you get a good policeman or a not so good policeman. However, this is not the point!

It's all well and good having apathy towards reporting crimes but the down side is that these individuals or gangs are encouraged to be even more unruly, simply because they know that they will go unchallenged. You're young enough to run but could your mum or dad out run these thugs or your brother, sister? I ask because sooner or later eveyone will be considered fair game for a dose of their warped sense of fun.

There comes a time when you have to take a stand and the more that do so , the better it WILL eventually become. While the police may not do anything positive (you may be surprised), the fact that you and everyone else reports a crime will mean that the true picture of crime is seen. If the police suddenly have 30 reports about this gang then they will have to act.

Actions have consequences and non actions also have consequences. I would urge you to consider both sides of this argument and do what is right, not what may appear to be the easiest.

That's a really, really good point Dat. In your opinion, what would have been the 'right' or best action for Mikey to take?

First and foremost is to make sure that you are safe and if that means running away then that is exactly what you do.

It's the actions that you take afterwards that I'm talking about and although it's only my opinion, it's all about what makes you a good citizen and that means trying to do what's best to protect the others in your community and the rights of society in general. Everyone has the right to live in a safe society and community without these fears.

You can't take the law into your own hands so you must trust the law enforcers by at least reporting what has happened. If they don't follow up then at least your conscience can be clear and if those morons happen to kill someone next time By reporting the crime you have done everything that was in your power and have therefore fullfilled your social and moral responsibility.

If everyone does nothing then THEY WIN and we can then only blame ourselves for giving up when we are enprisoned in our own homes in fear of going out.

I agree that if you do nothing then the gangs may continue, but soon enough they will grow up and realise they are being t*ats. But, in my experience police are absolutely useless. Don't get me wrong, they find you speeding and your fined. They see petty laws being broken and they're on you. But if there safety is put at risk, they will try to steer away.

I only have this opinion because of experiences that have happened to me on a lot of occasions, for example, I live in a very rough area of South London and gangs are near enough everywhere. The recent stabbings of teenagers have been in and all around my area (being Croydon). Police tend to patrol the streets at night, breaking up fights with their sprays and bats and try to make law abiding people feel safer, which is great. But my brother was walking down a street near me one night, and there was a group of lads singing their hearts out infront of him (very late at night). A bloke in a nearby house leant out of the window and shouted at this group of boys singing and generally shared unpleasant words whilst my brother kept his head down and walked on. Five minutes later the same bloke from the house ran out, saw my brother, picked up a brick and smashed it in his face. Now his nose is massive and hes insecure about it (naturally, i take the mikey out of it ).Anywhoo, my brother contacted police, gave them details of what he looked like, what happend, the mans address and pictures of his stitched up nose.

This was years ago and nothing has been done about it. My brother was extremely lucky and if there are people on the streets capable of doing something like that then police need to do something about it. But, instead, they sit in their nice warm tax payed cars and look out for people going 5 miles an hour over the limit. They don't want to put themselves in danger when they could just not bother.

Like I said, this is not my only experience of shoddy police. It may just be around my area but either way, I'm moving away when I can

I don't disagee with you LeftEye and there are plenty of examples of poor policing. There is also a great amount of good policing that is not seen. It tends to be only the negatives that make the news but that's not an excuse.

Poor policing is a result of a number of factors and one of them relates to crime reporting. If a only a few crimes are reported then their chiefs and the politicians live in the belief that things are under control whereas if everything were reported, they will get the true picture and be forced more into tacking the problems otherwise they're elected out.

The problem with many things today, and not just policing, is that the politicians in charge don't engage in joined up thinking or joined up policy and legislation. It's all about making money to prop up the NHS, immigration, education, law and order, and the list could go on instead of making money to spend on improvement.

Anyway, rant over

dat8962 wrote:The problem with many things today, and not just policing, is that the politicians in charge don't engage in joined up thinking or joined up policy and legislation. It's all about making money to prop up the NHS, immigration, education, law and order, and the list could go on instead of making money to spend on improvement.

Yeh, I agree. Dat for PM!!

i agree with lefteye!
my friend got his nose broke by some random T**T down in the middle of our shopping centre, in broad daylight, with CCTV. we reported it, and they "couldn't find his attacker" there was only to people to find.

this was dark, no CCTV and there was about 15 people. i never got a good look at any of them, and neither did my mates and with the amount of different gangs around these days, the police would probably warn us to stay away from that area. why should we? we should be able to go were we want without getting beat up!

a self producing metal wand sounds good!

Anarchic bedlam follows when one starts taking the law into one's own hands, and anarchy may sound fun, but it would get very annoying after the first 15 minutes, at least for people who want better policing instead of none.
The fact is that if something like this happens, the police will not always find, arrest and prosecute the criminals as they have bigger issues to deal with. All we can do is not make outselves victims, make crime harder and report these incidents, doing our part and being good citizens, to hope that this sort of thing doesn't happen to others.

i brick to the face sounds good in these situations!
if only!