DCentric

TheNickster

Careful with that toy, little guy.

…after reading this, in TBD. If you carry an iPhone, you should read it, too. The piece is about how iPhone-users are a walking target; it starts with the story of Alexandra Friendly, who was walking home from work this Spring, when…

En route from work one afternoon this April, Friendly walked out of the Rhode Island Avenue Metro station and made her way up 10th Street NE toward home. Along the way, she popped in her earphones and played some music on the iPhone she’d bought two weeks earlier…

Then she felt a hand on top of hers. And then a yank that pulled her phone out of her hand, breaking her headphones off at the plug and leaving the buds in her ears. She watched, shocked, as her iPhone thief made his way back to a car. Enraged, she ran to the car and grabbed onto the door as it started to roll off. She managed to hang on until she was dropped a short way down the block, where a woman helped her up…

“Everything went black and white,” says Friendly. “When I think about the memories I don’t see any colors.” All she can remember seeing clearly are the young man’s shoulder-length dreadlocks as he headed to the car. The cops told her they’d be in touch if they learned anything, and that was pretty much the end of it.

The piece goes on to discuss how AT+T and Apple aren’t much help– as well as how prevalent this crime is becoming in D.C. and why. Chief Cathy Lanier says that there’s a black market for the phones in the city, and why wouldn’t there be? After one gets stolen, it is easy to just walk in and activate it with a new service plan, no questions asked. As for Alexandra Friendly:

After the robbery, Alexandra adjusted her route so that she uses a different Metro stop. Another post-robbery adjustment gives her shame. “I got really anxious any time I saw a teenage boy with shoulder-length dreadlocks. And there are thousands of teenage boys with shoulder-length dreadlocks.”