Take THAT, Muni phone thief!

Photo by Jeremy Brooks

MissionMission’s Helen Tseng wrote about her scary experience getting mugged on Muni. She ran after the suspect to get her phone back, in what followed to be an even more frightening experience. From Helen’s blog:

I was on my way to the Needles & Pens anniversary show, and BART was delayed due to that naked guy fiasco, so I hopped on a 14 and took my phone out of my pocket to let a friend know that I would be late. Then, as the bus pulled over to the 23rd and Mission stop, a scary man ripped my phone out of my hands and ran off the bus with it.

Now, I don’t consider myself a particularly brave person. I cover my face at least once during every Game of Thrones episode, I’ve had a long history of existential anxiety and hypochondria, and I am a smallish person with a weak constitution who has never gotten into a physical fight in her life. Maybe it was the fact that I had just been pick-pocketed in Europe last month, but something happened to me then, some animal instinct that flipped a switch and propelled me off the bus, screaming bloody murder and running after this guy who was twice my size with all of my might.

I caught up to him and grabbed the hood of his sweatshirt, yelling “GIVE ME BACK MY PHONE! HE STOLE MY PHONE!” over and over at the top of my lungs. He struck me in the face and threw me to the ground, but I somehow managed to get back up and run after him again. After some blur of a struggle, he let go of my phone, muttered “what the fuck is wrong with you?” and took off around the corner. Despite having been dropped, my phone was miraculously in one piece and barely damaged. This all happened in less than two minutes.

Just this morning I received another notice from the SFPD about a phone mugging on the bus. Sometimes you think it won’t happen to you, but when it happens to people you know, it makes you think twice. Helen also shared some thoughts about what you should do if this happens to you. Check out what she had to say on MissionMission.