Brutally Beaten in Recoleta

[Matt84]

Exactly Matt Inertia, as a guy was telling me, after a while (and specially if you've always lived in big cities) you become relaxed and you let down your guard.

 

[tina8]

Had hoped to hear from you some other news.
Anyway I am shocked to hear this happened to you...and so are you!
You're doing a great thing to bring it out...and believe me or not, it may sound fluffy; one day you might be happy this happened to you...
Hope all the rest is ok!
Hugs,
Tina

 

[ABC]

I have been sent the following information which was an eye opener for me.

This refers to the United Kingdom :

*** Only 1 in every 135 crimes ends with the criminal being sent to jail, according to Government figures.

The overwhelming majority of those responsible for the 10.7million crimes committed last year were never even caught.

But, in the 1.3million crimes where police did manage to arrest the criminal, only 53% were taken to court.

The rest received a caution, fixed penalty notice or their case collapsed.

Of those who did make it before a magistrate or judge only 79,100 received immediate custody, according to the annual Criminal Statistics report, released yesterday.

The average sentence handed down by magistrates was 2.7 months. ***

Bearing in mind that I was told this refers to "proper" crimes (not minor things like a parking ticket and some such) and the UKs population of 61 million means that there are six persons per crime, or put another way, 1 criminal per six persons.

Even if we factor in the difference in population between Argentina and the UK and use a 300% higher figure (way exaggerated) than the actual number of reported crimes in Argentina, the level of crime is 40% lower in Argentina than in the UK.

And even worse, these are UK goverment figures. No doubt the UK government would want to play down (or even lie about) such things, like any other government would, so the figures could well be even higher !

So I would say that though BA (or even Argentina) is no paradise of law and justice, it seems downright idyllic compared to a supposedly advanced, ordered, "first world" country.

I hope you get better soon !

 

[steveinbsas]

You're doing a great thing to bring it out...and believe me or not, it may sound fluffy; one day you might be happy this happened to you...

I have yet to be happy about any of the times I was assaulted or robbed.

Apparently, I don't know how to be fluffy, either.

 

[citygirl]

Edited to say Matt - while it probably won't do any good, I still think it's a good idea to report the crime. At least the policia can know if it's a systemic problem in that area as opposed to an isolated incident. Not that they'll catch them but still, it's information.

And re: safety here. Well, I used to be one of those "la di dah, Buenos Aires is safe, you're all just paranoid" people. And now, I'm not. Too many people I know have been victims of crime.

Look - I've never been robbed or had anything happen to me. But a lot of that is luck. And equally, I take a lot more precautions than I used to. I no longer walk home alone from Canitas to my house at night, I don't ever carry anything on me but the cash I'm spending that night and my cellphone and I don't speak in English if I'm on the street alone (talking on my phone for example). I also have the cab driver drop me on the west side of Libertador - not the racetrack side. And sometimes I have them drop me off 2 buildings away as I don't always want the cab drivers to know where I live but it's always on the side where the residences are and the security guards standing there.

Paranoid? No, but safe yes. I'm from NY, I understand big cities and I also work with the assumption that crime is a matter of when not if. But I take every precaution I can to delay that when.

 

[iStar]

Matt, so sorry to hear what happened to you. Thank you for sharing your story.

Thought I'd share this article:

Though Argentine businessmen maintain an almost dead silence about all things political, two of the country’s most influential entertainers recently spoke out about violent crime in the country.

Mirtha Legrand, host of an exceptionally successful and long-running daytime lunch show, called on Argentina’s president to give a nationalized televised speech to the country about crime.

Mirtha’s comments followed related comments by Marcelo Tinelli, host of the wildly popular ShowMatch program on Canal 13. Without naming names, Tinelli made a desperate appeal for government officials to do more to stop what seems to be a new crime wave.


Tinelli says his comments weren’t aimed “against anyone,” but he implicitly criticized President Cristina Fernández for her constant talk about “human rights,” implying that while she spends her time talking about human rights, Argentines are getting slaughtered in the streets by violent criminals who kill with almost complete impunity.

Here are the latest stats:



The rate of crime rose again last month, making October the fourth consecutive month of increases, according to a new study.
Torcuarto Di Tella University’s latest crime “victimization rate” survey indicates that both overall criminal activity and violent crime worsened last month.


Di Tella’s study, which surveys households in 40 urban centers around the country, shows that 34.6% of these homes said at least one household member was a victim of a crime within the past 12 months.


That figure is up a bit from 32.7% the previous month and up from 29% a year ago. That puts crime up about 19% on the year and up almost 6% on the month.


The study said that reported crime victims were much more likely to be well educated. Indeed, 42.4% of victims had a college degree or at least some post-high school education. Meanwhile, 34% of victims had just a high school degree and 31.7% had only an elementary education.


