Thief! Thief! - The Account of an Attempted Robbery

Tuesday, May 19, 2009

It was a rainy Sunday morning, May 17 to be exact. It was the kind of rain that makes you sleep deep and comfy, the type of rain that makes you just want to cuddle and sleep in the warmth and comfort of your bed. But for me, that peace was shattered in the wee hours of Sunday Morning at about 3:30. I was fast asleep, deep sleep as I was extremely tired when a loud thud shocked me out of my slumber. What could this be, where did it come from?

Still dazed by the frightening sound I stumbled out of bed to investigate the source of this sound. I checked the front, but all seemed OK, so I headed to the kitchen to ensure that my door was locked properly. I listened, but there was no sound. The only other option was to head into the bathroom to look out at the back porch through the bathroom window. I slowly, steadily and stealthily climbed up on the edge of the tub to look out. As I peered into the dimly lighted back porch a figure manifested itself just before my eyes! He was right in front of me, the only thing separating us was the wall and the blades of the window. It was a thief! A thief had broken into my porch and was about to make his next move to gain entry to my place. At this point I was unarmed, I don't have a gun, and weary from my sleep I hadn't stopped to take up my machete, so all I could do was to shout thief as loudly as I could! I shouted several times, trying to overpower the deafening sound of the night rain, as I dash back to the kitchen, flicked on the light switch for the porch and drew my cutlass and grabbed my phones!

By this time the thief had made a hasty retreat as he knew he was spotted. I desperately tried to get the police, but this was to no avail. I dialed 119, I dialed the number for the constant spring police station but no one answered, the phone rang and rang antagonizing and hopelessly. I called up my neighbours to alert them of what happened, all this time the phone was still ringing of the deaf ears of the police. After about what seemed to be a half hour, someone finally answered 119 and took the report. The police didn't arrive till about another 20 minutes later and just merely asked a few questions went to look at the breached area, and agreed with some of the neighbours who said I should have waited until he was coming in then chop him, then left after a few minutes. Some police, no wonder why the crime rate in Jamaica is so high. When you call them you can't get an answer and when they do finally arrive much later, they are basically of no use.

This ordeal has shaken me up somewhat. Being robbed or experiencing almost being robbed on the street, at a venue or on the road is a rough experience, but when it happens at your home, your safety nest, it takes on a whole new dimension. Things could have been worse, so I am thankful that they weren't. I thought about what some of my neighbours said, that I should have waited and then chopped him, yes that would have been good, because thief fi dead! On the other hand, I only saw one, there could have been more, I didn't know if he too had a machete or worse a gun, so things could have escalated to my detriment. Furthermore, they weren't in the situation, so they can say anything, so even though I wished I had ensured he didn't get the opportunity to thief or attempt to thief again, I'm still grateful to be unharmed and have my belonging intact.

Point of entry

I assume the thief gained entry cutting and/or prying and then hitting out a few bars in the grill. I surmise he thought no one was there, as I had just not long before come home from work a little after midnight and went to bed just after. I told my landlady, who promptly agreed to fix the grill and I finally sourced someone to fix the grill by the Sunday afternoon. The grill people did a shabby work for which they overcharged, but desperate times needed desperate action. One thing though, they knew that they will not get any business from me or my landlady ever again. The repair is a temporary fix though, as the landlady will be reinstalling a new grill as the current one was poorly constructed and will be placing additional ones at the kitchen door and the bathroom window. She carried her grill man to measure the place and from my latest conversation with her, she has paid down the money and the material is to be sourced. Even though the complex is gated, the wall to the back of the complex, which also runs just behind my apartment, is extremely low and has no protective barb wires to deter even the simplest of criminals. Some of the strata committee members have vowed to at least put up some razor wires along the wall, but that is yet to be seen.

I still feel uneasy, especially when I'm about to go to sleep. I am eager for the landlady to finish what she has committed to do so I can feel a bit safer while I sleep. I'm not the first to experience this at the complex from what I know, and I certainly won't be the last. With this in mind I am even thinking of looking for a new place to live, as I work shifts and the complex does not have a security personnel and I have no idea of how soon I will see those razor wires going up... if they will. In the mean time, I give God thanks, pray for protection, will be more vigilant and wary as I come in and keep my machete a little closer to me.

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Murder!!!

