<p>StickerShock posted: </p>
<p>“But the cops can’t start from the presumption that the kid is squeaky clean. If they did, they wouldn’t be worthy of wearing the uniform.”</p>
<p>Ummm, why the heck can’t they start with that presumption? Is “innocent until proven guilty” just for criminals, not for victims?</p>
<p>If this is a common scam (and come to think of it, I think I’ve heard of it before), the police should be even quicker to believe Sue’s son. I’m glad she’s calling the precinct; I’m sure some sort of community liason person would be interested in her son’s negative experience. If they aren’t called on it, they’ll treat the next kid exactly the same way. I respect the NYPD and have had nothing but good interactions with it, but I’m not naive enough to imagine it and all its members are perfect.</p>
<p>If a weapon was involved, Sue’s son did the right thing. Again, I’m so glad he wasn’t physically harmed.</p>
<p>He didn’t see a weapon but was told “if you don’t give us money you’ll get hurt”. That’s enough of a threat to me. </p>
<p>If there had been a physical confrontation, resulting in injury, I’m sure that the cops would have looked for cameras that would have seen the incident on the street.</p>
<p>I agree it was a hustle. I will ask him to go back to the NYU security and maybe the school paper can run an article about this scenario (or send an email out which would be better because all the kids check their nyu mail, but not all read the paper)</p>
<p>I live in a city where people get killed for NO reason. a few weeks ago (1/4 mile from my house), 2 armored car drivers were killed without any provocation by someone who got nothing from the crime (and was caught 2 days later). They were confronted at an ATM and shot before they had a chance to give up the money (the whole thing was caught on tape). </p>
<p>Living in fear sucks.</p>