Awareness: It only takes a moment to lose a lot!!

HIPunch

Inactive
Hello all,

Long post!!!

Not much of a poster, more of a lurker, but an incident this past Thursday moved me to write. If nothing more than to hopefully give back to all those posters who I have gained information from.
I have a friend, more like my brother, who lives on the west coast. Ex-Military, been involved with martial arts for as long as we have known each other (coming up on 20 years) and a pretty in shape kind of guy. He works over in San Fran but lives over in Oakland.
Past Thursday night, real late, he is coming home from another too long day of work. Inside his courier style bag are documents that basically contain everything about him probably down to his DNA imprint. Now, he lives in a pretty nice part of town, however, from the train depot to where he lives he needs to navigate some "shady" blocks. He told me he heard some gunshots just last week from his apartment and have seen an increasing amount of "groups" moving around the area.
With this in mind he exits the depot and begins his daily walk home. Yes, he is tired. Yes, he can't wait to get home. Then his cell phone rings and he answers without thinking and without stopping his forward progress.
Suddenly he is prone on the ground with at least two people punching and kicking the sh*t out of him. His only thought, since he knew he was in it, was to not give them a reason to shoot him (if that was a possibility).
He lived, although he goes to surgery this coming week. His bag gone, CCs need to be canceled, hopefully no identity theft issues arise from a stolen SSN, hopefully no visits to his apartment (addy stolen as well) while he is at his sister's house recuperating, etc., etc.

Once again sorry for being so long. Just wanted everyone to know that a momentary lapse in awareness is sometimes all it takes to go from walking on the sidewalk to kissing it. Also, sadly, it can happen to anyone.

Aloha,
HIPunch
 
Yet another argument for situational awareness and a good CCW. My thought to your friend, I hope his recovery goes well.
 
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