Monday, October 20, 2008

Our small island, called Jamaica, has what seems to be one of the highest murder rates in the region. The gruesome crimes have become such a common item in the news these days that it doesn't even seem to be shocking anymore. Shock and awe of these terrible murders have been removed from the list of emotions I feel when I watch the news. In fact I have to come to expect to hear at least one person murdered during the each of the daily newscasts. However, such feelings have been replaced by sorrow and empathy for bot the victims and there families, when innocent persons are abducted, raped and murdered.

But no matter how such items are reported on in the news and your emotions get stirred up, it does not hit home until someone you knows suffers this terrible fate. On Saturday both the printed media and the television news told the story of a young female pharmacist who was abducted, raped, murdered and her violated lifeless body burnt. When I watched the news I couldn't help but to feel a mix of emotions bubble through my body, a violent mixture of sorrow and anger. As I read the article in the Jamaica Observer and saw the picture of the young lady the feeling sank in even deeper as her face looked more and more familiar. But it was not until I got a call from one of my friends, who jogged my memory. This was a girl that went to the same University I went to, the same time I went to the university, someone I saw on several occasions with her twin sister on campus, someone who got married to one of my dorm mates. My heart plunged when I though of her ordeal in her last moments and the loss her husband, child and other family members must be feeling. My anger blazed to think someone, some evil being could carry out such a wicked and heartless act.

This was not the first time I have experienced such emotions and in a world like this I'm sure it might not be the last. One of my friends from the University I used to attend suffered such a fate, it hurt even more as this was someone who I was close to while I was on dorm. A girl who had a crush on me and someone who was fun to be around. She was abducted too, some time after I entered the working world, no doubt raped, then murdered and dismembered. I couldn't stop thinking about that gruesome act and having the emotions bubble in my system up to my throat like a well hot soup still in the fire, a fire fueled by grief and anger. I even recall having dreams of her still alive, like flashbacks of us still on the dorm hanging out, even a few weeks after I heard of her demise. But now only memories of the great person she was is left in the minds of those who knew her.

The murder of Terry-Ann, someone who I have personally seen several times and of my friend just only gives a glimpse of the sorrow and emotions of what other closer friends and family members must be feeling. Tragedies like these also just underscores how fragile life is and how fortunate we are to be graced with another day on the face of the earth in such a vile and heartless world. The murders in this country increase with every passing year, but has also shifted focus from killings associated with gang wars and robberies. The elderly, women and children have now become a target of this scourge on our nation. The government and the security forces just seem powerless in the face of these heartless crimes that are being committed in our small island. We can't be too careful these days, even in the comforts of our homes we need to be wary and give thanks for each day we survive unharmed.

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Gangsters and Thugs, Criminals and Hoods

Thursday, February 1, 2007

Dear Korean,

I've been doing some reading for a project and came across a reference to the Korean mafia. Can you give us a little primer on them? What makes them different from other organized crime syndicates? Their history? What types of services they provide? How they are structured? How they are seen by the Korean society? How influential they are in contemporary Korean politics? how, and if, they operate trans-nationally (especially in Southeast Asia)?

HHC


Dear HHC,

First, let the Korean direct you to Curtis Milhaupt's The Dark Side of Private Ordering: An Institutional and Empirical Analysis of Organized Crime. (If you have LexisNexis, the citation is 67 U. Chi. L. Rev. 41.) It is the most excellent article that the Korean has ever read about organized crime.

Milhaupt mainly discusses Yakuza, or the Japanese mafia, and his big idea is this: "The activities of organized criminal firms closely track inefficiencies in formal legal structures, including both inefficient substantive laws and a state-induced shortage of legal professionals and other rights-enforcement agents." In plain English, it means that organized crime syndicates do not randomly choose their illegal enterprises; they in fact choose enterprises that deal with inefficiency in the market created by the law.

(The Korean's favorite part of the article: "Identifying members of Japanese organized criminal firms is not difficult. ... As Joseph Castellano (the son of reputed mob boss Paul Castellano) put it, "What is a Gambino crime family? . . . Does this Gambino crime family have an office? Does the office have a plaque on the door that says, 'Gambino crime family'?" In Japan, the answers would be, in reverse order, "yes," "yes," and "read our rules and creed.")

As a quick example in the U.S., take an illegal gambling/bookmaking operation. There is a market demand for gambling, but the supply is legally prohibited in most states. Therefore, we have an inefficient market in which the demand far outstrips the supply. Organized crime syndicates fill this gap, provide the extra supply and bring the market to an equilibrium.

