This just hot off the press.
Yesterday (Tuesday) afternoon the Piazza San Marco was bubbling with tourists. The sun was out, the air was warm, the most beautiful city in the world (so-called) was just lounging around being beautiful, etc. There were thousands (probably) of tourists, and an inexact number of thieves and pickpockets in the mix. So far, so normal.
One of the tourists was a man identified only as being South American. One of the pickpockets was originally from Tunisia, and around 4:00 PM they were destined to meet. The Tunisian was already known for his propensity to steal from shops, but yesterday he tried his hand at stealing from people. The aforementioned hand had already extracted the tourist’s wallet, as I understand it, but the victim felt it, ran after and caught him, and launched his fist at the thief’s nose. Broke it, in fact.
Wallet recovered, pickpocket carried away in an ambulance to await surgery.
Lessons learned? Don’t try to steal wallets if you’re only used to ransacking rooms. Rooms don’t hit back.
16 Comments
Hurrah!
Guess it’s back to ransacking rooms!
Just ate about 12 similar tomatoes that I grew on my deck here in Alabama! They looked a bit like yours.
Yours certainly met a happier (or more just) fate than this outlier. What a waste of a good tomato….
Fave pickpocket moment is in The Take, a movie starring Idris Alba as a hard nosed police officer. Absolutely brilliant moment during questioning. Movie is pretty fair too.
Thanks for the tip — I love Idris Elba. (This film also goes by the title “Bastille Day.” Don’t know why.)
I love the witty juxtaposition of broken nose and tomato photograph!
I hoped somebody would notice that! You’ve just won a prize.
Glorious result
Tourists – 1
Thieves – 0
A good day in beautiful Venice!
Lisa
Bravo!!
Thank you, Erla. I love your newsletter… and like today, you crack me up!
Your fan.
Fran
I don’t see myself as a particularly vindictive or violent person but I do sympathise with the tourist in these kind of cases. Do you, by any chance, have an idea of how Italian law might look at this? Could the tourist in any way be held responsible for the thief’s bloody nose? Catching a thief red-handed would raise the adrenaline for anyone I guess?
Cheers from Solna!
I don’t know, but I would think that “self-defense” would cover who’s at fault here in the eyes of the law. Though now that I dimly recall, a shopowner who shot at the person who was in the act of breaking into his store to clean out the cash register was somehow found guilty of some infraction by defending his own property, so who the hell knows.
Well, as I’d just been reading on the BBC of two teachers being stabbed in England by a pupil (“With issues” – haven’t they always?) it was almost reassuring to hear of some justice, even if it was rather rough!
Was there justice for the poor mugged tomato?
Ella B
I don’t know. Probably happened at night, so nobody saw anything. As usual.