A Sunday Morning Stroll: straight into a robbery

[Doyle Phillips]

A coldish day in Guanajuato but sunny at around 8 this morning and I'm humming my way downtown for a nice coffee, carefree. I had thought a moment about the increased reports of robberies in San Miguel de Allende; why the topic came up I know not.

Near the bakery called PAN at Dos R?os very distant from me I momentarily notice a couple of kids in white sweatshirts with hoods up who rather hurriedly glance my way but nothing unusual since there is hardly anyone on the street and I look the Gringo.

In Guanajuato it is common for people to run at high speed on the too-narrow sidewalk when they are late for work or school. So as the chavos came at me all I thought about was the annoyance of it. One of the guys was about 5'6" the other about 5' tall. Kids.

The one on the left is coming fast as I turn to avoid a straight on collison at my shoulder but he bumps me anyway and I go to my left. The little guy on the right is jerking at my cloth shoulder bag. Probably the kid is experienced with the kind of bag strap that is a heavy round cord easily torn from the bag. But my version has the strap integral with the sides of the bag and so the entire contents bang to the sidewalk when the bag rips apart.

Of all the items I was carrying only my digital camera goes flying in the same direction the thieves are running. It bounces hard on the sidewalk and the younger one sweeps it up as they dash for a callejon. All this happens in seconds. I watch them run and am convinced they were kind of enjoying it all like would do a 13 and 15-year-old.

I find a set of strangely high-tech, expensive-looking keys that were dropped right by the camera location. Very odd keys. Maybe the kid had stolen them. At a nearby police station I gave the keys to the cops who also seemed to be puzzled by them.

Police advice was to check the pawn shops for the camera and I will, but the hit it took on the sidewalk almost certainly ruined it. So if you have a 12 megapixel camera for sale please let me know.

Doyle

In the past year or so I have heard of several hold-ups of one sort or another in the Dos R?os area and have reported them to you eMaties. All incidents were at night and against foreigners. Maybe this is the first