So there is the answer for your first question. What is the difference between Korean and other country's mafias? Nothing. Cross-national studies of organized crime have shown that all criminal syndicates show remarkable similarities, even down to the terms they use. Cosa Nostra referred to their cut (i.e. protection tax) from merchants as "wetting the beak"; Triad refers to it as "dipping into the fragrant oil."

So, like any other criminal syndicates, Korean mafias operate in areas where there are legally created market inefficiencies. Those areas are generally loan sharking, prostitution, illegal gambling, smuggling (drugs or other contrabands), and so on. They are often seen extorting protection money from street vendors, since street vendors are usually illegal and the police wouldn't do much if the vendors' property were damaged. They are also known to be heavily involved in construction industry, because 1. getting bids for construction often involves bribery on all levels, which is the kinds of services that organized crime provides, i.e. loan sharking and prostitution, and 2. it also involves very large amounts of loans, often secured by using body parts as collateral. Korean mafias certainly have networks outside of Korea, especially in China and Southeast Asia through which most illegal trades (of women and goods) occur.

Korean mafias are sometimes involved in politics. In the 60s, they were often hired by the dictator government in order to break up the opposition party meetings and conventions. Imagine George W. Bush hiring Cosa Nostra, Crips and Bloods to break up Democratic National Convention, beating the crap out of Hilary Clinton and Barack Obama! That's exactly what happened in Korea in the 60s. (Maybe that's what this country needs to jolt people into consciousness -- Americans tend to take their democracy for granted.)

Now that democracy has taken hold in Korea, mafia involvement in politics is more or less limited to working as an independent contractor for government projects that require violence. Such projects are usually forcibly driving people out of their homes and business in order to make way for a new public project. Gangsters were widely used during the 1988 Seoul Olympics to remove street vendors, who were considered unsightly for the foreign visitors. (The Korean has no idea how the preparation for 2008 Beijing Olympics is going on, but he would not be surprised if things were very similar.) Most recently, thugs were seen beating the crap out of people who were living/doing business around CheongGye-Cheon, a covered stream in downtown Seoul that Seoul's mayor decided to restore for aesthetic purposes.

(Incidentally, the Korean felt very torn about the CheongGye-Cheon Project. On one hand, many poor people were driven out forcibly, without any consideration for their livelihood; on the other hand, Seoul desperately needed greenery and people of Seoul simply love the place. Here are two pictures. You be the judge. Top: Street vendors like the man in the photo were concentrated in the old CheongGye-Cheon area. Bottom: The restored CheongGye-Cheon, decorated with lights.)

But truth be told, organized crime in Korea is not very influential compared to Yakuza or Triad. The history of organized crime in Korea is short and there never was any famed empire such as the Gambino crime family. There never was such a huge market inefficiency (e.g. drugs in the U.S.) that made criminal syndicates incredibly wealthy and influential. The guns regulation in Korea is extremely strict, putting a limit onto the physical damage that any group of thugs may inflict. (In fact, not only is possession of guns in Korea illegal, but also possesssion of a knife/sword whose blade is longer than 15 cm, or about 6 inches, is illegal without a permit. It's one of the things that the Korean likes about Korea more than America.) Aside from the areas of operation mentioned above, an average Korean would never deal with anyone from a criminal syndicate for the duration of his or her life.

Of course, pop culture operates on denying reality, so recently there is a deluge of Korean movies dealing with lives of gangsters, beginning with a mega-hit Chin-Gu ("Friends"). The Korean recommended Chin-Gu if you are curious about getting a glimpse of lives of Korean thugs. It's a good movie. Perhaps the biggest influence of Korean organized crime is striking the inspiration of good film makers. But then again, that's the same everywhere, attested by The Godfather and Infernal Affairs.

(An aside: if The Departed wins any Academy Award, the Korean will pour some raging shitstorm upon Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Scorsese can add the most minimal garnish on Infernal Affairs and walk away with the Oscar that Andy Lau deserves? Hollywood is such bullshit.)

Got a question or a comment for the Korean? Email away at askakorean@hotmail.com.

-ADDENDUM: 02/05/2007 10: 30 p.m.- According to today's news, organized crime of Korea has deeply infiltrated into the entertainment industry. Popular actor Kwon Sang-Woo has filed charges against Kim Tae-Chon, a well-known criminal syndicate boss, for extorting Kwon to hold a tour in Japan. In addition, apprently Kwon's manager formerly belonged to an organized criminal syndicate, and also extorted Kwon to gain exclusive management rights for two years. Of course, organized crime in the entertainment industry is nothing new, and again same across all countries.

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