The victimization rate in the City of Buenos Aires last month was 38.1% while it was 31.9% in Greater Bueno Aires.

http://www.argentinepost.com/2009/11/crime-worsens-for-fourth-straight-month.html

 

[Fabe]

Welcome to
Argentina , where " We aint no indios" but we have a thug named guillermo moreno in office that runs an organized crime empire out of customs. Where a guy like anibal fernandez somehow gets away with the things he does . Where a guy named Luis D'elia bashes people on the head in the name of democracy and its all ok . Oh , but dont call argentines uncultured. I heard you loud and clear !
Hope you feel better ,and do like i do , when you are walking in a publick place , juse get your screwface on , that makes them think twice about fucking with you

 

[tf33]

The same thing happened to me back in July. My friend and I were walking from The Roxy del Arcos (a club in the parks of Palermo) up Sarimento, near the Planetarium. It was around 5 in the morning. This was obviously a stupid idea, as I wanted to take a taxi, but my Argentine insisted we walk to catch a bus to save money. I agreed. As we walked down the sidewalk, we both sensed some people behind us. We looked back and I knew from the start what was going to happen. It was 4 little punks, probably ages 12 to 15. We were both a little drunk so the details aren't as clear but, I remember thinking to myself, "these punks are not going to get anything from me". I remember them coming towards us and I moved away from them onto the grass in the park. They came at me and I fought back but then at some moment I felt a sharp pain in the back of my head. One of them had hit me with something. This landed me on the ground. As I was on the ground, I continued to fight back by kicking them. After 10 seconds or so of them realizing I wasn't going to cooperate, they ran off into the park. My friend helped me up and we ran a couple blocks up the street. As we stopped running, I noticed thick blood dripping from my head and onto my shirt. We weren't sure if I needed stitches or not, so we went to a health clinic. It turned out I needed two stitches in my head.

In the end, they ended up stealing nothing from me, which I am proud of.

Lessons learned:

1. If you are in an area like near a park in the middle of the night walking, not a good in Buenos Aires, let alone any city in the world. Always take a taxi to avoid walking in areas like this. But as Matt's story points out, it can happen anywhere.

2. I now feel like I can spot what these types of little punks look like. You can see it in their eyes that they are up to no good. They are like Vultures.

3. I am not sure if I should of cooperated with them or not, and I don't even know if I had the chance to cooperate with them. It all happened so fast. Maybe it is a sense of pride, but I hate the idea of being pickpocket or stolen from. In the future I am going to take it by a case by case basis, but if I feel like I can fight them off or run away, I will. Obviously not if the person is bigger that me or they obviously have a gun. But I am not going to let two little 12 year old punks take something from me. Yes I know, they can maybe have weapons, but I will let me instincts determine that.

4. Being drunk and walking at night is not a good combination. Obviously your senses just aren't there. Being completely sober and walking at night is not a good combination either, but if it is something you must do, at least you can be more on guard.


Sorry that happened to you Matt. Whenever I am in Recoleta I feel less safe than I do here in Chacarita where I live or in Once, where my girlfriend lives. I always feel like there are little punks up to no good in Recoleta, eyeing everyone.

 

[kurtdillard]

I'm sorry to hear about this, I hope you quickly recover physically and emotionally. Lots of good advice, however even after taking all of the precautions you can still get mugged. We lived in Recoleta until November, we moved to Corrientes in part because of the rising crime rate. We never had any issues, but we did see a few non-violent muggings last year. The police seemed to be worthless when they responded, never interviewed me even though I was 3 meters from one of the incidents.

Bloody Boo, you do not seem to be out to make new friends. Perhaps better words could have been chosen, but the original post clearly did not contain consciously racist content, please don't sidetrack this important conversation with that type of criticism. I request that you take your quest for political correctness and strip clubs to another thread, or even better, another forum.

 

[arichie]

I would say things are definitely getting a lot worse here. I think the economic picture is worsening by the day and with it comes a noticeable uptick in all kinds of crime.

In the last few weeks I was harassed in a supermarket by a guy who threatened to smash a bottle of Heineken over my head if I didn't pay for his booze. There was security around but the guy was disinterested in helping me and insinuated I was making trouble. A couple in front of me just smirked commenting that stupid tourists who don't speak the language should not come to Buenos Aires. I let them know I do speak reasonable Spanish, and that it's nice to feel so welcome by locals in their city.

In my neighbourhood in Palermo I have never personally experienced a spot of trouble in 4+ years. Never harassed or targeted for anything for looking like a tourist. But this past few weeks I experienced borderline harassment for money (I was waiting for the knife to be drawn, it didn't happen - thank god) and an attempt to relieve me of my backpack just yesterday.

One of my best local friends was robbed on the subway during the lunch hour. And a friend of hers had their cheap laptop stolen at gunpoint in a restaurant with security nearby.